Hatsune Kaidan @ Tusk Festival 2014 HD

Looking to Japan from the UK, its not hard to find as many stark contracts as there are parallels in the love and creation of popular music. Here, the ubiquitous factory-produced plastic front people dominating the charts at least try to pretend that they’re not puppets, whereas in Japan their manipulation and downright disposability seems to be part of the appeal – commercially huge conceptual pop bands routinely have culls, all members disposed of and replaced, the outfit repeatedly regenerating like Dr Who. Here it’s a slightly awkward line-up change (Sugababes..), in Japan its all part of the ride – “ooh, my favourite band is new again!” You also wouldn’t expect, say, Skullflower to form an ongoing collaboration with The Saturdays, yet the idea of Hijokaidan’s many live shows with BiS (Brand-new Idol Society) is warmly embraced (look out for some bizarre footage in the film programme, including Toshiji Mikawa shaking a tailfeather). And yet more contrasts. Hatsune Miku is a virtual character with a synthesized voice that has become a gigantic phenomenon in Japan, so of course Jojo and Hijokaidan have created a project that brings their noise to the ultra-plastic pop world. With Le Chat performing as the human embodiment of the virtual voice, syrupy covers of well-known tunes confusingly charm their way into your consciousness, the cake heavily iced with the grinding accompaniment of Jojo, Mikawa et al. It really shouldn’t work but its irresistibly compulsive, both musically and as a culturally alien concept – noise is universal but this seems ultra-Japanese to our eyes, a window into a culture so different to ours, it’ll be interesting to see how the audience reacts.