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While there’s no shortage of shows currently boasting world-beating holograms and augmented reality – the wildly successful Abba Voyage and an Elvis hologram set to thrust his pixels in London – Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tin Drum’s Kagami is one of the most intriguing. This is not a sparkling, boozy night out, nor a cash grab by a hungry estate, but something in the middle: intense and dazzling, but equally mournful and pointedly minimal. There’s a good chance you’ve seen little like this before, or will again.
Famed Japanese composer Sakamoto died in March 2023 following a long battle with cancer. Tributes came from Massive Attack, Johnny Marr and Japanese Breakfast, recognising a true original across his pioneering work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and later in motion pictures and the avant-garde scene. Before he passed, he collaborated with digital producers Tin Drum on this mixed reality show, which simultaneously premiered to the public at the Manchester International Festival and in New York this past summer, and is now running at London’s Roundhouse this January.
Kagami – which translates as mirror – was filmed towards the end of Sakamoto’s life. Speaking to The Guardian, Tin Drum’s Todd Eckert said that news that Sakamoto’s cancer had returned came on their first day of filming. Even so, he says “Kagami is not meant to be a historical overview of his career at all,” Eckert says. “It’s supposed to be an energetic snapshot.” Sakamoto has his say in a quote that sits by the entrance to the space: “There is, in reality, a virtual me. This virtual me will not age and will continue to play the piano for years, decades, centuries.”
What gives Kagami its resonance is the interactivity with the technology and its subject. The audience is, at first, arranged in a circle in what the New York Times likened to a séance. Overhead glasses place Sakamoto in the middle, his black piano glistening – you are encouraged to walk around the performer, to observe his hands delicately move and his silver hair flop over his face. The occasional bump into a fellow audience member over the 55-minute runtime is expected and grounding, a reminder of who and what is real.
A tentative visual start builds with each song, even if the music – largely reminiscent of his Playing The Piano lockdown session – remains austere: 1999’s ‘Energy Flow’, a surprise Number One hit in his native Japan he tells us, is a welcome change of pace. His best-known theme tunes for the David Bowie-starring 1983 film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor retain their majesty in solo form, but later compositions ‘Aoneko no Torso’ and ‘Aqua’ may leave you moist of eye, his playing so delicate and emotive. The headsets’ whirring noises will disguise any sniffles.
Beyond the music itself and the technical capabilities, Kagami comes with ethical relief. To know that Sakamoto was engaged with the project at the end of his life and openly pushed its attendees to question the validity of the images in front of them – his resurrection, namely – only strengthens the experience. It’s one that could possibly only work for a master as restless and inventive as himself.
‘Kagami’ by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tin Drum runs at London’s Roundhouse until January 21. Further details
Kacey Musgraves has cast a spell across London’s Roundhouse. Dry ice shrouds the Texan artist and her 8-piece band in a hazy mist, the lighting dramatic – at times it evokes the break of dawn, others a thunderous rainstorm. And at the eye of this hurricane is Musgraves, her luminous vocals shining as brightly as the disco ball that’s illuminated during a rousing rendition of ‘Anime Eyes’. With the audience — who obey requests to be in the moment and not just view the gig through a lens — enraptured, the ethereal magic of the live show threads throughout.
Tonight’s gig is part of the ‘Deeper Well World Tour’, the shows accompanying Musgraves’ sixth studio album released earlier this year. It’s a record that saw her “navigating new beginnings”, as she said about its titular track: “Sometimes you reach a crossroads. Winds change direction. What you once felt drawn to doesn’t hold the same allure. You get blown off course but eventually find your footing and forage for new inspiration, new insight and deeper love somewhere else”. Or, as she more succinctly reflects in its chorus: “And I’ve got to take care of myself/I found a deeper well”.
This live setting, with the lush arrangements delivered by Musgraves’ double-denim clad band, is where the songs shine, the resilience and complex emotions they convey shining through. The power of opener ‘Cardinal’ ricochets through the venue accompanied by fleshed out instrumentals, while the lilting ‘The Architect’’s quietly questioning lyrics resonate in their subtle accompaniment.
Tracks that faded into the background on ‘Deeper Well’ at times work better here, too. ‘Jade Green’ is taken from a subdued slow burn into a thundering storm, Musgraves swathed in lights of the titular colour, strobes evoking lightning and crashes of percussion closing out the song, before the chaos subsides into a musical ‘Rainbow’. ‘Lonely Millionaire’, meanwhile, is elevated in this setting, the slinky track coming with mass sing-a-longs.
Yet for all the mysticism and magic when the music is playing, in-between songs Musgraves charms in a very different way. Her breezy wit juxtaposed with gut-wrenching music reminiscent of fellow on-stage entertainers Adele or Lewis Capaldi. As the band gear up for a quieter point in the set and huddle in closer at the front of the stage, Musgraves delights the audience with her tight-5 about the food poisoning and stomach upset she started the tour with, which soon spread around her touring party like wildfire. How did we get onto this story? An audience heckle that sounded a bit like a Spice Girl prompting Musgraves to reveal “I met Sporty the other day and almost shat myself! Speaking of…”
That’s not to say this humour isn’t also evident in Musgraves music — the excellent couplet “If you save yourself for marriage, you’re a bore/You don’t save yourself for marriage, you’re a hor-rible person” is sung with gusto by the crowd, in a stripped back rendition of ‘Follow Your Arrow’ (a cut from Musgraves’ debut studio record ‘Same Trailer Different Park’). And there’s rousing renditions of the jubilant kiss-off ‘High Horse’, and the eye-roll at an insecure ex on ‘Breadwinner’.
As she closes with a cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Three Little Birds’ and a short snippet of ‘Easier Said’, Musgraves tells the audience: “I hope your well has been deepened”. With the spell-binding communal magic of being in the moment and Musgraves’ powerhouse performance, we don’t doubt they have.
Kacey Musgraves played:
‘Cardinal’
‘Moving Out’
‘Deeper Well’
‘Sway’
‘Too Good to Be True’
‘Butterflies’
‘Happy & Sad’
‘Lonely Weekend’
‘Lonely Millionaire’
‘Follow Your Arrow’
‘The Architect’
‘Nothing to Be Scared Of’
‘Heaven Is’
‘Jade Green’
‘Rainbow’
‘Golden Hour’
‘Anime Eyes’
‘Don’t Do Me Good’
‘Justified’
‘Breadwinner’
‘High Horse’
‘Slow Burn’
‘Three Little Birds’ (Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
‘Easier Said’
