"The Ultimate Sensuous Synchronized Show"
Cornelius at the The Metro, January 23, 2008
Recently, Cornelius and his backing band took the stage in Chicago to support their new album GUM on his five-city tour "The Sensuous Synchronized Show." Colored lazers were projected on a white sheet as the band warmed up with a short, ambient jam before dropping the curtain to reveal the band and their gear in front of four banks of synchronized LED's and a large video projection screen.
Cornelius at the El Rey Theater
Though I was tangentially aware of Cornelius back in the late 90's (when he put out Fantasm and was constantly mentioned in articles on Tokyo's Shibuya-kei scene along with Cibo Matto and Pizzicato Five) I assumed he drifted off into obscurity along with the rest of Matador Records' stable of Japanese avant-pop bands.
The band shifted gears from tight bubble gum pop to metal rave-ups on a dime. There were multiple theremin solos (including one with a an audience member), egregious use of wind chimes and slew of guitar solos (remember those?), as the band bounced between musical styles. The musical re-appropriation and genre-hopping never felt contrived or overly ironic, even when Cornelius ripped some two-handed tapping riffs that sounded like Van Halen's 'Eruption' played at half speed.
As promised by the name of the tour, the videos and lights were synched perfectly to the music, and the band was even dressed in matching outfits. There were no backing tracks; Cornelius kept half an eye on the screen to make sure the band was hitting their cues.
I had one important question through out the show: what the hell was the production budget for this tour? Some of the videos were crudely edited mash-ups of Warner Brothers cartoons and ultimate fighting matches that looked like they came from 10 year dubs found in someone's basement to an insanely intricate stop motion animation piece, some really great CGI and beautifully filmed shots of water droplets and pouring paint. And it was all synched to well with the music to not have been produced specifically for the show.
It's refreshing to see musicians go the extra mile in a live setting. While there's a certain beauty in four guys getting up on stage to tear through a live set, it can get tedious real fast if the music is no good. Despite my not having heard anything from Cornelius in the last ten years, I was engaged through the entire show, right up to the Metroid-like revelation that the drummer was a woman, after the band emerged from the video screen.
Coinciding with the tour dates is the January 15th 2008 release of a limited edition 12" vinyl EP entitled Gum, featuring The Books' remix as well as a contribution from Prefuse 73 and a new a cappella recording of the song "Music," by Petra Haden.
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