Shintaro Sakamoto

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A Tokyo apartment at 2 AM has its own sound, somewhere between a lounge record and a bad dream, and once you have heard it done properly nothing else scratches the itch. Sakamoto broke up his previous band in 2010 while they were at their peak, walked away, and started making something slower and stranger — wobbling guitar, deadpan falsetto, arrangements that sound cheerful until you read what the words are actually saying. American tours are rare enough that people fly in for them. The Los Angeles crowd for this is a specific overlap: city pop collectors, Japanese-language listeners, and the psych-rock people who found him through the old band, all of whom assume the other two groups do not exist. Watch what happens when the room recognizes a song from the first solo album. The Highland Park hall is upstairs in an old lodge with wood floors and a balcony. Music at 8:00 PM. He plays a second night here, and both usually go before the week of the show.