Sen Morimoto grinned playfully over his guitar. The artist had spent the last hour entertaining fans at Thalia Hall, but nobody looked eager to leave any time soon. “Time is flying as fuck!” Morimoto joked. Throughout the performance, the singer and his band never stopped smiling. Morimoto, a 29-year-old artist based in Chicago, enraptured the crowd with the magnetic dissonance characteristic of his music. A crowd of avant-gardes from every generation swayed along to soft rap and saxophone solos as the singer ran through his new album, Diagnosis.
The show began with a performance by Neptune’s Core, two sets of siblings whose music perfectly encapsulates teenage angst. Hordes of high schoolers crowded around the stage, whooping for their friends performing. Neptune’s Core showcased a whirlwind of emotions: from feeling unworthy of love to wondering when life will improve, with impressive, if nascent, voices.
The group was followed by Angélica Garcia, a singer-songwriter whose multidimensional style invited listeners in to watch her make magic. Garcia builds layers of beatboxing and harmonies to create dissonance in her self-described style of “singing a poem between textures,” dancing in the breaks between each addition of musical elements. An approach that can only truly be understood live, her plea of mira—look—during “El Que” was eagerly answered by a crowd that couldn’t help but marvel.
The crowd seemed to have stumbled out of the vintage store next door before hitting Thalia Hall. The number of piercings and Doc Martens boots was rivaled only by the count of hands holding Modelo beers. Teenagers slumped on a stoop against the venue’s left wall, giggling and passing around tubes of face glitter. When the lights dimmed to signal Miromoto’s performance, the intergenerational cacophony of noise immediately quelled.
But, the stage remained empty. Time seemed to freeze as Morimoto read off of a projected image of a CD covered with printed text. Morimoto’s soft voice pulsed with passion. “I hope this album, lyrically and sonically, makes the case for the value of weaponizing our internal dissonance toward more revolutionary paths for the self and society. I hope it […] holds your hand and screams with you.” The crowd waited with bated breath; then, Morimoto and his band entered to perform “If the Answer Isn’t Love.”
Thalia Hall’s opulent façade was flooded in pastel-hued lights throughout Morimoto’s performance. After “If the Answer Isn’t Love,” the artist replaced the CD projection with a ceaseless loop of distorted neon animations, their TV static quality recalling the constant deluge of overstimulating content we navigate in the rest of our lives. In this environment, Morimoto and his band shone: a simple theme of black, lace, and flannel across their outfits distinguished them as a calm constant amidst the noise. “Bad State” and “St. Peter Blind” followed the opening song, forming a trilogy that demands a purpose for life and later defines it as loving and being loved.
The intensity swelled with each song, the audience’s energy rising to match, until the band played the album’s title track, “Diagnosis.” Recorded audio interrupted harsh chords as Morimoto rapped, “It’s the Catch-22/ You live a long life doing what you have to do.” The lights and band ran free in this song, each member of Morimoto’s team releasing their frustrations regarding our society. “Diagnosis” is not meant to make listeners comfortable. The grating harmonies and palpable anger about the Catch-22 of a prolonged, unfulfilling life were clear through Morimoto and his band’s performance of the song. Then through the dissonance came a rich, isolated saxophone note. Smooth riffs suggested a reprieve from the friction of society. The audience’s fervor slowed as the crowd relished a moment of calm after a coalescence of melodies.
Morimoto followed the title song with “Surrender” and “Pressure on the Pulse,” two songs that channel the vehemence of “Diagnosis.” Though the triad of songs is rife with discord, these contrasting elements somehow meld perfectly. This flawlessly executed theme of jarring elements carries throughout Morimoto’s music in his lyrics, production, and ambiance. The singer combines appreciation of our world and critique of its inequitable structures in a way that defines the human condition. To Morimoto, love—of others, of nature, of the self—is inherently a rebellious act. The singer asserts through the “Diagnosis” album that the pinnacle of existence in our current social structure is to throw away worries of time’s rapid development in favor of spending our limited hours among those we love. Work and stress, to Morimoto, detract from the core of the human experience.
Morimoto’s performance felt akin to an intimate backyard jam session among close friends. During “Woof,” a clear fan favorite, the crowd howled and bayed as the singer crooned, “I’m crying so loud that my dog is barking at me.” Even in their most visceral, angry moments, Morimoto and his band were technically flawless—and enjoying themselves. Morimoto’s ethos of radical self-love was reflected by Thalia Hall’s attendees, who took the concert as a moment to be free. Rarely was there a phone in sight, a testament to the time-freezing impact of Morimoto’s beginning monologue and captivating performance.
As the show neared its close, Morimoto took his final track “Shouldn’t Live or Remember a Day” as a chance to let loose. Soft lighting transitioned to strobing rainbows and layered production became soulful interludes. The singer joined the backup saxophonist to riff across notes between iterations of the phrase, “Can you still hear me?” Morimoto’s whirlwind performance left audience members marveling at the production quality long after the last chord was played. The singer refuses definition. No one label can describe his work. Discordant elements coalesce in Morimoto’s “Diagnosis” album, rejecting conventions of performance and magnetizing attendees. In a moment characterized by existential crisis and discord, Morimoto’s performance stopped the clock, giving listeners the agency to simply feel while inside Thalia Hall’s doors.
