The original landscape of Utoro, Shiretoko, and how Lumbini, Nepal heightened her awareness of the human voice

Hatis Noit’s musical roots go back to Utoro, Shiretoko, where she lived until she was six. Shiretoko is a peninsula that juts out into the Sea of Okhotsk, a majestic land registered as a World Natural Heritage site. The peninsula suddenly became the centre of attention around Japan after a sightseeing boat accident. For Hatis Noit, Shiretoko is a treasured place that is connected to her personal memories.

“I’ve been back to Utoro several times as an adult. Whenever I return, there are moments I remember things I used to know, like the coldness of the air on my skin, the cool breeze of the forest, and the harshness of the winter. They’ve remained with me not as visual memories, but as sensory ones. It’s a place that inspires me and that deeply transports me back to my roots. It’s my origin story.”

Hatis Noit had a crucial experience after returning to Shiretoko as an adult

“I got lost in the forest while I was taking a walk in the darkness. As I was panicking, wondering how to make my way back, I grew sensitive to my senses since I couldn’t see my surroundings. I became hyper-aware of sound, and could feel the softness of the damp soil on the soles of my feet. When you’re in that situation, all of your body’s senses become more acute. I started hearing animal cries and felt I was getting farther away from civilisation. On one hand, I was frightened, but there was also a part of me that was moved by the experience. A reason why I make music is because I want to recreate what I felt with my body at that moment, since it’s a feeling that can’t be put into words.”

There is another event that took place that became an inspiration for her, back when she was sixteen. While visiting Lumbinī in Nepal, the birthplace of Buddha, Hatis Noit overheard a nun chanting a sutra.

“The sutra was melodic and truly beautiful. The voice itself was simple, and wasn’t accompanied by a choir, but sounded strong nonetheless. That’s when I started becoming more aware of human voices. I always liked singing, and took part in ballet and theatre, but I immediately knew this was the direction I wanted to go in at that moment. If I was going to be a singer, I was going to do this type of music.”

The landscape of prehistoric songs before popular music, depicted using the body, the only instrument of the self

As these two anecdotes symbolise, Hatis Noit’s music focuses on expressing the prehistoric landscape of song before the rise of popular music through modern technology and physical sensation. Having studied Gagaku (Amami folk songs), Indian ragas, and ballet for several years, singing is an unmistakable form of physical expression and a means of approaching the physicality of the body before the use of other musical expressions.

“It’s important to “feel my body” as I’m singing, because it’s as though I have an instrument in my body. Your body naturally moves when singing, making it a very interactive intersection of energy. I have to figure out how to express myself through where I stand, what I feel, and how to translate that through my body. I capture my emotions and senses before they become words and express them as sounds. That’s what I aim to do.”

Hatis Noit’s singing is infused with various singing styles from around the world, including influences from religious songs and folk music from different regions. But the human body changes depending on ethnic groups, lifestyles, and customs. Furthermore, voices, words, and vocalisation vary accordingly. With that being said, was Hatis Noit ever conscious of the changes in her voice and body as a Japanese person?

“I’m able to absorb and express ideas from different cultures, but I have to translate those through my body. But this is the only body I have, and it possesses Japanese DNA. Since my voice is expressed through this Japanese body, what comes out may not consciously be Japanese, but may become that naturally. I don’t think I can escape that. I don’t believe that to be a negative limitation, but something that makes me beautifully unique.”

Hatis Noit is also cautious of cultural appropriation, which plagiarises and exploits certain cultures. How does she approach her singing and voice so as to not fall into patterns of cultural appropriation? Hatis Noit does not try to be a different person of another ethnicity.

“No matter how much I try to take inspiration from traditional practices, I’m not a traditional musician, and can never be one. I can’t categorise my work as traditional music because I respect the true musicians of traditional music who have dedicated their whole lives to their craft. If that’s the case, I always wonder what is something unique that only I can do? What I put forth might pass through specific cultural styles, but I believe that the emotions and sensations felt through musical inspiration is always a shared experience. If we get past surface-level style and technique and seek something deeper, I believe we can access a part of music that goes beyond cultural appropriation that everyone can relate to. When I play shows here, I get comments like “I don’t know why, but I started crying,” or “I don’t know why, but it’s heartbreaking,” over comments pointing to vocal technique or style. When I get those comments, I feel like what I’m doing is getting through to people.”

Discovering her identity as a musician after moving to London

Her previous album Universal Quiet, released in Japan in 2014 before her move to London, showed Hatis Noit’s longing for Europe. Her new album Aura, however, is stripped of that longing, and moves only with her voice and body. It seems that Hatis Noit herself underwent a change in consciousness.

She explains why she moved to London.

“I wanted to see the outside world. I wondered what the centres of certain scenes were like. When doing experimental music in Japan, I couldn’t help but feel overly critical of myself (laughs). The support from the experimental music scene here is passionate and very different from Japan. Even indie experimental musicians are highly respected. I just wanted to be a part of that.”

But once in London, the city of her dreams, she was forced to return to thinking about what music she should be playing.

“Perhaps because London is a big city, the quality of musicians is very high. They’ve all dedicated their whole lives to figuring out what music and art are. When I witnessed these things, I couldn’t help but think about myself. I love Western chamber music, but I felt I couldn’t be myself if I made that kind of music. If I was still in Japan, I would probably have focused more on orchestration and incorporated choirs and other church-like elements. But if I did that, I knew I would lose my identity. I didn’t graduate from a music university, nor do I have vast knowledge of music theory. Upon thinking about what I’m best at within that framework, what came to mind was a bit of an abstract idea of performing and expressing human energy through one’s own body, including the voice, that existed before the formation of music. When I first got to London, Robert, the producer at my label, told me to ‘find yourself instead of trying to be someone else.’ Ultimately, I must figure out what my ‘core’ is and what it is that makes me not myself. Then, I must use those findings to refine my performance into its purest form.”

