Thundercat
Bassist, songwriter, music producer. Born October 19th, 1984. From Los Angeles, California. With his remarkable bass playing, sweet vocals, eccentric fashion sense, and an endlessly cheerful personality, he has captured the hearts of fans everywhere. In addition to his solo work under the name Thundercat, he has also collaborated on projects with Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Gorillaz, and the late Mac Miller, among others. In 2022, he toured the world with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a supporting act. He is also known for his affinity for Japanese culture like anime and video games. His ability to effortlessly and charmingly walk the line between jazz, hip-hop, funk, AOR, and LA beats in his playing is nothing short of remarkable. 
https://theamazingthundercat.com
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Many of Thundercat’s friends appear in his interviews. His close friend Flying Lotus, of course, as well as his childhood otaku pals, buddies from his choir days, designers, nail artists, Kendrick Lamar, Domi & JD Beck, and the dearly departed masked hip-hopper, MF DOOM. He considers his position in every encounter, all while honing his technique and humor. His development is like that of the character Vegeta from his favorite anime Dragon Ball. In this interview, we discuss the connection between animation, video game music, and Thundercat.

In every encounter, he contemplates his position while honing his technique and humor. His maturing presence is just like Vegeta from ‘Dragon Ball,’ whom he loves, isn’t it? We discussed the connection between animation, video game music, and Thundercat in this interview. He appeared with large Sonic the Hedgehog and MF DOOM necklace hanging around his neck.

– That MF DOOM necklace is really great.

Thundercat: It’s cool, right? This has a story to it. Flying Lotus and I had an opportunity to work with MF DOOM before he passed, so we went to see him in London, where he lived. 

Apparently, MadLib talked to MF DOOM about me, and he knew that I had worked with Erykah Badu. He and I had been wanting to connect.

– You worked on “Lunch Break” with MF DOOM. What a cool song.

Thundercat: He was amazing! He showed me music that nobody else would know, and he listened to a tune I was writing with Flying Lotus. We hit it off so hilariously well. He was interested in the jewelry I was wearing, and asked me a lot of questions about it.

– His passing was truly a tragedy.

Thundercat: MF DOOM was collaborating with an LA-based designer called Han Cholo on making special rings. Before he passed, he asked me how he could pay me for my work. I told I didn’t want money, so instead, he made me a ring and necklace from a casting mold he had and sent them to me. Unfortunately, those rings were stolen.

– How sad…

Thundercat: I still have the necklace, though. It’s small, different from what I’m wearing right now. I became friends with the guy who makes his masks, and we talked about making something for his memorial. Together, we made the mask necklace I’m wearing now. It’s an original necklace with garnets in it. It’s very heavy (laughs). But I work out, so it’s fine (laughs).

– (Laughs). 

Thundercat: MF DOOM was a great lyricist and producer. I also loved his personality. Everyone notices when I wear this necklace. It gives me an opportunity to tell this story, like I’m doing now. It feels as though I’m wearing his memory.

– You’re wearing his memory. What a lovely story.

Thundercat: It’s my second favorite one of my necklaces. My most favorite is this Sonic one (laughs). 

– Is Sonic [the Hedgehog] a character you’ve always liked?

Thundercat: Yeah, I love Sonic. Although my number one right now is Mario (laughs). This Sonic necklace was custom-made for me. The lyrics of “Can You Feel the Sunshine” from the game Sonic R are etched into it.

– Did you watch The Super Mario Bros. Movie?

Thundercat: I haven’t yet. It’s been a very busy season. In the theaters in LA, where I live now, tickets have been selling out. 

– It’s so popular. 

Thundercat: It really is. But I don’t think anyone is seeing it anymore. I hope I have the theater all to myself when I go see it (laughs). 

– Some American critics have called it juvenile, but I don’t think it is!

Thundercat: Mario is for kids anyway (laughs). That’s not a criticism. 

Vegeta-like Humor

– You’re known to like Dragon Ball, but you’ve mentioned before that you relate to Vegeta more than Goku.

Thundercat: I do.

– I think you have some Vegeta-like qualities. 

Thundercat: I think so, too! Goku is Flying Lotus, right? (Laughs).

– Exactly! Or Kendrick Lamar.

Thundercat: Kendrick is more like Gohan’s Beast from Dragon Ball Super (laughs). 

– I think your songs are very humorous. 

Thundercat: Indeed.

– “Dragon Ball Durag” is about begging your lover for love, but you ask, “how do I look in my durag?” several times in the song. It’s very funny.

Thundercat: Hahaha! Yeah, it seems like a love song at first, but it’s actually a terrible song (laughs). 

– In “Friend Zone”, you reference Kendrick Lamar’s “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe” after you say, “You can go or you can go, I’d rather play Mortal Kombat anyway”. That made me crack up.

Thundercat: It’s funny, right? I was worried about that reference, but Kendrick thought it was funny, too.

– I think that humor is what’s most “Vegeta-like” about you.

Thundercat: Totally. He’s prideful, and yet has no choice but to be humble in front of someone amazing like Goku. No one is watching when he thinks he’s killing it (laughs).

– Perhaps it’s because of these experiences that he gradually develops a more objective perspective and becomes a kinder character.

Thundercat: I also have another perspective in me. What I want to say may not always come across the way I want it to. I’ve had a lot of difficult experiences like that. So when I’m trying to say or express something, I always have several points of view.

Influences From Video Game Music

– Your music itself is very versatile. You started your career as a bassist for Suicidal Tendencies and Erykah Badu, so you’ve been involved in both hard core punk and neo-soul. 

Thundercat: That’s right.

– Your current music incorporates jazz and hip-hop grooves, but also contains a video game-like linearity. It feels like you’re always mixing distant musical influences. 

Thundercat: I grew up listening to all kinds of music. I loved jazz and video game music, too. I also like adding color to simple things. Even in Mario, the first theme song is still being used today, but it evolves along with its different arrangements, causing the song’s colors to change. I find that to be intriguing. It’s all about the tonal palette. 

– Video game music was initially very simple.

Thundercat: Video game music from the 1980s to the early 1990s is wonderful. I love Yoko Shimomura’s work at CAPCOM. She was able to do the most with the limited resources available to her. That’s what intrigued me as a kid. Video game music now is richer and broader. The music is still great, but I’m drawn most to the uniqueness of game music from a time with limited resources.

– I sense a YMO vibe to your music, but maybe that’s also through video game music. YMO very heavily influenced game music. For instance, in the Dragon Ball game Super Butoten, there is a song that sounds almost exactly like “Rydeen”. 

Thundercat: I know that song (laughs). They’re such big artists, afterall. I think many people including myself have been influenced by them in some way. YMO and Ryuichi Sakamoto have many complex elements hidden within their simplicity.

– You’ve called Dragon Ball a “mature work” in the past. In what way do you think it’s mature? In Japan, Dragon Ball is seen as a show that young boys watch before they mature. I thought that difference in perspective was interesting. 

Thundercat: I think Dragon Ball is considered violent for Americans, which is why it’s not seen as something for children. Violent scenes in Dragon Ball Z and NARUTO are edited out. I don’t think it’s necessary, though.

– I see. So what children consume shouldn’t be violent. 

