Straight away, I must admit that this entry is not Fishmans centric. I figured I needed a break from my favorite band and wanted to hunt for something new. I half started this blog with the intentions of "teaching" "you" "everything" that I "know" about Japanese music. Please imagine me speaking that last sentence while using annoying finger quotes for each of the stressed words. It makes me look "cool". Further to that, I wanted a reason to continue expanding my own musical vocabulary. In my search to expand the scope of my Asian music knowledge I did a YouTube search for 'Korean Techno' (still waiting on those "block rockin' beats", Beck) and the first few results were good examples of some pretty bad Korean divas belting out the typical Asian fodder. Nothing wrong with that, but not too much GOOD about it either.
It was that next entry that really caught my attention. The description was as follows, "North-Korean boys and girls dance by the techno music." Well, I was looking for the techno. Not expecting to see much blog worthy, but being a huge fan of the strangeness that is North Korea, I clicked. And, judging by the landmarks in the distance, there are indeed a small group of malnourished boys and girls from North Korea doing a rather robotisized gymnastic routine to the techno music. Any video footage I have ever seen from the isolated country has always had a strange in not downright creepy nationalist vibe to it and this video is no exception.
The thing that caught my eyes and ears while watching this video was how much like a Denki Groove track it was. Upon further inspection, there was a link included on the YouTube page to a Japanese artist collective website called ArtPublicity. The site features videos and live performances by various VJs and DJs. This particular video is brought to you by a DJ on the Inage label who goes by the cryptic name KSD6700. Previously on my blog, I featured the amazing Pierre Taki of Denki Groove fame. Today's clip seems to occupy roughly the same headspace as Taki's own series of gymnastic videos. Taki is well known in Japan for making videos for music performances and I might even go so far as to suggest he may have had some direct influence with the video work. KSD6700 has a number of mp3s available for free on his Muzie site so please check them out. The music is not by KSD6700 but from the German duo, Oliver Bondzio and Ramon Zenker of Hardfloor. The track is called 'Fried Laces'.So I guess my quest to include a Korean entry in my blog still goes unresolved. I have something small and silly in the works so in the meantime please enjoy some children dancing for Glorious Leader.
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