A journey through sound: The answers within her new album Aura, and the thoughts it contains

Aura, Hatis Noit’s latest release, is the culmination of the answers to questions she had been asking herself since her move to London. Her title track “Aura” contains vocal techniques reminiscent of Mongolian urtyn duu, or long song. However, she does not pretend to be Mongolian nor does she play a naive Asian stereotype for the European gaze. What appears is only Hatis Noit herself, and no one else.

The recordings were done in a studio in Berlin, and the vocals were all tracked in eight hours.

“I don’t make the songs in the studio. I do everything live once certain elements are done, because the space and ambience is always different when you do things that way. I subconsciously become inspired and think of different melodies and arrangements every time. I then record whatever comes together at that moment.”

Robert Raths, the producer of this record, had the idea to re-amplify the recordings inside a small local church in East London to take advantage of its natural reverberations — engineered by Marta Salogni, who worked on Björk’s 2017 record Utopia.

What is recorded are the voices and sounds associated with the space and ambience of the church, even the church’s atmosphere is captured and mixed. Perhaps this is a process unique to Hatis Noit, who was inspired by the voices of the nuns in Lumbini, Nepal.

“Inori” is one track on this album that reflects Hatis Noit’s awareness. The song utilises field recordings of waves at a seaside location less than a kilometre from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The song is based on her experience of going to a memorial service for disaster victims in Fukushima after evacuation restrictions were lifted.

“‘Inori’ is not about the nuclear disaster itself. It focuses more on the love the townspeople have for their hometown, their personal memories, and their feelings for those who have passed. I use the sounds of the Fukushima ocean as is, but you can also hear the sounds of the ongoing construction there. It may sound like beautiful seaside sounds, but you can hear the seawall construction noises if you listen closely. I wanted to sing about the ocean because it holds many memories. My wish was to create something dedicated to those memories.”

The song “Inori” (prayer), is literally a prayer and offering for those who have passed, and touches on the origins of singing. This is how a song can connect with the world.

Hatis Noit’s songs are constantly changing. Her technique improves along with her experience, and her songs change along with the daily adjustments of her body.

However, there is one thing that remains the same: singing. Listening to voices and sounds. Thinking and feeling something. As a musician, Hatis Noit tries to capture the energy and unchanging nature of such a fundamental act.

Hatis Noit
Hatis Noit realised the natural power of the human voice on a trek in the birthplace of Buddha in Nepal, at the age of sixteen. Through this experience, she recognised the voice as an instinctive instrument used to connect us to others, to nature, and to the universe. The name Hatis Noit comes from Japanese folklore and means the stem of the lotus flower (lotus thread). The lotus flower represents the present world, and its root the spiritual world; the stem is the link between the two. Her energetic performances have included a sold-out show with the London Contemporary Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre, a performance at the Milan Fashion Week, many festival appearances throughout Europe, and a live show at the Manchester International Festival, where she was invited to perform by beloved director David Lynch. In recent years, she’s collaborated with Kevin Richard Martin aka The Bug, joined the stage choir of Jónsi & Alex, and has featured on Masayoshi Fujita and Lubomyr Melnyk’s works amongst various other collaborative pieces.
Official website：https://www.hatisnoit.com/
Instagram：@hatis_noit
Twitter：@hatis_noit

Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post Interview with the musician Hatis Noit<br>Capturing the Energy of Voice Before the Formation of Words: Progressing into a “Primal Song” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Meitei’s also a musician with an air of mystery. Only a handful of interviews with him are available online, and he doesn’t proactively communicate his ideas on social media. Therefore, he has yet to reveal much of what exists in his musical universe.

Because of this, I’ve wanted to interview Meitei someday. His new album, Kofū II, is the second installment of Kofū, released in September 2020. I asked him some questions, and his response was over 10,000 characters. This is more than a mere interview about a new album; it’s a detailed description of his philosophy on creating an identity as an artist in Japan. The following is a closer look at the universe of Meitei’s music based on his answers.

The unprecedented non-verbal mood of Kofū II  

Meitei’s recent albums on the theme of “Lost Japanese Mood,” Kaidan, Komachi, and Kofū, have been critically acclaimed abroad. Below is what Meitei thinks about it:

“I remember feeling a sense of possibility when I thought of the theme. As a Japanese person, I felt excited to show the world a new perspective on Japan, my home country.”

He initially planned to conclude the “Lost Japanese Mood” trilogy with the previous album, Kofū. However, Meitei created more than 60 songs for Kofū, and 47 songs were unreleased. So, he began producing the second installment of Kofū based on such sources. Upon learning about this, one might think Kofū II is a collection of songs that didn’t make the cut, but according to Meitei, that’s not the truth.

“As Meitei, I fundamentally place importance on the narrative of the album. If it doesn’t fit the narrative, I give up on recording something, no matter how high the quality of the music is. I couldn’t include many songs in Kofū because they didn’t fit the direction, but some of them are now alive on Kofū II.”

Kofū II portrays a different story from the previous album, despite it being the second installment. Sonically speaking, the lyrical melodies are still there, but it seems like the abstract spatiality and sound are pronounced more than before.

“The non-verbal moods unexpressed in Kofū are further emphasized. For instance, I transposed Japanese environments onto various scenarios and captured them on the songs. The result is an album that allows you to feel the panorama of Japan musically.” 

