DJ Krush - Toshinori Kondo
Ki-Oku

LA RECENSIONE

Dense gray clouds hide the city from the birds.

Beneath them, dozens of meters above the ground, the trees on the terraces quench their thirst with a fine acid rain, an avoidable sign of progress, an inevitable consequence of industrial combustion. The skyscrapers, gray and damp, continue from the thirtieth to the first floor in an alternation of colors dictated by flashing billboards: red Coca Cola, green TDK, pink H&M... A flashing sea blue reminds those walking many meters below, umbrellas in hand, that a new film featuring an improbable tender-hearted vampire is coming; then another red, but this time Mac Donald. And again, intermittent yellows and pulsating oranges. And so on, until the building reaches the sidewalk. Also gray and wet.

Millions of feet trample it, lifting into a small vaporous cloud the water that has fallen on it in recent days. Water, umbrellas, sterile neon, and in the streets, the infernal chaos created by the rain: long lines of desperate drivers venting their frustration against the horn on the steering wheel. Angry fists trying to crack through work disappointments. Stuck behind a bus with fogged-up windows is the taxi.

"Do you mind if I turn on the radio?" the taxi driver asks.

"Not at all."

The cabin fills with the mellow bass of DJ Krush. The back seat becomes a recliner on which to abandon oneself, the rain-streaked window the screen of a vintage cinema. Outside, everything seems further away and muffled. The jazz trumpet of Toshinori Kondo drags itself, intoxicated and slow, to timidly peek through the folds of the canvas that Krush weaves with trip hop and dub.

The bus moves, and the taxi follows it. Krush and Toshinori create a conversation as unique as it is incredibly clear, one speaks using turntables and samplers, the other lets his voice be a vibrating brass reed. A conversation as dark as it is sweet, dragging itself along the wet streets of the city, coloring it with pale sepia tones.

When the two then dedicate themselves to the dark revisitation of Bob Marley's "Sun is shining", it is clear that theirs is an anthem to all that can shine even in the absence of light.

Like a city in the rain.