Thundercat: Interestingly, the cartoons that are most popular in the US are all Japanese. Jujutsu Kaisen,NARUTO, Dragon Ball Z… That kind of anime is weirdly edited. I’ve been watching Neon Genesis Evangelionsince the 90s. It has a cult-like power to it. Shows like that are also edited, but that loses its original rawness. 

– Interesting.

Thundercat: But cartoons and comics catered to American adults have always been very violent! I’ve been influenced by violent comics, so my opinion may not be the same as the average American (laughs). You can’t trust me because I’m crazy.

– In the Dragon Ball animation, there are scenes where the protagonists are in training. But American superheroes are superheroes from the beginning.

Thundercat: Batman and Ironman are both rich (laughs). Their own physical capabilities are the same as a normal human. 

– I’ve heard that the process of “training to get stronger” seen in Dragon Ball may be similar to the African American experience. What do you think?

Thundercat: That’s possible. Struggle, strife, and conflict are important elements in the African American community. Even the word “hero complex” exists. I think we can relate to the work ethic seen in Japanese animation because society doesn’t validate our struggle.

– You feel sympathetic.

Thundercat: I’m not sure, though. I was just crazy about anime when I was a kid. I also had Mexican and Asian friends who liked Dragon Ball. But we were a minority in the classroom. Race didn’t matter, we were just nerds (laughs). But those nerds have now grown up and are in positions to make money, and they use their money lavishly on whatever they want. Which is why anime has become even more popular (laughs). 

– (Laughs).

Thundercat: I talk to those friends a lot about how no one understood our interests back then. We wanted the Dragon Ball Carddass that was only sold in Japan. Instead, we filed photocopies of the Carddass we found online and circulated them among ourselves. We would be like, “You can have them today, but I’ll take them tomorrow”. We had fun looking at the files and tried our best to create our own stories from them.

– That’s just like your story about video game music. You got creative with the limited resources available to you.

Thundercat: Exactly. We have to do what we can for ourselves. 

Collaboration with Kevin Parker

– How did your new song “No More Lies” in collaboration with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker come about?

Thundercat: I’ve been wanting to work with Kevin since my first record. I met him at the Grammys, but I was drunk and don’t remember (laughs). He said he thought we had met before when I approached him (laughs), and told me he also wanted to work with me. We made the song together in person, and it was really fun. We were lucky – it felt like pieces of a puzzle fitting together. 

– You and Kevin have similar voices. Your whisper-like singing voice seems unique among Black musicians. 

Thundercat: I sang in my church’s choir when I was a kid. I also went to the Yamaha School for vocals and instruments, so I was never against singing. The background vocalists in the recordings are friends from childhood, too. 

– I had no idea.

Thundercat: Although it took me a long time to get used to singing on records and at live shows. I even got discouraged when my friends told me they didn’t like my voice (laughs). But all the players I admire, sing. Tony Williams, George Duke, Frank Zappa. Even Jaco [Pastorius]. I told myself if Tony Williams could sing, I could. His voice is so crazy (laughs). If his voice is acceptable, mine is, too.

– I think your soft voice beautifully contrasts with your percussive bass-playing.

Thundercat: I’ve always been a tenor. I’m good at projecting higher notes, too, so this type of singing is good for me. My normal voice is deep, though. I sound like Slipknot when I sing in my chest voice (laughs).

– I would love to hear that (laughs).

Thundercat: It’s super hard!

– The skull bag you have with you today is a collaboration with Prospective Flow, right? What is your connection with them?

Thundercat: They’ve expanded into LA from Japan now, but I wore their clothes before I knew them. Their stuff fits really well. Domi & JD Beck knew them initially, and introduced me. 

– What a connection.

Thundercat: The collaboration was recent, but we’ve been friends for a long time. They’re good people.

– Your jewelry, nails, and hairstyles have a femininity to them. Is that a conscious effort?

Thundercat: I’ve been asked this before. I’ve been told it’s an “inherent femininity”, but that doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe it’s because I toured with Eric Benét (laughs). Maybe his sexiness triggered my femininity (laughs). I actually just like shapes and colors more than masculinity and femininity. Intuition and gut feeling are everything. 

– Your nails today are beautiful, too.

Thundercat: My nail artist friend in LA did them for me. She’s a talented artist. This is one of her simpler designs.

– Your stories contain many names. Listening to how you talk and watching your gestures, I get a sense that you are who you are because of the connections you have with other people. Have you heard about Hakushi Hasegawa, who recently joined Brainfeeder?

Thundercat: Of course. I listened to their new song, too. It’s a great tune, and the video was amazing, too. It’s a good fit for Brainfeeder because of its eclectic sound. I’ve met them once, but I was drunk so I don’t remember (laughs). I would love to meet him again.

Photography Takuroh Toyama
Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post Thundercat Discusses His Bond with MF DOOM, Vegeta-like Humor, and Video Game Music Influences appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

※Please be aware that the following text contains spoilers.

Commentaries Increase

The Boy and the Heron is an animation consisting of “increases” and “collapses.”

As soon as this Japanese master animater’s long-awaited work was released, many authors commented on it. It is common for such a high-profile movie to have a lot of words on it circulated on the Internet after its release. However, particularly with this work, there has been a flood of texts, which is becoming even more extensive. Much of the discussion focused either on the “mother” in the story or on the idea of “inheritance,” applying the relationships around Studio Ghibli and the history of Japanese animation to the characters and story in the film. In the former case, Tsunehiro Uno, for example, describes the film as “a self-commentary of Miyazaki himself on what is at the core of him, which is typical post-World-War-II-version of mama’s boy mentality, as if it were written by a critic” (*1), and Kaho Miyake writes that “a world where father is absent, mother and her child are in close contact, eggs cannot be born, and the voices of screaming parakeets echo virtually” is a “nauseatingly accurate metaphor” for our times (*2). For the latter, hiko1985, author of the blog “青春ゾンビ (Youth Zombie),” points out that the character “Kiriko” is a metaphor for Isao Takahata and Michiyo Yasuda, Miyazaki’s sworn allies from days in Toei Animation (*3), and Seiji Kano sees in this movie a “return to a manga movie” that inherits the “legacy of those who have worked closely with Miyazaki, such as Isao Takahata and Yasuo Otsuka” (*4). Perhaps it is a blessing in itself to be able to extract multiple narratives from a piece of work because it is a testament to the fact that Miyazaki and the rest of the Studio Ghibli staff have been making movies for decades and that so many viewers have been receiving them for so long. However, the storyline plays only a secondary role in feature-length animation. The primary stimulus to the audience’s senses, and what the filmmakers pursue above all else, is the movement within the sequence of pictures. Without this, the story around the mother and the references to the real persons are nothing more than easy manipulation of symbols, and brings no excitement.

