As I’m wont to do, I rubberneck, scoping the audience and noticing the sheer diversity of age in attendance. Perfume, the mega-superstar group originating from Hiroshima, appears to have no target audience, and it’s refreshing. Since first coming together at the turn of the millennium, they have released multiple records going platinum, performed on countless stages worldwide—including Coachella Music and Arts Festival this past year (the first J-pop outfit to ever do so), and, most importantly, created an indelible aesthetic and sonic template for Japanese pop stars/groups in the 21st century. Perfume’s effervescent vocals and brand of bubblegum techno-pop dance music, produced by Yasutaka Nakata (one half of revered Shibuya-kei band, Capsule), has influenced the likes of Aira Mitsuki, Saori@destiny, and Vanilla Beans, popularizing the kind of bold and maximalist sounds for which J-pop has become known. Teens to middle-aged folks are on bated breath in their seats. If you enjoy exquisitely-choreographed stage maneuvers, near-symphonic level amplification, and abstractly-rendered LEDs, then it doesn’t matter with which age strata you identify; Perfume is yours.

I’m immediately aware of the hushed atmosphere inside the renovated Cube. Unlike the preceding moments to a concert in the States, where fans may already be on their fourth lager and cheering away, there’s an undeniably reverent, if not hallowed, mise en scene. The few thousand attendees surrounding me have been alerted by the Line Cube’s PA system to not snap any photos in order to avoid revealing the show’s delicate balance of technology, fashion and music, which, all together, can’t be justified from a 6” x 3” screen.

We are here for Reframe, a bespoke 8-show-run in tandem with the aforementioned venue’s new groove, and a harbinger for a more experimental and introspective direction in Perfume’s nearly two-decades-spanning résumé. An updated version of Reframe 2018, the series this year has been put together by “reframing” Perfume’s past data, considering the musical and stylistic evolutions they’ve encountered (from “Polyrhythm” florid house-inflected rhythms on 2008’s Game to the thick rolling analog synths of “Fusion” from 2018’s Future Pop), and foreseeing what the future bodes. Indeed, 2019 has been a proliferant year. In September, the trio (consisting of Ayano Omoto a.k.a. Nocchi, Yuka Kashino a.k.a. Kashiyuka, and Ayaka Nishiwaki a.k.a. a-chan) released Perfume The Best: P Cubed from Universal Music, before that, in April, they graced the Gobi Stage at Empire Polo Field for Coachella, and in November they launched Perfume Closet, a clothing and product line that intimately meshes the women’s cosmopolitan sensibility with grace.

As soon as the house lights extinguish, I’m in for a wild, wild ride. There are scenes upon vignettes upon acts upon numbers. While brief periods of recalibration pepper in between, the audience never applauses—they’re aware that this is one continuous performance, and you better save the showers of praise until you’ve seen the whole thing. And you want to see the whole thing. Reframe is spectacle: a concerted effort between human and machine, a work of stage production expertise, sound design acumen, and spotless creative direction. Nocchi, Kashiyuka, and a-chan find themselves adorned in a smattering of wardrobes, sometimes a purple and pink gossamer, other times in a harlequined half pants-half skirt outfit. They strut, jump, and sway in unison, or in mirror versions, often times right on stage with photogrammetry and 3D/VR depictions emanating from the large modular screens, or in Hollywood Squares-like compartments which shift color and create audiovisuals when a particular member sings. Naturally, the booming sub-frequencies and sparkling treble shine in the former Kokaido, a sweet spot where the levels are strong but not drum-shattering.