Culture
Watch 100 Pimped-Out Cars Play Trippy Japanese Music On A Rooftop
Ryoji Ikeda’s unexpected performance is a truly tricked-out masterpiece.
Picture a massive, custom-fitted sound system. Now think of a huge number of SUVs, retro-looking lowriders and street racers. It’s not exactly an image that lends itself to thoughts about contemporary avant-garde electronic music from Japan, does it? In fact, of all the musical genres you probably expected to explode out of those slick Corvette and Chevy Impala sound systems, highly conceptual Japanese minimalism was probably the last on your list.
Then again, Ryoji Ikeda doesn’t exactly make art that panders to expectations. In a new work, A (For 100 Cars), the Japanese conceptual artist collected 100 of Los Angeles’ most tricked-out automobiles fitted with the biggest sound systems and had them play variations on the note “A” through a self-designed cassette-sized synthesizer fitted into each car. During the performance, the 100-piece “orchestra” emanated an unbelievable range of resonant tones, ranging from concrete-rattling bass and high-pitched, crystalline highs. Each car played a slight variation of “A”‘s pitch leading to highly complex oscillation patterns and trippy slippages in time.
In short, this is probably the weirdest—and certainly the most conceptual—music you’re likely to hear blaring out of a street racer near you any time soon. Check it out in the video below, and scroll down further to see another of Ikeda’s acclaimed works. You can read more about A (For 100 Cars) here.
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Read more: These huge Japanese DIY disco trucks are completely insane
Image via Christina House / Los Angeles Times
