I think I’m tripping Japanese

In 1988, four motley bohemians set up a menagerie of makeshift percussive instruments – a saxophone, recorder, violin and ocarina – in a heavily populated train station in Tokyo, and proceeded to wail to an off-put throng passing by. The ensuing music was both cacophonous and beautiful, noisy and slight – and manages, one way or another, to be thoroughly unignorable.

Five years later, the same ragtag group claims to be a medieval music club in order to gain permission to perform in Japan’s oldest wooden Jesuit church. The result is a delicate, nuanced acoustic performance that matches the previous show’s intricate immateriality.

Since releasing their amazing album Hypnotic Underworld in 2004, three of the original four (plus three new members) have toured sold-out venues around the world, demonstrating again their mystic radiance and showing, unflinchingly, that they haven’t changed in over 20 years. The difference? Those petulant businessmen and ambivalent shoppers from the train station are replaced by eager head-bobbers and psychedelic warriors, all hoping to join Ghost’s spiritual voyage.

This year, Drag City has released a long overdue collection of previously unavailable video footage, chronicling Ghost’s 20 years of sublime live performances. “Ghost: Metamorphosis” is not likely to convert the uninitiated into devout followers, but for fans it is absolutely essential. Beginning with a shaky record of the aforementioned train station performance (included as an extra on the DVD), “Metamorphosis” follows the band through many of its now famous temple performances in the late ’80s and ’90s, small venue shows in Tokyo and tours in England and the U.S. The whole package is a consistent assemblage of each major period in Ghost’s sublime career, with each album getting equal live treatment and every member who has ever participated in Ghost’s revolving cast getting immortalized in grainy Super 8 and VHS footage.

At many points (especially in the early performances), Masaki Batoh and company are almost indiscernible amidst the blackness of the stage and video limitations – only occasionally do you catch a fleeting glimpse of a swinging microphone, a backlit pennywhistle or Batoh’s gangly, robed frame. Yet this only adds to the experience of these performances. It is the music itself that matters here (miraculously, even in those early shows the sound is retained exquisitely), and the shadowy phantasmagoria of the stage seems to weave the sounds from some archaic device incorporating instrument, nature and air itself. Truly, the magic of the performances translates brilliantly – this is probably one of the finest music DVDs I’ve ever seen.