Facing the music scene from an independent perspective  

At the beginning of this article, I described Meitei as “a musician with an air of mystery,” but in an interview with Meitei that appeared in TOKION upon the release of his last album (interviewed by Yuji Shibasaki), the mystery surrounding him was gradually unveiled. In the article, Meitei expresses his discontent over how most of the music that’s considered Japanese has unconsciously become “Tokyo music.” Meitei is currently based in Hiroshima, but does this also reflect his awareness of the Tokyo-centric scene?

“In Hiroshima, I have an environment to create and foster a life of comfort and luxury for my music. I need to be comfortable, and my luxury and leisure time allow me to see things objectively.

“My awareness of the scene has been strong since I lived in Kyoto, and it was during then I realized Japanese music tends to depend on the scene. The Japanese scene has its core in Tokyo, which has its core in the west. The traditional ‘Japanese concept’ wasn’t widespread during the modernization period.

“For example, Japanese food is still at the heart of Japanese cuisine, and that culture is famous in the international community, but music isn’t. We’ve been referencing and copying music from overseas. Japanese people today have deemed it as a ‘Japanese-style expression.’ A scene is a place where that comes together. I believe there are types of Japanese music that can exist outside of this scene.”

There is something crucial implied here. Since the Meiji era, this country has been pushing forward music education modeled after Europe and the States, which has become the foundation of our understanding of music. Most popular music in Japan is established on this foundation, and the mass of such music forms a scene. Meitei is trying to be as liberated as possible from how music exists in Japan. He says an environment and situation where he can have an independent relationship with the music scene is ideal. This stance reminds me of Susumu Yokota, who had a commanding presence in the house/techno scene in the 90s but eventually distanced himself from the scene and took up creative activities in a hermit-like manner.

Meitei’s work consists of individual expression and narrative, removed from any scene and coeval trends. The climate of Hiroshima influences him, but most of all, his grandmother does:

“My grandmother managed a temple, and she was always chanting sutras and putting her hands together. She taught me if I put my hands together, even amid the noise of the world, my mind would be quiet. That lesson lives on in my heart even today.”

Exploring a Japanese vision that has no correct answer

I’ve been curious about the “Lost Japanese Mood” depicted in Meitei’s music, which in many cases is his Edo-style idea. The two Kofū albums can be seen as a sonic expression of images associated with the city of Edo. Meitei says the following:

“I wanted to use the power of music to emphasize symbolic images of Japan. What’s Japanese, and what has left a palpable impression internationally? One of them is the image of Edo, and there are people all over the world who expect that.”

This idea of Meitei’s could fall into the category of self-Orientalism. Meaning; he plays the role of Japan that the west expects. He internalizes the western gaze.

But the Japanese image expressed by Meitei has a particular beauty. It’s like imagining Japan of the past from a foreign land. Personally, when I visited Sao Paulo, Brazil, I was surprised to see the elderly Japanese-Brazilians residents speaking in old Japanese as if it had been frozen and preserved. That’s similar to this. 

Meitei recalled his experience of studying in Australia for a short period in high school:

“When I played popular Japanese music at my host family’s house, it was nothing but western-style Japanese music. I’d like to use harsh words and let the high school student in me say something. For me, back then, Japanese music existed in a context manufactured by domestic media and advertising. There was a lot of competition and rivalry to see who could be the first to import the coolest music from abroad. In the expansive world of music, it was just petty fighting. Adults who behaved in such a divisive manner looked young and immature.”

The Singapore-based indie label, KITCHEN. LABEL played a big role in the creation of Meitei’s Japanese image. 

“The core of Meitei has been constructed by working with an international team for the past three years. Spanning from the UK, Singapore, and the US, we shared our thoughts about Japan through an international sensibility. It was a great privilege. There were times when they were interested in ideas of Japan that I couldn’t affirm. That’s what made it interesting. There’s no right way to show Japan. The image of Japan I have is different from the image that people abroad have of Japan, so I have an opportunity to create a new vision of Japan.”

How does Meitei understand “Japaneseness”?

Today, on this archipelago, many things described as being “Japaneseness” or having “Japanese sentiment” include romanticized fiction. Additionally, the overuse of the loaded term “Japaneseness” can obscure the diversity and regional traits of the archipelago. What does Meitei think about such abuse of the concept of “Japaneseness”?

“There are times when the phrase ‘Japaneseness,’ which has become a template, is used unconsciously. It’s not perfect, but I’ve tried my best to express my idea of ‘Japaneseness.’ However, if one isn’t on the side that creates things, ‘Japaneseness’ is something that’s conveyed to oneself. One receives what’s made and tastes it. There’s a sense of being a consumer. Each person chooses their ‘Japaneseness’ and cultivates their notion of it. There’s no right or wrong answer, and I feel it’s a necessary process.

“Perhaps the problem is the fact that Japanese people don’t have a sense of pride. Pride is a kind of willpower or a potent emotional habit. Yes, we can interpret things freely when we lose this feeling, but then we wouldn’t become precious about them. We would let anything slide. It’s up to the individual to determine ‘Japaneseness.’”

The word, pride, makes me uneasy, but what he’s trying to say isn’t the same as patriotism, which could turn into racism. I see it as having the dignity of being a human being living in this archipelago. Meitei continues.

