Cornelius, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Extra sensory overload

Japan's Keigo Oyamada – guitarist, production wizard, Planet of the Apes fan and the man behind Cornelius – doesn't speak much English. In fact, he hardly speaks any at all. And bar an Elvis-style "Thank you very much" or two, he doesn't really bother trying. But Oyamada doesn't need banter to engage an audience. He's got better tricks up his sleeve.

Cornelius's music is not background music. It must be listened to properly or not at all. If you're not paying attention, the scuzzy bleeps, screeches and lo-fi syncopated sounds are enough to drive you into the insipid, balladeering arms of, say, Westlife. But when carefully absorbed, it becomes clear that both 1998's Fantasma and this year's Point are bursting with an eclectic mix of sweet, woven Brian Wilson-style harmonies, explosive metal riffs, bass-slapping funk, and soothing samples.

The songs are sonic assaults that are both beautiful and brash. And either way, they demand a listener's undivided attention. They need to be followed and felt, their layers uncovered and savoured. For this reason, Oyamada has set his songs to frenetic barrages of light and hypnotising, beat-perfect, choreographed films.

Whether it's the flickering, fluorescent neon bulbs and sharp, white strobes or a montage of 20th-century football clips, time lapse-filmed cityscapes or looped Elvis-flirts-with-Hawaiian-hula-girl footage, these visual effects whip you up like Dorothy's tornado and deposit you squarely in the warped world of Cornelius. A place where gravity-defying water trickles sideways and dances to the gurgling rhythms of "Drop", laboratory equipment performs a Thirties-inspired Radio City Music Hall showgirl number to the hard basslines and squealing keyboards of "Another View Point" and an anonymous hand's microcosm is exposed as its fingers walk over teddy bears and paddle in whisky tumblers to the relaxed graceful melodies of "Tone Twilight Zone".

Tear your eyes away from the giant projections and you'll find Oyamada (and the other three members of his live band) dressed in slick Reservoir Dogs-style – white shirt and black skinny tie – indulging in passion-filled guitar-solo histrionics. Like a Labrador puppy, his enthusiasm is infectious and undeterred by the language barrier as he plucks a punter from the crowd to help him play "Love me Tender" on the theremin. This visual/aural cocktail is so intense that by the end of the set, sensory overload feels imminent.

After three encores, Oyamada slurs his final "Thank you very much", but only when the lights go up does it become clear to the lingering Japanese-heavy audience that Cornelius has left the building.