Blog - Weekly revue: 2014 week #24 (June 7 to 13)

Weekly revue: 2014 week #24 (June 7 to 13)

Cats: Went to cat café "Temari no ouchi" in Kichijoji! It was my first time at a cat café so I can't compare with other cat cafés, but the interior was rather large and had a kind of nature theme with much attention to detail, and there were about a dozen cats. Most cats were rather playful and friendly, each having their own attitude and traits. That was fun! I put up many more photos on Flickr.

Food: - Indian vegetarian restaurant Veg Kitchen, Okachimachi. I could even order Gobi 65 that wasn't on the menu. :)
- Mille-feuilles at A.K Labo, Kichijōji
- Wine bar Fujimaru in Asakusabashi

Exhibitions: - Went to see "Balthus: A Retrospective", a large exhibition held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. It's the largest exhibition ever about French painter Balthus (1908-2001, Wikipedia), also featuring a reconstruction of his Rossinière atelier with many objects borrowed from it. It also teaches a lot about his ties with Japan, him having been married with a Japanese who cooperated for this exhibition. This ends on June 22.

- Dropped by friend painter Picaro Taro (aka Manabe Taro)'s exhibition at Bunkamura in Shibuya. While his recent exhibitions focused on dogs, this time it's all cats! Titled "Cats' Love", it's on until Sunday June 15.

Music events: - On June 8 was Dorian's release party for album "midori", actually released last November. Dorian had a big change of styles with this album, moving away from the 80's-inspired topical disco that had been his trademark, and instead going for sampling. His shows used to always feature a Roland MC-909, which he had been a real maestro at playing, and at this show I could verify that it's been replaced by an Ableton Push (which also seems to be a wonderful machine, so this isn't a bad thing). His show still had a lot of live keyboards which was great. Also he featured special guests Kashif (guitar), MC.sirafu (steel drum) and Videotapemusic (pianica & VJ). Dorian is one of my favorite electronic artists of the last few years and I highly recommend him!

DJ's at this event included Sunahara Yoshinori and Yakenohara, and the other bands were Pepe California and utsukusiki hikari (a project of MC.sirafu with a pianist).

- And on June 13 was a welcome party for Sylvain aka Gangpol (of French unit Gangpol & Mit), who was passing by Tokyo after a trip to Okinawa. Like last time in February last year, this was held at RRR in Ryōgoku. I could watch was some DJing by Sylvain and Kishino You-ichi. There was also a fun show of Nukeme Band, that involved a slime-controlled instrument, and Ningen Dog's light-activated dog toys. There were also "Taiwan game machines" built by Kishino-san and friends, recreating a game they played in Taiwan.

There I also bought Scarlatti Goes Electro's new album being released on Kishino-san's Out One Disc label. It includes remixes by Gangpol & Mit and Matsumae Kimitaka, and the whole was mixed by Yoshida Tetsuto.