“Until now, Japan has used its technological forte as a selling point, but I don’t think it has led to the happiness of the people. Japan has achieved its success in the international battlefield through efficiency, logic, and conformity rather than a passionate spirit. Instead of facing it head-on, the country has excluded harmony from its options. In terms of music, when I express what I think of as ‘Japaneseness,’ that’s the first time I can take responsibility for myself. In this field, unless we produce what we consider Japanese music, we won’t be able to take responsibility for ourselves.“I don’t doubt that we have a lot of great music here. But we won’t feel pride by doing what we’ve been doing, even if the majority of Japanese people resonate with the music as an example of success. Ultimately, the most vital thing, humanity, doesn’t exist there.”

This is the end of Meitei’s music on the theme of a “Lost Japanese Mood.” What’s next in store for the artist? 

“The status of Japanese food in the global food culture is established, but the equivalent of sushi doesn’t exist in music. Japanese music culture is unstable without Japanese food as its main ingredient. I’d like to evolve from a reactionary Japan to a daring Japan, starting with the field of sound. That’s what I hope to do.”

Photography Yuri Nanasaki
Translation Lena Grace Suda

Meitei
He is a Hiroshima-based artist. To date, he’s released Four albums on foreign labels: Kwaidan (2018), an album focused on the theme of ghosts and ghouls, and Komachi (2019), an album exploring the theme of nighttime, Kofū and Kofū II,. His music was used for the official promotion video for Sonar Festival 2020 in Spain. He also performed at MUTEK ES in Barcelona this March. He also produces music for a wide array of fields such as theater, films, and fashion.

The post Meitei defines his identity as a Japanese artist on his latest album, Kofū II appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Music videos that are conscious of the smallest possible subjects

――In the second half of this interview, I’d like to take a look at videos you’ve directed to think about how you capture the scenery of the city. First, let’s take a look at “ilmol,” a song from your latest album, “The Secret Life of VIDEOTAPEMUSIC” This song features Korean artist Kim Na Eun, and the music video was shot in Seoul.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I asked Na Eun to sing about the scenery of her city, and she responded by singing about the Han River [a river that flows through the center of Seoul]. So to compare answers, I brought a video camera to Seoul and spent a whole day walking around the Han River and filming. I didn’t know what kind of scenery I’d be able to capture, so I just shot it and then edited it later. I also included samples from VHS videos I bought in Korea.

――The scene with the fireworks leaves an impression.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I just happened to shoot that. In the afternoon, people started gathering along the riverbank——sitting, drinking, and doing their thing. I wondered if they gathered like that every day, but actually, there happened to be a fireworks festival that day. I think one of the nice things about Seoul is that it has a place like the Han River that’s right in the city, with an open sky where you can chill out. But I didn’t want to make it a video that was like, “This is what Seoul is like.” It’s more of a personal journey to visit a friend named Na Eun.

――Maybe that’s why it feels like a personal video.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I asked overseas artists to sing on this album, like Na Eun from Seoul or Mellow Fellow from Manila, but I wanted to have them sing about the cities they live in and their personal lives as much as possible. The song with Na Eun was created not out of the relationship between Japan and Korea, but through private communication with a friend. I tried to keep the subject matter as small as possible. I was conscious of that with this video as well, and that’s precisely why it came out like a personal video.

――The music video for cero’s “Machi no Shirase” was shot in Tokyo and various areas around the suburbs of Kanto. But rather than focus on the larger subject of Tokyo, it ties together different scenery using individuals. In the sense that the video’s structure doesn’t rely on symbols of the city, I feel it has something in common with “ilmol.”

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Indeed, when I made that one, I was also thinking, “I want to shoot scenery that’s difficult to communicate with a large subject.” I figured someone else would shoot the symbolic landscapes, so I didn’t have to be the one to do that.

How VIDEOTAPEMUSIC approaches each place during his residencies

――Recently, you’ve been involved in a number of projects where you stay in a particular region and work on music or videos. How did you become interested in this method of creation?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Over the past few years, I’ve started playing live shows in all kinds of places across Japan. Usually, it’s just back-to-back live shows and afterparties, so even though it seems like I know the cities, I don’t really know them. So, I started extending my stay after the shows and walking around the city. As I did that, I became more interested in living and making art outside of Tokyo. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Tokyo, which is precisely why I’ve made work with familiar things that are available at rental video stores and recycle shops along national highways. So I started wondering, if I made music outside of Tokyo, what kind of stuff would I make?

――You stayed in Shiojiri in Nagano Prefecture to create a video for ANA MEETS ART “COM,” a project that connects people and local areas through art.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I went to Shiojiri for the first time in November 2020, and I stayed there for about 12 days. I’d never been to Shiojiri before, and I had no connection to the city. So at first, I figured I’d just walk around the city without thinking about it too much. First, I checked out the places I found interesting online. Then, I drove from one side of the city to another, visiting places that I saw along the way or that piqued my interest. I visited restaurants, secondhand stores, rivers, mountains, and so on.

――Did you find any clues at the secondhand stores?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I found a Shiojiri PR brochure from the 1970s. That was the biggest thing. There was also an article about a folk song that the locals made up on their own to revitalize the town. Even something considered to be a city’s tradition was newly made by someone at some time, and there was an era where that was the latest music. Thinking of tradition as something that’s accumulated like strata made me think about all kinds of things. Shiojiri is home to Canon’s factory, so there’s an unexpectedly large number of foreigners. Apparently, there used to be a lot of Brazilians, but now there seems to be many Vietnamese people. I also found a LaserDisc with Chinese karaoke at a secondhand shop. Even from that dusty LaserDisc, I felt like I could start to see the history of another town.

