Cracking the Code: Performing Lost In Translation Live

🎭 Cracking the Code: Performing Lost In Translation Live

On February 8th, 2025, I played my first true live show in over 25 years - a full-scale multimedia performance of The Shadowmaker at MCA Denver’s Holiday Theatre.

I was joined on stage by the incredible Jez Noble on live drums, and Chele Gutek, who controlled live vision mixing in real time. It was an immersive, high-stakes, cinematic show - the culmination of years of work and creative evolution. But if there was one track that kept us up at night in the lead-up to the premiere, it was Lost In Translation.

🎼 The Benchmark Track

Lost In Translation was, without a doubt, one of the most challenging tracks in the entire set to bring to life on stage. It’s episodic, layered, unpredictable - a piece that shifts mood and tempo without ever settling into a formula. In rehearsals, it quickly became our benchmark: we knew that if we could nail this one, the rest would fall into place.

This wasn’t just about triggering clips or layering pads. It was about live cohesion - matching organic and electronic elements in a way that felt seamless, spontaneous, and emotionally true. Every transition had to breathe. Every visual cue had to land. Every moment had to serve the story.

🥁 Moving Parts, Real Time Pressure

Technically speaking, Lost In Translation is full of moving parts. Multiple tempo shifts, evolving vocal passages, intricate drum arrangements, dynamic automation - it’s built more like a scene from a film than a traditional electronic track.

Jez had to constantly respond to cues that weren’t always rhythmic or countable - mood changes, noise sweeps, and unexpected breakdowns. Meanwhile, Chele was mixing visuals live, blending video, shadowplay, and fractured images into a visual language that supported the song’s sense of disorientation and longing.

On my end, it was a delicate balance between control and surrender. Some moments needed exact timing and cue-triggering; others demanded I step back and let the track breathe, trusting the architecture we’d built around it.

🎤 Relearning the Track from the Inside Out

One of the hidden truths of live performance is that you don’t really “perform” a track - you relearn it from the inside out. You take something that might have been sculpted in solitude and suddenly ask it to live in a shared, physical space. That requires not just technical prep but emotional recalibration.

By the time we hit the stage in Denver, Lost In Translation had been broken down and rebuilt so many times it felt like a living organism. The show version wasn’t just a playback - it was a new interpretation that leaned deeper into the narrative and sonic tension of the piece.

And in the end - somehow - it worked.

🌒 The Payoff

We were proud of how it came together. The live version carried all the weight and complexity of the studio track, but with something extra - the tension of risk, the adrenaline of shared presence, and the emotional clarity that only arrives when you’ve earned it.

If Lost In Translation was our benchmark, then Denver was the breakthrough.