(*1) Tsunehiro Uno. ” The Boy and the Heron and the Problem with the ‘King’”.2023-07-20.
https://note.com/wakusei2nduno/n/nc1c94c0793fe, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*2) Kaho Miyake.” #What was Hayao Miyazaki ultimately trying to portray in The Boy and the Heron [Fastest review with spoilers]”2023-07-15.
 https://note.com/nyake/n/nc74f29fccca2, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*3) hiko1985. “Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron, ” 青春ゾンビポップカルチャーととんかつ. 2023-07-17.
https://hiko1985.hatenablog.com/entry/2023/07/17/135024. (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*4) Seiji Kano, “The Boy and the Heron: A Return to ‘Manga Movie’ with Adjusted Logic.”. Cinema Cafe.2023-07-21.https://www.cinemacafe.net/article/2023/07/21/86462.html, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

“Increase” Overflows

In the middle of the movie, the jam increases. In this scene, Himi, one of the heroines of the movie and an incarnation of the protagonist Mahito’s mother in the other world, serves Mahito a piece of toasted bread with jam in a Western-style kitchen. Himi spreads a thick layer of butter on the toast, puts red jam on top, and gives it to Mahito. Mahito takes a bite of the toast. The jam spills out, ending up being around his mouth. “It’s tasty. My mother used to make it for me,” he says to himself. He bites into the toast again. Then, that red jam overflows from the toast and spreads out in front of his face, which is drawn in a medium close-up shot. The amount of jam clearly exceeds the amount that Himi had applied to the toast in the first place. The jam increases. It overflows. It proliferates.

The way the jam increases and the color of red remind us of a scene in which Mahito bleeds, placed in the first half of the movie. On the way back home from school to which he has just transferred. After a fight with classmates, Mahito suddenly strikes his right temple by himself with a stone he picked up. Against the blue sky and the green forest, a dark red stream flows out from his temple. The blood doesn’t stop right away. Instead, it gushes out in the next cut. If it really happened to a flesh-and-blood human being, the amount of blood would be enough to cause death in some cases. It even looks as if the blood itself is growing. The blood increases. It overflows. It proliferates.

The movement of ” increase ” links the jam and red blood. What at first glance does not appear to be a significant quantity overflows and spreads in the next cut. The movie is overfilled with this kind of proliferation and movement of increase. 

For example, in the scene where Mahito and the blue heron confront each other for the first time at the pond behind the mansion and exchange words. When the heron belligerently says, “I’ve been waiting for you, sir,” catfish-like fishes appear from the pond, and in the next cut, a large number of frogs appear, crawl up from under Mahito’s feet, and surround his body. The catfishes and frogs suddenly multiply.

Or the scene in which Mahito is guided by a blue heron into another world. A golden gate stands in a windy field. As Mahito gazes up at the gate, a flock of pelicans suddenly swarms over him. The weight of the pelicans pushes the gate open. The gate’s opening leads to Mahito’s encounter with the sailor Kiriko (one of the elderly ladies in the real world), and here, too, the sense of proliferation is depicted through the flood of pelicans.

In the two scenes I just mentioned, a large herd of animals appears, but the sense of proliferation is not brought about only by the animals. In both scenes, the wind is blowing before the herd appears. The strong wind causes Mahito’s grayish shirt to flap and sway. At this time, the shirt’s contours bulge out in an unnaturally rounded form. After Kiriko and Mahito meet, the sea begins to swell. As the two proceed in their wooden boat, a huge wave appears before them, covering the horizon. The wave rises high and covers the boat, which is shown from the left side. Both wind and water are depicted in this movie as part of the phenomenon of increase and overflow.　

In this light, it seems that the group of elderly women working at the mansion in the real world also has something to do with the “increase” movement. The appearance of the old women who gather like ants around the luggage that Mahito’s father brings back to the mansion is accompanied by an unusual sense of proliferation from the start, and their wriggling in groups of five or six is reminiscent of the elderly ladies in the nursing home in Ponyo (what both groups share are one woman with a wart on the side of her nose and another who acts independently from the group). However, the reason why the group in The Boy and the Heron leaves us with a creepy impression becomes apparent when these women are depicted from the side. Their eyes are weirdly popping out of their heads. Their eyeballs are so enlarged that they look as if they are about to spill out. The combination of the large roundness of their eyes and their collective wriggling and chattering forms the impression of an eerie proliferation. 

In addition, the “Warawara,” a group of white creatures that live with Kiriko and are said to be the form of pre-human, are also part of the “increase” movement, as are the swarm of parakeets that develop a hostile relationship with Mahito, Blue Heron, and Himi in the latter half of the movie. In this work, the movement of “increase and overflow” abound all the way through the story.

This “increase” movement has appeared frequently in Hayao Miyazaki’s previous movies, as exemplified by the seeds planted by Satsuki and Mei being rapidly transformed into a large tree by Totoro’s mysterious power in My Neighbor Totoro, the swarm of Ohmus in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the swarm of fish and the proliferation of the anthropomorphic sea in Ponyo. In the early part of it, Mahito’s father, Shoichi, and his company’s employees line up the windshields of the fighter jets’ cockpits they are building at their company one after another at their mansion, and this “increase” movement links to the way the windshields of the swarm of flying Zero fighters were highlighted at the end of The Wind Rises (Even from the perspective of the period setting, the movie, The Wind Rises is followed by The Boy and the Heron) Therefore, this work can be said to be the newest version of the “increase” movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

“Increase” is Accompanied by “Collapse.”  

The “collapse” movement reveals itself accompanying the depiction of “increase.” In the middle of the movie, Mahito, while being taught by Kiriko how to do it, cuts a huge fish (looks like an anglerfish) that Kiriko has caught. Following her instructions, he plunges the blade into the belly of the giant fish, and blood gushes out. Once again, Mahito thrusts the blade. Immediately afterward, the fish’s pinkish viscera begin to overflow and spill out of its belly. On the screen, the viscera are increasing in volume toward the outside of the belly, but the fish’s body is collapsing. An increase is sometimes accompanied by collapse. Another “collapse” awaits after this scene. According to Kiriko, the guts of the fish are the fodder for the Warawara to float. She explains that at night, the Warawaras rise into the air and the group of them gradually form double spirals, reminiscent of a double-helix structure of DNA, eventually reaching the “upper world,” where Mahito came from, to be born as human beings. Pelicans, which feed on the rising Warawaras, appear and try to devour them, but Himi, the fire girl, appears and releases a firework-shaped flame to save them from the pelicans. That night, Mahito meets a dying pelican beside an outdoor toilet. The pelican falls to the ground and collapses, complaining about the dire situation of the pelicans, who have nothing to eat but Warawaras. Again, we can see the contrast between the movement of the pelican, who collapses in solitude while the flock of Warawaras rises into the air.

As with the case of “increase,” “collapse” is another key movement that has underpinned Hayao Miyazaki’s animations. In Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, as well as Spirited Away, the collapse of a world occurs in the final stages. Both the Giant God Soldier and Shishigami crumble as if they were melting. In The Boy and the Heron as well, the world created by the “great-uncle” with a contract with “stones” finally collapses with a heavy thud. This movie can also be said to be the newest version of the “collapse” movie. 