――The video is based on the Genba Odori song that locals dance to at the Shiojiri Genba Matsuri, a summer tradition in Shiojiri city, and the folk tale of the fox that the song is about, right?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I used the melody of the Genba Odori dance, which is based on a folk tale about a fox man named Genbanojo, and made a beat with the radio noise I picked up from the top of the mountain when I hiked Mount Takabocchi. There’s a radio tower at the summit of Takabocchi that transmits radio signals to the town, and the summit probably gets good reception, because I picked up a lot of radio in foreign languages. So I combined the radio waves from outside with the folk songs and environmental sounds of the town to create my own dub of the town’s history. Shiojiri has many farmers, so you often see the sight of “noyaki” [controlled field burning]. In the evening, you can see the smoke rising from afar, and as someone who isn’t from there, that sight was really magical. So in the video, I included scenes of the fields burning.

――Did you draw the fox animation yourself?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Yeah. At first, the video was just shots of the noyaki, but it felt like I was just taking scenery that belonged to someone else without permission. By using my own body to draw the smoke from the noyaki and the fox, I wanted to pay tribute in my own way.

――How do you capture a place that you have no connection to? I think that’s where your attitude as a filmmaker comes into play. In the note article about the creation of “Our Music: Tatebayashi” (Released on LINE NEWS “VISION”), which you created in Gunma Prefecture’s Tatebayashi, you wrote as follows: “It would have been too impudent to just introduce the charm of Tatebayashi, and I was careful not to forget that I was the one being taught. I definitely didn’t want to just make a fun tourism video, much less engage in dark tourism. But if I were too objective, it would be boring, so I wanted to be honest about the things that actually surprised me or felt new to me.”

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I think depending on the region, the way I keep a distance from the subject changes. It’s not about setting a rule for myself, but rather, how I can respond sincerely while I’m actually visiting an area. I feel like that part of me is being tested every time. Currently, I’m working on a piece about Nagasaki and Nomozaki for a project called “Nagasaki Art Project.” Locals are sending me videos, and I’m making the piece using a workshop-like method. My work is born from communication with others, so I’d say this project is on the easier side. But in the case of Shiojiri, I decided to create it while meeting with people as little as possible [due to the current situation], so it was quite difficult. I felt like it was insincere to come from Tokyo for just a few days and declare, “This is Shiojiri.”

――That applies to what you mentioned earlier about capturing Seoul.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: That’s true. When I actually started doing residencies, there were a lot of things to worry about or that were difficult. But I think that process is also necessary. The artist Tanaka Isson was a Japanese Nihonga painter who moved to Amami Oshima and expanded the scenery of what we call Japan. In Amami, he discovered a landscape that had never been painted before using Nihonga techniques. I wonder if I could do something like that. I want to expand the scenery that I’m able to depict using my techniques. I think the song I made with Na Eun could be considered part of that. It’s difficult to faithfully depict anything other than what’s familiar and accessible to me, so in that sense, I worry about how to use my imagination for places that are far away or that I haven’t had any connection to until now. That’s why I think I have no choice but to carefully increase the places I’m familiar with, one by one.

――I heard that you recently stayed in Saga Prefecture’s Ureshino Onsen and made music.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: It was a project by a long-established ryokan, Oomuraya, and Ohirune Shotou, which is a gallery, coffee stand, and used bookstore. I stayed there for a bit and made two songs about Ureshino Onsen. I asked locals to lend me their old home videos that show Ureshino for my song production, because I figured why not, and they actually brought me more than I expected. Thanks to Oomuraya and Ohirune Shotou’s local network, the project was really elevated.

I recorded taiko drums from a local folk song that a geisha taught me and the sounds of instruments used in Saga’s traditional menburyu [a local masked folk dance], and I incorporated that into the songs. I had originally planned to create a sort of ambient song with a relaxed mood because it’s an onsen [hot spring], but as I talked to various people, I started to feel like I wanted everyone to dance at the summer festival. So, I made a Latin-style song called “Ureshino Cha Cha Cha.” Around summer, I plan to give a full report of my stay, including the songs I made.

Behind the making of VIDEOTAPEMUSIC’s new songs, “On The Air 2020 (April 10)”

――By the way, you released a new song in April, right?

VIDEOTAPEMUISC: I’d wanted to visit all kinds of local areas in 2020 to make art, but I wasn’t able to do that due to corona happening around April, so I was wondering what to do. I wanted to leave the house, but I couldn’t. Just as I was worrying about how I could incorporate external elements, I suddenly had the idea to make a song using only radio noise. I wanted to try making music using only what was in front of me in my present environment. That developed into “On The Air 2020 (April 10).”

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC
Born in Japan, VIDEOTAPEMUSIC makes music and videos by sampling VHS tapes from all times and places——whether they’re tapes from suburban secondhand stores and closed video rental shops or home videos forgot-ten in the nooks and crannies of a childhood home. In recent years, he has been producing music using field recordings from various places. He has also been col-laborating with artists from Japan and abroad. In ad-dition to performing live using VHS footage and a Pianica, he’s active in a variety of fields, includ-ing music video production, VJing, and DJing. As a filmmaker, he has produced videos for artists such as cero, CRAZY KEN BAND, and Shintaro Sakamoto.
kakubarhythm.com/artists/videotapemusic

Photography Tetsuya Yamakawa
Translation Aya Apton

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The post VIDEOTAPEMUSIC as a filmmaker (Part 2): How he approaches people and places during his artist residencies appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

[With VHS tapes] the more I moved, the more videos I could watch.”

