video #02: Nobukazu Takemura - Sign

A few warnings in advance:

1. This isn't a snack-sized, 3-minute video. It's almost 10 minutes long!

2. Nothing but mild animated violence for the first 8 minutes, after which there's some fairly NSFW material that you wouldn't want your supervisor at work to catch you watching. It's nothing compared to "Metal Fingers In My Body" or anything, but comes as a surprise in this otherwise kid-friendly eco-fable. Okay, maybe it's not quite kid-friendly but the blood and gore is less graphic than anything on, say, South Park.

3. It's Nobukazu Takemura going pop, which isn't quite as annoying as some of his folk-styled children's songs on Songbook, but it lacks the warm glow of his best drone pieces, like "Kepler," "Icefall," or the rest of the Sign EP.

I guess he has a new album out, but I've read nothing about it and have no idea who Zu are. It's on Atavistic, not Thrill Jockey, so I can only imagine what it could sound like. Maybe he's been wanting to collaborate with others more, but I prefer it when he plays alone. Too many hands in the pot makes his ideas less interesting.