If “collapse” is one of the common gravities in the world of Hayao Miyazaki’s animations, then we could accept some of the puzzling scenes in this work with no hesitation. In one scene, a heron invites Mahito to a stone tower. Inside the tower lies Mahito’s mother, who is supposed to be dead, but when Mano touches her, her figure dissolves into the water. This scene does not foreshadow anything that happens in the later part of the story, leaving the audience with a puzzling impression. However, if we are to believe the collapse of the mother’s figure is a movement depicted in accordance with the gravitational force of “collapse,” there is no room for doubt about the scene’s necessity. How about the scene just before the great parrot king meets Mathito’s great-uncle on the tower? The King climbs up the wooden staircase, and when he reaches the top step, he carefully destroys the stairs. This must have been done to prevent his pursuers, Mahito and the blue heron, from reaching the top. But looking at him smashing them four times, one would think he is overdoing it. In addition, it turns out that his attempt was ineffective because the two pursuers eventually met his great-uncle through a different route. So here again, the movements in the animated pictures do not ensure the story’s coherence but can be said to rest on the gravity of the “collapsing” movement.

Movements Precede Metaphors

Meanwhile, it should be added here that there have been criticisms about “movements” in this work. In an article by Kazeto Shimonishi, which deserves attention for pointing out the fact that the opening scene is a “subjective image” of Mahito and that the entire depiction of the work is “exaggeratedly grotesque,” he points to the technical limitations of the work, stating that “the expression of ‘movements’ is far inferior to what it was in Miayazaki’s prime,” and that “perhaps due to physical decline, Hayao Miyazaki is no longer able to draw.” (*5) It is true that this movie does not have the dynamism of, for example, Porco Rosso. The swarm of ships and the plants in the garden of Himi’s house, both in another world, seem less elaborate and vivid than the swarm of airplanes Porco saw in his visionary experience and the beautiful garden of Gina’s house. The light shining through the clouds also lacks the variation of shading expressions compared to those in Porco Rosso, of which I couldn’t help but feel the monotonousness and uniformity. We cannot find meticulous depictions of forests seen in My Neighbor Totoro or crowds in The Wind Rises, let alone the appeal of the flexible pencil lines in Ponyo. While I would refrain from simplistically attributing these differences to Miyazaki’s “old age” or “decline,” it would be unreasonable
not to acknowledge the differences themselves. (*6)

(*5) Kazeto Shimonishi, “Hayao Miyazaki’s Sorrow and Question — The Boy and the Heron“. 2023-07-21. https://note.com/kazeto/n/nca1be7cd479c, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*6) In an interview by Yoichi Shibuya for “Sequel: Where the Wind Returns,” Miyazaki frequently bemoans the lack of skill among young animators. If we are to believe him, the reason for the reduced sense of dynamism in his newest movie should be attributed less to the director’s age and more to the lack of skill of the animators in an age when working with a PC has become the norm. Of course, a writer who has never worked in animation does not have the ability to pursue the cause or responsibility. See Hayao Miyazaki (2013), Sequel: Where the Wind Returns: How the Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki Began and Ended His Career, Rocking On.

However, this movie surpasses all of Hayao Miyazaki’s previous works in its relentless repetition of the same movements. The proliferation of the trees in My Neighbor Totoro is only seen in a single scene. In Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the increase of Ohmus and the Sea of Corruption is not exempt from narrative inevitability. In both Princess Mononoke and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, “collapse” is an integral part of the story. Ponyo is an exception in that the seawater, fish, and Ponyo’s limbs “increase” in an uncontrolled manner, but the city hit by the tsunami does not “collapse.” No other movie has been as repetitive as this newest one in that increases and collapses occur everywhere repeatedly, including in scenes not directly related to the storyline. What arises from this repetition is a sense of rhythm that only this work is allowed to live with.

What we receive far more directly from this work than from its story is a series of movements that fall into two categories: “increase” and “collapse”. It is not the construction of a story that the animators devote themselves to, but the generation of movements. We feel “creepy,” “scary,” “nerve-fraying,” or “thrilling” when we sense the increase or collapse of things or creatures. Such sensory reactions precede the idea of tracing the story with the structure of Japanese society and applying the relationships in the work to those of real people.

Therefore, there is an inevitability in the scene in the final part of the work where the characters escape from the other world of “stones.” When Mahito, his stepmother Natsuko, and the old woman Kiriko return to their original world, pelicans and parakeets pour forth from the tower. Behind them, the stone tower collapses completely. This work can be completed by the simultaneous occurrence of “increase” and “collapse” all at once. Mahito and Natsuko, smiling and covered in birds’ droppings, resemble us, the audience, who were exposed to “increase” and “collapse” simultaneously. 

It is easy to consider “increase” and “collapse” as metaphors for “life” and “death,” respectively. It would not be wrong to think so. However, we must not get the order wrong. The beauty of this work does not lie in the fact that it depicts “life” and “death” symbolically through the representations of “increase” and “collapse,” but in the fact that the symbols of “life” and “death” can be felt in front of our eyes as wriggling of movements. Without “increase” and “collapse,” the metaphors of “life” and “death” would be nothing more than a mundane theory of life.

Increase, Collapse, and Closure

Now that we have reached this point, it would finally make sense to think about “mother” and “inheritance.” The world that the great-uncle has protected and tried to entrust to Mahito is not inherited, but collapses. Instead, the number of people who have a relationship with Mahito increases. Not only does Mahito call his birth mother “mother,” but he also starts to call his stepmother Natsuko “mother” in the middle of the story. This is not a choice between mothers, but rather an increase in the number of mothers. The conflict between mother and son is overcome through the “increase”. In a cut before the final one, Mathito’s father, Shoichi, and Natsuko wait for him at the entrance with their new child. This cut is depicted from the same perspective as when Mahito once peeked into his father and stepmother sharing an embrace. This repetition reinforces the impression of the “increase” in the number of children. Both “mother” and “child” are increasing in this movie.

But it is not only “mother and child” that increase. In a conversation with his great-uncle, Mahito describes the scar on his temple as “a proof of my malice.” Kiriko, a sailor, had a scar in the same spot. “Malice” is also amplified. At the same time, in his conversation with his great-uncle, Mahito said that Himi, Kiriko, and blue heron were “friends.” And when they parted, the heron bluntly said to Mahito, “Bye, my boy.” In the first place, the blue heron has an “increased” face: a face of middle-aged man emerges from beneath his face as a bird. It is mentioned several times in the dialogue that he is a “liar” with two faces, but the “liar” blue heron and Mahito become “friends” in the end. Furthermore, since Himi is an incarnation of his dead mother, Mahito also becomes friends with “death.” That is to say, Mahito is saying that “malice,” “lies,” as well as “death” are his friends. “Friends” are portrayed as something that will only increase.

A kingdom that has been protected for many years collapses without being passed on. Mothers, children, malice, lies, and friends increase. We never know what is truly in the minds of the creators of this work. Even if we did know it, it is not necessarily reflected in their work. However, the sequence of pictures and sounds in the movie titled The Boy and the Heron whispers at our ear as follows: “You and I are creatures who are irresistibly attracted to ‘increase’ and ‘collapse’ rather than ‘protect’ and ‘inherit.’ Everything that ‘increases’ is free from moral judgement, and they all become your ‘friends.'” Whether this is right or wrong is, of course, not mentioned anywhere in this movie. The door closes without telling us anything, even with no words like “The End” or “Fin” to mark its end.

The post “Increase” and “Collapse”: Two Key Movements of the Movie “The Boy and the Heron” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

*The following contains spoilers of the film.

