Techno-Pop Archives | Otaku No Culture

To see Yamato’s latest videos, please visit the official YouTube channel.

Meet Yamato, an impossibly highly skilled DJ and producer from Japan who has redefined the boundaries of CDJ mixing. Over the course of his career, Yamato has been blessed by the late DJ Avicii, and, more recently, contributed tracks for Konami’s ‘beatmania’ games. Yamato’s latest track, ‘Blaze’, has been featured in a campaign to attract visitors to the city of Nagoya.

Just two years after his DJ debut, this DJ took first place in the ‘burn WORLD DJ CONTEST 2013 JAPAN’ competition, which was sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. Soon after, during the ‘burn STUDIOS RESIDENCY’ global contest held in Ibiza, Spain, he was selected by superstar DJ Avicii to co-star at the ‘burn YARD in Budapest’ festival in Hungary, becoming the first Japanese artist to perform with Avicii. Since then, Yamato has been a fixture at clubs and large festivals in Japan and around the world.

Continue reading “From Beatmania to Beyond, Yamato, This Star Blazer is Making Waves”

Vancouver – Vancity – July 28
Toronto – TIFF Bell LightBox – August 3
Calgary – Globe Cinema – August 10
Montreal – CinemaModerne – August 18

“Please fans with its drifting, lyrical, and
thoughtful tenor, echoing so much of this artist’s music.”
– Dennis Harvey, Variety

“The film serves as a stirringly poetic meditation
on the pursuit of creation in the face of mortality.”
– Michael Rechtshaffen, LA Times

The official selection of La Biennale di Venezia 2017 and Tribeca Film Festival 2018 – Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA directed by Stephen Nomura Schible, will play its way into theatres across Canada beginning July 27.

One of the most important artists of our era, Ryuichi Sakamoto has had a prolific career spanning over four decades, from techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning film composer. The evolution of his music has coincided with his life journeys. Following Fukushima, Sakamoto became an iconic figure in Japan’s social movement against nuclear power. As Sakamoto returns to music following cancer, his haunting awareness of life crisis leads to a resounding new masterpiece. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda is an intimate portrait of both the artist and the man.

Director Schible is an American Japanese film-maker who grew up in a bilingual and international household in Tokyo. Actively involved in Japanese culture and media, he found Sakamoto’s life-long struggle as an anti-nuclear activist to be awe-inspiring. In a country with tight control on political media, mainstream outlets were reluctant to address Sakamoto’s stance on nuclear weapons. Schible knew there was a story to be told. Not a political film but rather one that explores how Sakamoto’s awareness of crises had developed and how it has brought change to his musical expression.

Using sound as a building block, the director hopes audiences can feel the story through their ears as well as their eyes.

This mesmerizing film starts its theatrical run across Canada, beginning July 27.