――When did you become interested in film?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I’ve liked tokusatsu films [Japanese live-action films that make heavy use of special effects] since I was a kid, and I made my first film when I was in high school. I borrowed my friend’s MiniDV camcorder and made a slapstick video, like Buster Keaton.

――After that, you went to art school and started creating films for real, right? In 2004, in your third year of uni-versity, you started working as VIDEOTAPEMUSIC.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: At the time, video rental stores were sell-ing a huge quantity of VHS tapes for cheap, and at my usual video rental shop at Tamagawa Josui station [Tachikawa, To-kyo], they had a closing sale: as many tapes as you could fit in three paper bags for 1000 yen. So I collected all that material and started making songs. If you were a hip-hop DJ, you would buy records, but there weren’t any record shops unless you were in the city center or near a major station. So at the time, I felt like records were a bit of a luxury item that I couldn’t afford. You wouldn’t believe to-day how many video rental shops there were in the residen-tial areas——so VHS tapes felt cheaper and more accessible.

――Major movies would later be made into DVDs or you could view them online. But a lot of the things that you were col-lecting at the time would have been erased from history if the VHS tapes disappeared, right? Personal videos, for exam-ple.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I didn’t start thinking about the signifi-cance of the videos until much later. The more I collected, the more I thought that maybe there was some sort of meaning to them. That was probably around 2010. In 2009, I brought CD-Rs to Enban [A record shop in Koenji, Tokyo]. After that, I was suddenly invited to play live shows. People started telling me what they thought of the shows, and I started seeing what I was doing more objectively.

――Were you not that interested in YouTube?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Yeah. YouTube has footage that’s even more personal than VHS tapes, so there was a period where I felt there was potential there. But I figured that someone other than me would collect things from YouTube, too. With old VHS tapes, you have to go to a store to buy them, so the more I moved, the more videos I could watch. I believed that the distance you physically travel is proportional to the amount of information you can get, so I vaguely trusted the process itself.

――Did you also have a sort of fixation on the texture of VHS tapes? Your work incorporates VHS-like textures, and this is connected to your creative style, isn’t it?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I’m very particular about the texture, but it’s not like I think the VHS texture is the best. Some vid-eos are more charming because of the VHS texture, but others lose quality because of it. For example, if you watch a film like Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day, [it’s so dark that] you can’t make out what’s on the screen. On the other hand, I’ve always been drawn to things that aren’t too clear. Naohiro Ukawa once said that spirits exist within the noise, and that feeling also influenced me. The movie Ringu (1998) was once popular, wasn’t it? I think that horror films reveal what people were afraid of during that era, and I think the fear of Sadako [the main antagonist of Ringu] appearing from behind the VHS noise was a feeling people had back then.

――There’s a certain scary quality to personal videos too, isn’t there? You never know what’s on the tape until you play it.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Exactly. Out of curiosity, I sometimes watch strangers’ wedding videotapes that I buy at secondhand stores, but there are times when they get scary. There might be people in the video who are no longer alive, and maybe I’m watching something I’m not supposed to watch. It’s an internal battle between curiosity and guilt for me. When I get sick after buying something at a secondhand store, some-times I think that I might be cursed. (laughs)

――In terms of stepping into people’s personal spheres, it might be similar to fieldwork in folklore studies. Do you draw a line of how far you allow yourself to go?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: The line is always shifting depending on the time and circumstance. There are times when later on, I feel like maybe it was wrong and I regret it. In the end, though, it all comes down to a feeling. There are moments where I feel like, “Maybe I shouldn’t do this,” which is a separate line from copyright issues. It’s more like an instinct. I don’t usually feel like that when I’m sampling records, but with videos, I can see faces, so there are times when the fear feels more real. Also, recently, I went to a secondhand store in Shiojiri in Nagano Prefecture, and they were sell-ing a farmer’s household accounting book. It was written in a lot of detail, and I was interested in the content because I happened to be researching Shiojiri at the time. But I just couldn’t buy it and take it home with me. It was too raw. Sometimes, secondhand stores sell diaries too.

――Diaries are a bit much…

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Right.

On the production of VIDEOTAPEMUSIC’s past music videos

――What was the first music video you worked on?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: There was a band I used to play with all the time called Mamitori [Currently known as Mamitri Yulith Em-press Yonagunisan]. The first video I made was an animation for a song called “Summer Mountain Summer Sea” (2009) by Tadasuke Iwanaga, who was in that band. It’s sort of an electronic acid folk song, and the album is really good, too. I love it so much that I still listen to it. When I was in college, I used to make animations by tracing existing footage from TV shows and commercials by hand. To understand what was actually going on in the 30 frames per second of TV that I usually would watch without thinking, I would draw everything on the screen frame by frame. That music video was an extension of that, and I drew everything by hand, in-cluding the VHS static.

――Since then, you’ve worked on a lot of music videos. What do you think about the balance between the artist’s worldview and your own creative style?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Basically, I keep each artist’s worldview in mind when I create [a video], so I think when my creative style comes through, it’s something that I’ve overlooked. If I get a request to make something in a VIDEOTAPEMUSIC style, though, I can express my creative style without reservation. I made Kicell’s “Fuji to Yuyami” (2107) according to the song universe, but maybe my own creative style accidentally made its way in there. I’ve also made some videos for cero, and essentially, my intention is to go along with the song universe. Conversely, there are times when a song that I made a music video for influences my later work.

――I heard you shot Shintaro Sakamoto’s “World Without Sad-ness” (2015) on reclaimed land in Kasai (Edogawa-ku, Tokyo).

