Getting lost in Katsura Moshino’s videos for the Orb and Nobukazu Takemura

This morning’s post is devoted to the Japanese graffiti artist turned occasional music video animator Katsura Moshino. Though hardly a household name, and despite the minimal output available online, the artist created at least three epic videos that deserve your undivided attention, to say nothing of this static illustrations.

The first is Moshino’s 10-minute video for electronic producer Nobukazu Takemura’s 1999 track “Sign.” A surrealist story about humans, robots, power, and control, Moshino builds a self-contained realm that mixes moments of beauty with moments of violence, the combination of which juxtaposes the artist’s quirky aesthetic with themes and visions that are anything but.

Eight years later, the Orb commissioned the artist to make a clip for “Vuja-De.” The result is a surreal excursion into an alternative anime realm starring a three-headed gold devil, birds, a four-wheeled pig-like machine, a turtle-shaped township, alien invaders, a graffiti artist, a mutant band, a boombox, dancers, a talk-show appearance and hand-grenades that when exploded make pig-clouds.

DJ YAS’ track “Submaline” from 1999 shows Moshino in action, live-painting while DJ YAS works with beats and turntables. Though hardly as ambitious as Moshino’s work with the Orb and Takemura, it perfectly captures the late-’90s downtempo beats-and-breaks aesthetic.

Here’s Moshino’s cover art for for Japanese DJ Southpaw Chop:

For more of Moshino’s work, check his site.