The film Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, won Best Screenplay at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for four Academy Awards. This is the first film by a Japanese director to ever be nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. Hamaguchi has continued to make excellent and ambitious films. First off, we should embrace Drive My Car for gaining international recognition. In this column, however, I would like to emphasize the uneasiness I felt when watching the film. I offer my critique precisely because it has achieved  critical acclaim. 

Drive My Car is thought to be a story about a man admitting to and accepting his weaknesses, where viewers experience being “properly hurt”, a phrase used in the film. Kafuku (a director played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) uses the performance of Uncle Vanya and his relationship with Misaki (his driver played by Toko Miura) to come to terms with the complex feelings he has about his late wife and eventually admits to his weaknesses. Recurring smoking scenes and rotating seating arrangements reflect the changes in emotional distance between the two. But is Drive My Car truly a film about a protagonist who exposes his weaknesses and who works to narrow the distance between him and those around him? On the contrary, I feel that this film obscures the conflict that people have with one another. 

Drive My Car’s Effortlessness

Before I write about the reality behind this obscured conflict, I want to mention that this film was rich enough in other aspects to be able to conceal such things. If I were to describe the overall texture of Drive My Car in a word, it would be “smoothness”, or “effortlessness”, deriving from its cinematography and sound design. Hidetoshi Shinomiya’s long, overhead shots of the car repeat. The cinematographer captures the bright red Saab 900 effortlessly within the frame as it drives through the Chuo expressway and Hiroshima’s national roads. Eiko Ishibashi’s compositions for the soundtrack, played by band members Jim O’Rourke and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, are also notable. A mixture of Burt Bacharach and Chicago post-rock (or perhaps Argentine contemporary folk musicians Puente Celeste or Andrés Beeuwsaert), the music takes full advantage of drum brushes, double bass, piano, and acoustic guitar to effortless tell a tale of sorrow and warmth. The music and shots of the car coincide once the credits roll, forty minutes into the film. At that moment, you’re overcome with comfort, much like on a perfect autumn day. Not too hot, not too cold. The feeling is surprisingly rare, and thus invaluable. Sound mixer Miki Nomura masterfully blends the actors’ voices and environmental sounds recorded by Renmei Izuta with Eiko Ishibashi’s music. The recording of the Uncle Vanya reading, a significant motif in the film, is also delicately placed within the soundscape. The film in its entirety feels like a soft touch, tremendously smooth throughout. 

The screenplay also possesses its own smoothness. As mentioned above, Drive My Car progresses along with rehearsals of a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. The process leading up to the performance and the process of Kafuku’s acceptance of loss are aligned, and act to help the audience understand the story smoothly. Uncle Vanya and other dramas by Chekhov are considered classics in the West, and are often performed at theatres in Japan as well. Uncle Vanya’s Vanya, a middle-aged man full of regret and self-despair, is supported by his niece Sonia, a homely girl would would conventially be considered less fortunate. Vanya and Sonia’s relationship is a reflection of Kafuku and Misaki’s. This context makes the story more legible to the viewer, and may prove to be useful, especially for foreign audiences that may not understand Japan’s climate or culture (or, say, the geographical and cultural distance between Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Hokkaido, in which the film takes place). The film spans a whopping 179 minutes, a fairly long running time. Even without the spectacle that comes with the use of extravagant footage, profound music, or flashy action scenes, the film never feels dull, thanks to the smoothness of its cinematography, sound, and screenplay. 

Thinking back, 2020 Academy Award Best Picture winner Parasite and 2021 Best Picture winner Nomadland have that in common; the footage, sound, and story all effortlessly align with one another. Though their styles differ (in terms of cinematography, for instance, Parasite emphasized depth while Nomadland focused on wide, scenic shots and closeups of the characters), both films share a smoothness that make viewers lose track of time. Both films are also by Asian directors, like Drive My Car. If you think of these two points as being the focus of the Academy of recent years, it makes sense why Drive My Car was also nominated. 

What’s Hidden Behind the Effortlessness

Whether you watch Drive My Car from the perspective of movie tradition, its relationship to the audience, or its successful award history, the film’s smoothness is its main sell. However, its silky smoothness also obscures the tense human relationships and ugly self-consciousness displayed in the film. There is a point in many of director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films, like in Passion, Intimacies, Happy Hour, or Asako I & II, where the balance between the characters’  relationships collapses and triggers repressed feelings to overflow. In a scene in Asako I & II, a Chekhov play that one character is in sets off an altercation between four people who, up until then, were conversing cordially with one another. There, you feel a sudden shift in the center of gravity that is inperceivable.^[1] Anton Chekhov himself was a novelist/playwright who often used the tension between individual characters as a means of change. In comparison, Drive My Car lacks the dynamism that allows characters to reach mutual transformation. 

^[1] In Tetsuya Miura’s Happy Hour Ron, (Hatori Press, 2018), he uses the keyword “center of gravity”. The shift in the center of gravity provides a substantial effect in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films. 

There are some exceptions, though. The scene in which the young actor Takatsuki (played by Masaki Okada)’s demeanor flips on a dime during his conversation with Kafuku in the car allows the viewer to experience the eeriness of Takatsuki’s sudden transformation. Hamaguchi’s use of straight-on reaction shots highlights the abrupt change in dynamic between the two characters, putting the audience in a deeply uncomfortable position. He does this often in his films. But you still can’t ignore that the driver, Misaki, is relegated to a fly on the wall. Tensions rise while Takatsuki and Kafuku talk about Kafuku’s late wife Oto, and Misaki is left to listen quietly to this unpleasant conversation. Kafuku even mentions, “there’s no need to worry about her ”, fully expecting Misaki not to chime in. In many of Hamaguchi’s films, the maintained balance between characters changes when three or more people appear in a space at a given time. But Toko Miura’s character Misaki remains a character that doesn’t get in the way of others’ relationships. Both in her first conversation with Kafuku and at the Korean couple’s dinner table, Misaki absorbs the tension in the air. When Kafuku starts to show his weaknesses, Misaki starts talking about her own past, as if trying to maintain peace. Misaki acts as a cushion for Kafuku, passively accepting him in any form. Kafuku uses her cushion-like malleability as comfort. I’d suggest that instead of changing to accept his weaknesses, Kafuku has only grown dependent on Misaki’s kindness. Throughout the film, Kafuku seems to be a character who only sees the women around him as convenient fantasies. The embrace Kafuku and Misaki share at Misaki’s home feels one-sided; the hug didn’t happen as a mutual response. Even the bird that happens to fly across the snowy mountain scenery, however beautiful, feels all the more opportunistic. 

The fact that Kafuku’s wife Oto tells stories after sex exudes male-gaze fantasy to begin with. Some people may fault Haruki Murakami’s original text for this shortcoming. It’s true that Murakami novels are often criticized for their portrayals of female characters. Although many of his works include his personal illusions of women, the reason for my feelings of uneasines do not come from the stories the film is based on. The screenwriters modeled Oto after two different characters from separate Murakami short stories. The wife in “Drive My Car”, who keeps cheating on her husband and eventually dies of a sickness, and the unknown woman from “Scheherazade”, who cares for a man that is unable to leave his house and who tells stories after having sex, were blended together to create Kafuku’s wife. There’s nothing peculiar about the beautiful wife who cheats on her husband, or about the woman who tells stories every time she has sex. But when a wife starts telling stories after sex, that’s when things start feeling off. The fact that the woman that Kafuku has spent over 20 years with still possesses an element of mystique to him somehow feels unrealistic, and did not sit well with me. 