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I shot it in a bunch of areas, mainly in Ka-sai. I wanted to shoot it in an area that was as nondescript as possible. Also, I shot it from a distance by zooming in really close. When you zoom in with a camera, you get a vid-eo with a different perspective than what people actually see, don’t you think? I wanted to create something closer to God’s point of view than a person’s point of view.

――That’s an amazing idea!

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I don’t know if “God’s point of view” is the right way of putting it, but I wanted to make it look like the perspective of something other than a human. I chose Ka-sai because it’s a place with good vantage points for that kind of shooting, and it’s a place without symbols like signs.

――The bleached feel of the video is also unique. How did you create that?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: If you repeatedly dub a VHS tape, the red-ness fades away. Skin becomes whiter, and people begin to look like ghosts. It’s like the opposite of watercolor painting——a process where you steadily remove color. I think this video did the best job of fusing the VHS texture and perspective that I’m particular about, so personally, I’ve always thought this is the best work I’ve done [as a filmmaker].

――It’s incredible that you were able to take reclaimed land and expand on the image to that extent.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: Even though it was reclaimed land, it’s been decades since it was reclaimed, so it carries a lot of his-tory. I think this video is like looking back at a place such as reclaimed land 100 years later. Like it superimposes nostalgia onto reclaimed land.

――You often choose to shoot locations surrounded by con-crete, like the industrial area of Kashima, Ibaraki Prefec-ture for odd eyes’ “Neppa” (2018), and an apartment complex in West Tokyo for your own song, “Sultry Night Slow” (2016). Why do you shoot these kinds of locations?

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC: I’m drawn to those kinds of locations. I don’t shoot areas that feel like, “If I don’t shoot this, someone else will.” I want to shoot things that are personal to people, but at the same time, I’m also drawn to giant things that swallow people up. I like Jia Zhangke’s films, so maybe his work has influenced me. I want to have shots in which the scenery behind the people says something more than the people themselves.

VIDEOTAPEMUSIC
Born in Japan, VIDEOTAPEMUSIC makes music and videos by sampling VHS tapes from all times and places——whether they’re tapes from suburban secondhand stores and closed video rental shops or home videos forgot-ten in the nooks and crannies of a childhood home. In recent years, he has been producing music using field recordings from various places. He has also been col-laborating with artists from Japan and abroad. In ad-dition to performing live using VHS footage and a Pianica, he’s active in a variety of fields, includ-ing music video production, VJing, and DJing. As a filmmaker, he has produced videos for artists such as cero, CRAZY KEN BAND, and Shintaro Sakamoto.
https://kakubarhythm.com/artists/videotapemusic

Photography Tetsuya Yamakawa
Translation Aya Apton

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In the midst of all this, I listened to an album titled “The World” this fall of 2020. The album is by musician haruka nakamura and LUCA, a Kyoto-based singer-songwriter whose recent work includes a role in the chorus for Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 2017 album, “async.” nakamura and LUCA have been collaborators for some time now, but this album is their first release of their new project, arca. In “The World,” LUCA sings softly over Nakamura’s quiet piano and acoustic guitar as they depict life in a new, post-pandemic world. I caught up with LUCA and nakamura for an email interview.

LUCA and nakamura met by chance. One day, nakamura received a CD from the owner of a Kyoto cafe called STARDUST. As it turns out, that CD happened to be Luca’s first album, “So, I began” (2015), and the owner of the cafe was actually LUCA’s mom. Listening to the CD on the bullet train home, nakamura was struck by LUCA’s voice. According to nakamura, LUCA’s voice sounded like what he had imagined as the ideal voice. At the time, LUCA was still living in Paris, but the two began to collaborate soon after her return to Japan.

nakamura: “The first song we wrote together was called ‘Hachiboshi.’ I played piano while LUCA sang. In an instant, a melody and poem were born, and it became a song. It wasn’t just that we had similar taste–rather, I felt a sense of inevitability, like puzzle pieces were falling into place. I felt like there was a song we had to write, and it was our mission to make it a reality.”

nakamura is known for his collaborations with Nujabes, Ichiko Aoba, and Miroko Machiko, and has gained popularity overseas for his delicate, profound music style. So, who is LUCA, the singer-songwriter who captured his attention?

LUCA was born in 1994 in Berkeley, California. Although the album nakamura had listened to, “So, I began,” featured songs solely in English, she’s actually a bilingual singer-songwriter. In August of this year, she released, “Tsunda Hanataba Kotaba ni Nashite,” a collection of ambient and acid folk songs inspired by old Japanese folk songs. Unlike the hundreds of songs attempting to put a new spin on folk music, this album is filled with fresh sounds.

LUCA: “I spent my childhood abroad, so up until a few years ago, I wasn’t able to smoothly incorporate Japanese lyrics into the music. One night at a big party, there was a man singing Tottori Prefecture’s “Kaigara Bushi” [a Japanese folk song] by himself, and he spent the whole night teaching it to me. Strangely, those old lyrics and sounds somehow came easily to me, like I had absorbed them into my body. That was my first encounter with minyo [a genre of traditional Japanese music]. When I sing minyo, my voice comes from a different place, and I feel like I’m connecting directly with the earth. It’s a strange thing.”

Perhaps one thing that nakamura and LUCA have in common is that their work draws from local cultures that nurture sound. In April of this year, nakamura released his first solo piano album, “Still Life” (a second work from this series is scheduled to be released this November). The cover of “Still Life” features a still life by his late grandfather that nakamura found in his mother’s piano lesson room. The album tells the story of nakamura’s life, as well as the culture and history of his hometown of Aomori.

