interviewed conducted of email by corey lyons, june 2005
How long have you been making electronic music?
When I first used synthesizers was when I was 16 years old, so it is about 13 years ago. Actually, those synthesizers were not mine. One of my friends had quite [a lot of] electronic music equipment in his room and I had been visiting his place almost everyday after school and started making sounds and songs with that equipment.
At that time, computer was useless for sound processing and recording and most of the equipment was too expensive to buy for high school students like me. After I graduated high school I went to University and also was working after school to buy some equipment for making music. At this time, before I started computer music, I was in a band and playing guitars and singing and also playing drums too. Finally I could buy a Mac when I was about 22, then I started making this kind of music. So... it's about 7 years...
What made you want to start creating your own music?
I thought I wanted to make my favorite songs just for myself to enjoy.
Who or what are your musical influences?
So many... Radiq aka Yoshihiro Hanno, Steve Reich, D'ANGELO, Donny Hathaway, J.S.Bach, Oren Ambarchi and more... and also I get a lot of influences from F1, cutting edge science technologies and every kind of art.
What equipment do you use to make music? Do you have a favorite piece of gear?
I use anything if it can make my favorite sound. I use computers mainly and also some musical hardware such as "nord modular" and also "KORG Z1". Those two synthesizers are my favorite.
Is your live set-up different that your studio?
Almost the same but it depends on the situation. I flexibly change my LIVE set all the time for each situations. But Usually I don"t bring my synthesizers to my performance.
How often do you create new music?
almost everyday, step by step. I'm working on several songs at the same time.
Do you have a normal process you follow or is each song made differently?
I think I"ve been developing my own process step by step since I started, and tried so many ways to make sounds and now I think I found some my own ways. But I'm always still looking for new ways.
What are you currently doing with your music? Do you have any big plans for the future?
I've just finished an album with a Japanese female vocalist Tujiko Noriko and it'll be released on fatcat in the end of this summer. and now I'm making my 6th album which will be released on a new Japanese label called "op.disc" (http://opdisc.com/) in the beginning of 2006.
How do you perform live?
Recently I use two PowerBooks at the same time, and I use Max/msp, Logic Pro and also SuperCollider sometimes on those two computers. And also I use MIDI controller and Mackie mixer and two audio interfaces.
Do you enjoy playing live?
yes I do. Especially when the venue have really good sound systems, I do very much.
You have a "No Smoking" sign on your website, and I"ve heard one of your live performances where you opened your set with a sample that said "Please do not smoke during live performance" Why are you so anti-smoking?
I just hate the smell and second hand smoke.
Can you talk about your SILICOM project and your work with Takagi Masakazu?
I enjoyed it very much working with him. Actually he's been one of my friends since when we were in the same university in Kyoto. I learned a lot of things from this project and also we shared [a lot of] ideas and new ways. It was really important experience for me.
What are your feelings on the interplay between music and video/visual art?
I think movies are the final form for music and visual art. Playing together with sound and visuals sometimes works quite effective in the situation such as LIVE [performances] at a place where [they] have high specification video projector with high quality sound systems, but sometimes visuals tend to be stronger than sound. Maybe we can solve this problem if both sound and video artists have enough time to work together and also we need a lot of help from engineers at the venue too. I'm still really interested in working together with visuals. I think a visual artist Ryoichi Kurokawa is one of the best artist in Japan.
What other Japanese electronic musicians do you like?
Yoshihiro Hanno, Taeji Sawai.
What other musicians are you listening to?
not so many. As I wrote above, Radiq aka Yoshihiro Hanno, Steve Reich, D'ANGELO, Donny Hathaway, J.S.Bach, Oren Ambarchi and so on...
What else besides music interests you?
Formula 1 and watching movies.
Do you have any side projects?
no.
Why did you move to Paris and how has it effected your music?
I thought it was quite difficult to get a better situation for my musical career if I kept staying in Japan, that's why I moved to Paris. There's almost nothing here in Paris for my kind of music but Paris is center of the Europe and I thought it might be easy to move around this planet if I live here. I"ve been spending quite comfortable time since I moved here and I think it was quite effective in my music career because now I can concentrate on my music much easier and deeper than Japan (i don"t know why) and... I'm quite pleased with my recent works myself.
How is the European electronic scene different from the Japanese scene?
European scene is much bigger than the Japanese one. Unfortunately most of the new Japanese electronic music is only distributed in Japan. From this point, we can say that the European scene is much bigger. and also the European scene has much more variety than the Japanese scene. I think it's really great.
Are you accepted well in Europe?
I don"t know, maybe not. Because I haven"t released my works on a European label yet and my previous works are not distributed in Europe very much (it's a really shame...) , so now I haven"t even been on a starting line yet. My new album with Tujiko Noriko will be released soon on fatcat, so let see what happen after that ;-) I hope people like it. and I hope i can have more opportunity to play my music in all over the world.
You recently played a couple of shows in New York City. What was that experience like and do you hope to play more shows in the USA?
I"ve only played two shows at one venue so I still don"t really know what they are like, but i can say that it was a really professional experience. Everybody was doing their jobs almost perfectly and we artists had really good time when we were playing. I really liked that part. and I really hope I have some more chances to perform in USA in the future. I'm sure that I can get more chance as soon as my works are distributed well in USA and Europe.
What are you thoughts on music piracy, file sharing and such?
It is disappointing that the quality of the music (sound quality and also musical quality) is getting poorer and poorer because of music piracy, file sharing and such. People don"t buy CDs, that's why artists and labels are not able to spend enough money to make high quality sounds and music. If the audiences have their own favorite artists, I think we should buy those CDs just like throwing a vote to your favorite artists to avoid this situation. I think If we get an album from file sharing and we don"t like it, We don"t have to buy it. If we like it, we should buy. This is what I think about it, but it's a bit difficult for me to explain in English what I exactly think. I hope you understand some of the part what i"d like to say about this.
The hard question: Technology for people to make their own music has become increasingly accessible in the last ten years. What effect if any do you think this will have on the future of music?
It's really good thing that any people can have the opportunity to make their own music, so that maybe another unknown geniuses might be able to have a chance to make music. 10 years ago, it was almost impossible to make (especially) computer music for people like me because every equipment was really expensive and softwares are not good enough either.
But on the other hand, I think that this situation might lead "lowering the level of whole music scene" too. I don"t know if you say it in English "lowering the level of whole music", maybe you say "falling musical standards" in English?? I don"t know, I'm so sorry that my English is so bad...
Anyway, I know that I'm also one of the people who had a chance to make music because of the latest technology, So maybe I'm also one of the people who's dropping musical standards... However, now I'm trying so hard not to be one of them and also not to drop music level too.
I think it's gonna be a bit difficult time for musicians like me to concentrate on only making music for living in the near future. But I'm now trying so hard not be like that.
What's your favorite place on the planet and why?
My room. Because now I'm trying to arrange my room to fit my life style in the perfect way ;-)
a very special thanks to AOKI takamasa for taking the time to do this interview. please check out the links on the right column for samples and more info.