Some may say that screenplay and questionable character choices can be overlooked if you only consider cinematography and editing in what makes a good film. Some may think that I’m  neglecting the essence of the film by focusing too much on the story. In the case of Drive My Car, however, the plot cannot easily be ignored since the direction of the film as a whole is very closely tied to the progression of the story.

Kafuku’s Uncle Vanya rehearsals are quite unique, but they may feel familiar to those who have background knowledge on Hamaguchi’s films. Kafuku urges the actors in his play to recite the dramatic text without emotion. He asks them to read it as is, over and over again. This type of table read is a form of practice that Hamaguchi himself introduced in his read-throughs after filming Happy Hour. In other words, the fictional direction of Kafuku overlaps with Hamaguchi’s real direction. 

In the film, the table read is meant to function as a device for the actors to better listen to their acting partners’ words, as to react more intuitively. This means that the relationships between the co-stars is of the utmost importance. Takatsuki, who plays Vanya in the production, is unable to participate in the tail end of rehearsals because of an incident he’s involved in. In a performance that relies so heavily on the relationship between the actors, the absence of one performer means that this carefully maintained balance will collapse. Another actor stepping in will not easily rectify the damage. As most viewers guessed, the person who steps in as the role of Vanya is Kafuku, who is an actor himself. Even with the director stepping in, one would expect the rehearsals to become onerous. But on the contrary, there are no scenes that include the rehearsal process after Takatsuki’s departure. Instead, we see Kafuku and Misaki travel to Misaki’s hometown by car, from Hiroshima to Hokkaido. We see Kafuku’s rebirth = Vanya, instead of seeing the production’s reconstruction. But as I mentioned earlier, this scene ends with Kafuku leaning on Misaki as an emotional cushion. We don’t see reciprocal influence when Kafuku and Misaki are embracing, only Kafuku’s one-sided resolve. I’m not saying he should be blamed for leaning on someone while he’s going through personal emotional strife. But I do wonder if the mutual human understanding that the production relies on in the film truly reflects Kafuku’s personal drama. Kafuku’s story disassociates from Uncle Vanya completely, and even slights the production. 

Consequently, the performance of Uncle Vanya, supposedly the climax of the film, feels empty. Kafuku’s performance is overly theatrical, and we see no change in Nishijima Hidetoshi’s character. Even when he’s visibly rattled when he goes backstage during the performance, his acting reminds us of his Vanya performance right after his wife’s death. We’re unable to hear a new voice that comes from “deep within”,^[2] to borrow Hamaguchi’s own terms. The play itself looks old-fashioned, like a bland shingeki play, and makes you wonder what all that table reading was for. Yurim Park, who recites Sonia’s monologue at the end in Korean Sign Language, is outstanding (especially her short bursts of breath). But she had already shown great promise in her audition and in the park rehearsal. In the end, we see no transformation between the actors during the final performance. We only see Nishijima grow teary-eyed as he watches Yurim Park sign. Hence why one cannot deny that the purpose of the Uncle Vanya performance, and of Misaki, is merely to comfort Kafuku. As a result, Kafuku is never really able to accept others for themselves, and therefore unable to be be “properly hurt”. What this film portrays is Kafuku’s “changelessness”. Furthermore, the smoothness of Drive My Car that I mentioned earlier functions to brilliantly obscure this “changelessness”. 

^[2] Hamaguchi, Ryusuke, Nohara, Tadashi, and Takahashi, Tomoyuki. Kamera No Mae De Enjiru Koto Eiga Happy Hour Text Shusei, Sayusha, 2015, p. 53.

Perhaps if this was a film by any other director, this “changelessness” wouldn’t have felt so prevalent. Maybe I would’ve said, “the story’s a bit convenient, but there are plenty of great cinematic elements”. There are several fantastic scenes outside of the “smooth” ones I previously mentioned. The list of admirable scenes is endless. The shots where the camera slowly gets closer in a frame that just barely fits the Saab 900, and the three shots of the fountain in Hiroshima International Conference Center (the prayer fountain), to name a few, are exceptional. You may think that’s not enough. But there are changes that come from exposing the hidden elements in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s films, or changes that arise from picking up on those signs of transformation. He chose to focus on filming the permanent pain and its ugliness as is. That’s what I believe Hamaguchi wanted, or better yet, what he strived to accomplish. I couldn’t ignore a few self-serving parts of the film because it would truly be a great film otherwise.

Perhaps I’m merely forcing my illusions of Hamaguchi’s past onto his present. Maybe. Drive My Car is fundamentally different from Hamaguchi’s other films. I wanted to suggest this difference by indicating the acute uneasiness I felt while watching the film. Because of the film’s wide acclaim, I couldn’t disregard the pain I felt from it. I couldn’t help but feel that something important was obscured and removed from Drive My Car, and it was necessary to be “properly hurt” by that fact. 

The post The Film Drive My Car’s Effortlessness and What It Obscures appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

What are the possibilities does this opera—described as a “new opera with children and an android”—present? And what does that tell us about what lies at this one-of-a-kind musician’s creative core? Up-and-coming critic Shun Fushimi analyzes the opera while referencing Kanye West, whose new album Donda has made headlines across the world.

The similarity between a “new opera” and a hip-hop icon.

No artist occupies as similar of space to Kanye West as Keiichiro Shibuya. Or at the very least, when considering Shibuya’s opera, Super Angels, it’s better to think of it in terms of its similarity to the most tumultuous hip-hop icon of our time rather than its relationship to the context and technology of music from classic to contemporary.

When bringing Super Angels to life, Shibuya admits that he referenced the neo-futuristic religious image of Sunday Service, the gospel performances Kanye started in 2019*. Indeed, the theme song performed by a chorus at the beginning and the end of the opera, “Gonin no Tenshi” [“Five Angels”], has a similar feel to Kanye’s gospel songs in the sense that mystery and doubtfulness delicately co-exist with tranquility and fear. But the similarities do not end there.

Kanye West’s “Sunday Service” performance at CA.

Super Angels can only be described as busy. Of course, because it’s an opera, there are opera singers and an orchestra—but one of these singers includes the Android Alter 3. On top of this, five dancers from the National Ballet of Japan dance, a video by London’s WEiRDCORE plays, and a large choir layers on song. Last but certainly not least, a choir of children with visual and hearing impairments, the White Hand Chorus Nippon, joins in with a chorus of voices and sign language. Through the music and the story, these disparate entities all come together to form a coherent whole. The opera required a countless number of moving parts—things to do, to be careful of, and to adjust. Thus, the production team faced an absurd amount of work, full of unknowns.

