BAD TRIP SUMMER is an unprecedented Japanese multidisciplinary collective operating at the intersection of contemporary jazz, electronic music, and movement-based performance. Blurring the boundaries between concert, performance art, and immersive experience, the project reimagines what a live jazz performance can become.
Founded by acclaimed drummer Masa Matsushita and keyboardist Rina Kohmoto, the ensemble brings together artists with diverse international backgrounds. Matsushita has collaborated with leading figures including Mark Guiliana, Ben Wendel, and Louis Cole, while Kohmoto has built an extensive international performance career across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Joined by sitarist Kei Tainaka, whose music combines traditional Indian sitar, electronic effects, and ambient field recordings, the group creates an expansive and cinematic sonic landscape.
The performance is further elevated by movement artists BOXER and Hagri Kaneko, whose expressive choreography transforms the stage into a dynamic dialogue between sound and motion. Blending jazz, hip-hop, house, ambient electronics, and contemporary dance, BAD TRIP SUMMER presents a bold artistic vision where improvisation extends beyond music into the language of the body itself.