TOE | DOKU-EN-KAI

When I walked into le Poisson Rouge on August 28th of 2019, I had no idea this concert (one of only two the band was performing in the US that year) was being filmed. When Toe had exhausted themselves and the audience, I exited the venue as the feature’s editor. It was a serendipitous set of uncertainties that blossomed into something beautiful, a fitting description for both these events and the band’s music, which carries with it the sensation of catching lightning in a bottle, no matter how often you’ve heard it.

As such, director Josh Coll and I spoke frequently while editing about the necessity of the film’s purpose being an opportunity to honor Toe’s performance. Letting their work guide ours to create an emotional resonance, no embellishments required. With that firmly in mind, I edited the evening to impart the experience of being there; the communal connection of strangers rising and falling to a foreign rhythm, visceral and urgent and sweaty and sore, happy to be present and part of the whole.

DIRECTOR: Josh Coll
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Eric Teti
EDITOR: Stephen Mlinarcik
CAMERA: Joe Brady, Austin LoCicero, Ben Scofield, Lyle Zanca, Keisaku Nakamura
COLOR: Mikey Rossiter / The Mill
AUDIO: Jay Eigenmann
PRODUCER: Hannah Tom, Kevin Duquette

PRESS
THE ALTERNATIVE / NEW NOISE / PUNKNEWS

PURCHASE + STREAM
TOPSHELF RECORDS / YOUTUBE