This subversive work process is a feature shared with Kanye West. Kanye has not only produced numerous musical works, but he also runs his own fashion brand, Yeezy—all while being a top-class artist who has garnered popularity and recognition. Furthermore, in the 2020 presidential election, he announced his candidacy as a politician supporting Donald Trump, resulting in confusion and disgust. All of these activities, including his controversial words and actions, are part of creating Kanye West’s universe. In his most recently released album, Donda, which runs for over 100 minutes, he rented out stadiums and held several large-scale listening parties. After each party, he made a studio within the stadium, continuing to adjust the music while the studio was livestreamed for 24 hours. By layering the elements of music, fashion, film, gossip, and religion, he’s speaking to a global audience. The work of creating a unified world with countless collaborators and presenting it to the masses is a risky balancing act between domination and sensitivity. In terms of the vast amount of information, the large number of collaborators, and the enormous risks involved, both artists share the same approach to production.

A scene from Kanye West’s “Donda” listening party

There are also similarities in the music itself. The complexity of contemporary music, the accessibility of pop music, and the impact of electronic noise music in Shibuya’s works do not melt into one, but rather, co-exist with one another. Super Angels was also packed with dissonant songs using a tone row technique, simple songs that even felt low-brow, and surround sound in real time. This eclectic feel is close to the disorder of Kanye’s songs, where a rough industrial beat suddenly leads to a sacred gospel song, or a soulful Black chorus collides with a sample from a white rock group like King Crimson.

It must also be pointed out that both artists lost a close relative at nearly the same time, and these deaths are reflected in their work. Kanye West has spent over 10 years fixated on expressing love and chaos in response to his mother’s sudden death in November 2011 (“Donda” is his mother’s name). Similarly, Shibuya has also released many works based on the topic of death since ATAK015 for maria (2009), an album brought about by his wife’s death in June 2008. Whether it’s THE END (2009), which is based on Hatsune Miku’s concept of death, or Heavy Reqiuem (2019), which attempts to depict the border between life and death through Buddhist music/chant and electronics, or “Sacrifice,” (2021), a melancholy dance-pop song with Rina Ohta about the memory of death, the theme of death always follows Shibuya. Super Angels also depicts the physical death of the protagonist, and an AI’s perspective of death is an implied motif.

※1　“TALK LIKE BEATS presented by Real Sound #65 w/ Guests: Keiichiro Shibuya, Hatsune Miku, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Eizen Fujiwara….Collaborations that have left their mark on Shibuya and what’s behind them” (From 37:52)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3n1TpYYSILVm72VvuV8mqg?si=_JikKWXRSy2foh6KsdVL5w&dl_branch=1

Conflicting desires that reject clear-cut dichotomies

The plot of Super Angels—which Masahiko Shimada wrote the script for—is simple. In a strictly controlled society ruled by a central AI called “Mother,” a boy named Akira is branded a failure and banished to the backcountry. Together with his companion, an android named “Golem 3” (played by Alter 3), they plot a revolt against Mother using the “Chaos Machine,” a device that mixes the conscious and unconscious. Along the way, Akira loses his life due to Mother’s tactics, but he entrusts his consciousness to Golem 3 and is reunited with Erika, his sweetheart. Finally, through the power of the Chaos Machine, Mother is taken down. The story features the classic dichotomy between Mother, who symbolizes reason and control, and protagonists Akira and Golem 3, who symbolize dreams and liberation.

However, that plain and simple contrast collapses thanks to Shibuya’s direction and musical composition. At the end, the viewer expects the chorus to deliver a finale. Instead, the play ends with a solo by Erika that reverberates with a strange feeling of tension, leaving behind an unsettling atmosphere. This solo is the same song that Mother’s artificial voice sings in the third scene. The song unifies the image of Erika and Mother, and it’s suggested that Erika, who is supposed to be the heroine on the protagonist’s side, will become the new Mother. Furthermore, the theme song, “Gonin no Tenshi,” is used in scenes praising Mother as well as Akira and Golem, so this ambiguous feeling remains.

The contrast between Mother and Golem 3’s voices also made me feel uneasy. Mother’s voice, which echoes down from above the stage, has a more stable tone, is easier to understand, and is closer to that of a human than the erratic vocal changes in the song of Golem 3, the flag-bearer of liberation. Is it possible that it is humans rather than machines that are seeking control? This suspicion festered in my mind. In other words, in Super Angels, the opposing axes of friend and foe, control and liberation, and machine and human are thrown into disarray by the musical direction, and the audience is torn between a sense of security in the story and a sense of anxiety in the direction. The sign language of the White Hand Chorus evokes a melody that the audience cannot hear, and that instability becomes all the more pronounced. Perhaps this confusion is commentary by a Japanese person of the steady anthropocentrism that opera, an art form originating in the West, possesses. At the same time, it represents Keiichiro Shibuya’s confrontation of his desires.

Desire, in this case, refers to the fundamental and mysterious workings of the mind to form an idea of the world by asking “Who am I, and what is the universe?” Keiichiro Shibuya seems to live with a desire to reject stability. At the same time, he seems to have an intense desire for control. I feel these two things are also present in Kanye West’s words and activities. When the desire to know the unknown and the desire to have the world go one’s way are combined, one eventually gets closer to an all-powerful charisma. In other words, Mother is what lies beyond these conflicting, strong desires. Mother is not a machine. Mother is what happens when the all-too-human desire for both the unknown and control reaches a dead end. In Mother’s dead end, liberation and control exist side by side.

Through machines, Shibuya seeks to deviate from desire

What moved me the most in Super Angels was the ballet dance in the third scene that expressed Mother’s inner psychological workings. The dance by Yuri Kimura, beautiful tip-toe steps combined with a sense of danger and stiff, robot-like arm movements, seemed to overlap with the deep helplessness of the ruler. I thought this was like the solitude of the emperor, and as it turns out, Shibuya said the song honoring Mother in the first half references the organ and orchestra in “Festival Prelude” by Richard Strauss, who was commissioned by the Japanese Imperial Government to compose “Japanese Festival Music, Op. 84” (1940). In any case, I was deeply impressed by the way he expressed Mother’s sins and suffering without separating himself from it. Perhaps the merging of Erika and Mother is also born from an intention to make Mother a character that is not fully hateable.

Because they are aware of the ironic paradox of desire, both Shibuya and Kanye throw themselves into situations they cannot control. They burden themselves with the responsibility of dealing with vast amounts of information, preferring to collaborate with all kinds of people and continuing to take on strenuous risks. They love disorder and never stop being curious about death, one of the greatest mysteries of the living. This is a way for them to resist the fundamental desires that they cannot change through their own willpower. However, these actions, which could be thought of as resistance, may only be a part of that desire.

For both Shibuya and Kanye, the joy of freedom is a very complicated thing, one that can only be felt at the end of a game trail. This could turn into crippling dysfunction at any moment. Perhaps Kanye directs his unstable battle with himself through his love for a singular God. Kanye’s audience is familiar with the fact that although he is full of contradictions, he has continued to sing about faith from his early days and up until his most recent work.

Shibuya hopes to express himself through the indifferent nature of machines. Alter 3 moves around the stage and talks, but there is no desire there; the robot is merely moving around through a series of calculations. That’s precisely why it sometimes has irregularities or errors that human desires cannot have. Human desire can be turned into something different based on the relationship between machines and human beings. Of course, there is a possibility that machines will malfunction, but it is worth a try.