Nakamura: “My great-grandmother was involved in Shinto rituals at this one large, seaside Inari shrine. Because of that, I’m interested in Shinto shrines, ancient Shinto music and dancing, and the Nihon Shoki [a book of classical Japanese history]. At one point, I was spending a lot of time researching it all. My grandfather has published several books about my great-grandmother, but I’m still trying to find out more about my family and Tsugaru [Western region of Aomori Prefecture]. I think it’s important that there was music in ancient times, and that river still flows uninterrupted into today. And I think it’s a matter of whether you’re able to feel that.”

After the success of their first collaboration, “Hachiboshi,” nakamura and LUCA began to work together on a full-fledged album. This experiment eventually developed into their new project, arca.

nakamura: “LUCA and I are connected in a number of different ways. First, the fact that our names are quite similar. We’re also the same sign of the Chinese Zodiac, both born 12 years apart on the same cycle. There are a bunch of other things, too. But I thought that if we were going to collaborate, we should create one unified work rather than just combine our names.”

The two recorded arca’s first album, “The World,” at Studio Camel House in Yamanashi. The engineer, Gen Tanabe, makes up one-half of the duo orbe with nakamura and is one of his very close friends. They were able to think of new ideas and improvise as they worked on the album in what Nakamura says was “an amazing, high-elevation environment that had a big window with a view of Mt. Fuji and the Kofu Basin.” Thus, every sound actually feels like it was recorded from a studio looking out on the Kofu Basin. The album possesses the special charm of sunlight shining through the windows and wind coming down from the mountains. Songs such as “SUN DANCE,” a track based off an eight-bar loop Nujabes gave nakamura before his death, conjure the image of sunlight shimmering through the trees.

There’s a quality to nakamura’s piano playing that gives this work a sense of depth. In “Still Life,” Nakamura found a renewed interest in the piano as an instrument, and this is clearly reflected in the music. Nakamura says that “the piano is an instrument with countless possibilities.” He continues:

“There are many things to be learned from the piano, and I still feel like I can’t truly play it. I want my piano playing to sound like wind that blows in the forest. I want to always feel the forest from the sound of the piano, which itself is made from the forest.”

Other than two songs written by nakamura, LUCA was in charge of writing all the song lyrics, many of which are inspired by nature. One can see the attempt to live in harmony with a world that is increasingly divided. Today, people are separated from people, country from country, and humans from nature. In that kind of world, the songs on this album resonate like a prayer. In the past, song and dance have acted like a bridge in times of division, and in listening to arca’s music, we can be reminded of the role that music has played since ancient times.

LUCA: “The way our world works and the state of our country are inextricably linked to every one of our lives. In order to live in this world, where everything comes back around, we can’t think of everything as only somebody else’s problem. As people living on this Earth, whenever something happens, we feel it through the filter of our own lives. I think I was able to capture that in this album. The kindness of humans, the innate goodness and love–that’s the key to everything! That’s the feeling that I carry deep inside me lately as I go about my everyday life.”

How do the two hope that people will listen to their album in the current coronavirus situation? And how do they hope it resonates in this world?

Nakamura: “I’m not hoping for anything in particular. We started from nothing, and then we made music. And I think art is the opposite of war.”

LUCA: “I’m not hoping for anything. either. I want to leave it to everyone who listens to feel the way they do. But if I have to say something, I hope that this music becomes a seed of something. I’d be happy if it were a seed of peace and kindness.”

In arca’s harmonies lie a certain toughness. The music is full of warm sounds and words, but instead of an easy, relaxing listening experience, it’s full of meditative power that seems to sharpen the listener’s senses. What kind of future can we create in this post-corona world? Perhaps one of the charms of this album is that as we listen, we begin to imagine the world that is to come.

LUCA was born in 1994 in Berkeley, California. In 2015, she released “So I began.” From there, she began to string words and melodies together, singing folk songs that would resonate across Japan. Her latest work, released in August 2020, is a collection of folk songs featuring photographs by Miho Kajioka. In addition to her solo work, her experience includes vocal performances for Ryuichi Sakamoto’ solo album “async,” as well as the album “Light Waves” in collaboration with Kyoto-based artist There is a fox. She is also involved in other work both inside and outside of music, such as writing lyrics, providing narrations, or translating works, such as photographer Ariko Inaoka’s latest work “Eagle and Raven.” She is currently based in Tokyo after living in California, Denmark, Paris, and Tokyo.
https://www.lucadelphi.com

haruka nakamura
nakamura was born in 1982 in Aomori, Japan. His latest work is “Still Life,” a solo “mute piano” album. He has performed at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral and many other important cultural properties. In recent years, he has been in charge of the music for the special opening video for the Enoura Observatory designed by Hiroshi Sugimoto, “Cartier, Crystallization of Time” at the National Art Center in Tokyo, and a documentary program about Tadao Ando. He has also played piano in a live stream from Kyoto’s Kiyomizu Dera Temple, as well as composed music for Tokyo Sky Tree and other planetariums. Furthermore, he has performed with the Waseda University Symphony Orchestra at the Okuma Auditorium. His collaborators include Nujabes and many others. He is currently working on a live reading session (live album announced) with translator Motoyuki Shibata, and a live painting series with painter Miroco Machiko. He has also produced various works such as an album with “evam Eva” and a wine with Yamanashi winery “BEAU PAYSAGE.” In addition, he has worked on commercial music for brands such as Calorie Mate, Pocari Sweat, the Ad Council Japan, and CITIZEN.
https://www.harukanakamura.com

Translation Aya Apton

The post LUCA and haruka nakamura plant seeds of peace and kindness through their project, arca. appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.