
Like peanut butter and chocolate, or bacon and just about anything, avant garde music mixes quite nicely with the infrastructure of transportation. Not knowing much about music theory, we can't really explain why this is. But the reasons hardly matter.
What matters is that when you combine machine-powered motion with atonal music, the synthesis can be very satisfying. Here are two videos that demonstrate the point.
The first is a looped video produced by Telstar Logistics that combines some footage we filmed while gazing out the window of a "Shinkansen" bullet train speeding through the Japanese landscape somewhere between Tokyo and Kyoto. At the time when we recorded the video, we happened to be listening to a magnificent piece of avant garde music on our iPod: "Another Root," by Midori Hirano:
Midori Hirano (b.1979 in Kyoto) began piano lessons at the age of five and later continued her musical studies in college. After graduation, Midori moved to Tokyo and began to compose music in her own way by blending computer textures with traditional music theory. This turned out to be a natural step leading to her current activities in electronic music.
Hirano's music is haunting and atmoshpheric, and highly recommended. But as you can see, when you listen to it while the Japanese countryside passes by in a 200+ mph blur, the effect is positively sublime:
Meanwhile, we recently stumbled upon a very satisfying video of avant garde cellist Zoë Keating performing a movable concert aboard a converted school bus in San Francisco. Zoë describes herself as:
"Classically trained from the age of eight, Zoë developed her signature style improvising for late night crowds in her San Francisco warehouse space. [...] Comfortably inhabiting her own territory somewhere between classical minimalism, experiemental electronica and steampunk, Keating's works have been called luminous, haunting and "the perfect music for apocalyptic landscapes."
This video of her perfomance on a bus comes to us courtesy of seany, and it may be experienced here:
Note also: Zoe Keating will carry carry the transportation theme still further on August 29, when she will perform at the pre-security area of the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport between 11 am and 2 pm, as part of airport's You Are Hear at SFO concert series.
We're confident the combination will taste wonderful.
LINKS:
Midori Hirano (artist's website)
Midori Hirano at Archive.org (open-source audio posted by Midori Hirano)
Zoe Keating (Artist's website)
(IMAGE: Top, Midori Hirano on the iPod. Photo by Telstar Logistics)






