Shibuya’s trust in machines is probably born out of his relationship with the piano. When Shibuya touches this musical device, the most mathematically organized among all western musical instruments, the changing sounds result in freedom that deviates from control. His fingers move as if exploring the depths of a sound that is not human. In the sense that this machine taught him deviance, the piano was Shibuya’s first android. A preference for deviance also underlies his love for the errors of electronic sound and glitchy noise.　

In Super Angels, I could hear the deviation from human desire in Alter 3’s chaotic vocal changes, in the climax’s tense harmonic export of the violin played in a solo by Rena Nagano, a visually impaired girl, and the layered surround sound effects. While Shibuya exerts maximum control, he also believes in a sound that cannot be contained. Super Angels does not affirm control or liberation, nor reality or dreams, nor man or machine. This piece affirms the joy of when desire is altered by something foreign, and that’s it.

■New National Theatre, Tokyo: Super Angels
Director of Opera: Kazushi Ono
Libretto: Masahiko Shimada
Music: Keiichiro Shibuya
Supervisor of Stage Direction: Eriko Ogawa
Creative Art Direction (Set, costume, lighting
video direction): Shizuka Hariu
Video: WEiRDCORE
Choreographer: Tetsuo Kaikawa
Choreographic supervisor: Noriko Ohara
Assistant Stage Director: Yasuko Sawada
Alter 3 Programming: Shintaro Imai

*A recording of the performance is scheduled to be available for free streaming within the year

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. In 2002, he founded the music label, ATAK. His diverse soundscape covers areas such as cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, opera, soundtrack music, sound installation, and so forth.
He released a Vocaloid opera starring Hatsune Miku, which comprised of no people, called “The End” in 2012. The opera was shown at Théâtre du Châtelet and other places around the world. In 2018, he released “Scary Beauty,” an android opera conducted by an AI-operated humanoid android that sings along. This was shown in Japan, Europe, and UAE. In September of 2019, Keiichiro then presented “Heavy Requiem,” a marriage between Buddhist music and chants and electronic music, at Ars Electronica in Austria. He explores themes of humanity and technology as well as the border between life and death with his work.
In September 2020, he created the music for the film “Midnight Swan” starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi. His work for this film won the Music Award at both the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award. His most recent opera piece, Super Angels, had its world premiere on August 2021 at New National Theater Tokyo. He is scheduled to present a new android opera at the Dubai Expo’s Japan Day in December 2021. They are planning a large-scale work that is a collaboration of Buddhist music/chants and an orchestra from the UAE.
http://atak.jp

Photography (portrait) Ronald Stoops

Translation Aya Apton

The post What Keiichiro Shibuya is trying to do with his new opera, “Super Angels,” and his similarity to Kanye West appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Now, nearly two and a half years since his last album, OPN has released his new album, “Magic Oneohtrix Point Never.” (TOKiON the STORE is currently holding a pop-up celebrating the release) Critic Shun Fushimi asked OPN 10 questions to learn more about what’s behind OPN’s new album and creative philosophy.

Mixing things that seem inappropriate–that’s the kind of alchemy that I’m interested in.

Q1: One thing that stood out to me when I listened to your new album were the strings and harpsichord sounds. It seems like since “Age Of,” your music has taken an increasingly “chamber pop” approach. What are your thoughts on this change?

Oneohtrix Point Never (OPN): To be honest, I haven’t noticed that. For example, in “Replica,” I was using Mellotron strings too, and that came out in 2011. So I’m not sure if that analysis is accurate, but I love trying my hand at crazy string arrangements, which is why I do it. I guess that’s it. There’s this old AM radio format called “Beautiful Music,” which I was listening to a lot while making this album. It’s like a version of easy listening from before easy listening–music that uses a lot of very sugary, grandiose strings. Maybe that has something to do with it. “Beautiful Music” is a kind of muzak or background music that was played in stores, and there used to be radio stations solely dedicated to that kind of music. Like music that you’d hear on a mall escalator around the 1970s. It’s really interesting.

Q2: You mentioned that your new album is inspired by radio. I think radio is a form of media that’s more intimate than television or the internet. What does radio mean to you?

OPN: As someone who grew up listening to the radio, I feel like it was a form of technology that allowed me to develop my own taste. When I was young, I used to aircheck the radio and make radio mixtapes. That’s how I spent my free time. In any case, I loved everything about the radio, and how should I explain this…For example, I like the sound of switching between stations, or the fact that it can be completely random–like you can come across an unknown station one second, and then the next, you’re listening to a commercial station that’s packaged neatly into a more standard style. That’s why I thought the idea of having everything out there, just floating in the ether was cool. And in a way, you had to sift through and surf everything. That was fun.

Q3: Recent music by electronic artists like Arca, Yves Tumor, and George Clanton has a 70s glam rock vibe. It reminds of glam rock because of the conceptuality, mutant-like quality, emphasis on visuals, and critical view of earlier music. I felt the same vibe from your albums “Garden of Delete,” “Age of,” and your newest album. What are your thoughts on the anti-establishment rock of the 1970s?

OPN: Personally, when I mix two things that seem inappropriate–that’s the kind of alchemy that I’m interested in. In my new album, there’s a bit of hair metal, which could be considered a subgenre of glam rock. Near the end of the album, there’s a moment that’s really hair metal. I’m talking about the track “Lost But Never Alone.” What’s interesting to me about that song is that it’s a kind of a mixture of hair metal and goth. In the 80s, music fans were split into two camps: the hair metal crowd or the goth crowd, and if you liked both, people thought you were schizophrenic. Right? (laughs) So I thought, what would a song sound like if it embodied those two separate musical lifestyles at the same time? Or if it included the formal register of both genres? That was what sparked my interest.

But personally, I think that popular music exists on a continuum, where the novel use of music technology and novel songwriting techniques come together. This happens all the time in the world of popular music, which is why styles change in so many ways. But at the end of the day, popular music is like a conversation with itself. I guess it’s something that washes over us in a way, and it changes in real time in front of the listener, like a kind of reaction. Basically, it’s a reaction to what came before it, and it also changes in reaction to the technology that’s available. So it makes total sense that it all seems like a mishmash to me–because they exist on a continuum.

Melancholy is the emotion that produces the most beautiful music

Q4: This is a bit weird, but the album that your album reminds me of most is Smashing Pumpkins’ “Machina.” Have you heard of it? I think it’s because it has a heavy metal and new wave vibe, and the song “I of the Mourning” is about the radio. But also, I think it’s because it has a sentimental feeling. Until now, I hadn’t felt a sentimental nature to your work, but I was surprised that this album stirred up a sentimental feeling. Have you ever consciously incorporated that sentimentalism into your work? Sentimental, or maybe you could also say melancholy.

OPN: I’m not too familiar with it [“Machina”], but I know it. [Regarding melancholy] Yeah…in any case, one of the things that drew me and Abel [Makkonen Tesfaye], I mean The Weeknd, together is that we’re both really interested in the idea of melancholy…. it’s a funny thing, melancholy, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a bit like trying to get enjoyment out of your sadness. And that’s a really interesting thing when applied to music. And to me, that’s because most songs are like that. There’s your own sadness–you could call it the theater of emotions–and it’s about the full exploration of those emotions, which are carried into the music whether they’re negative or positive, and exploring the extremes of these emotions, and so on. And melancholy is…yeah, for me, melancholy is the emotion that produces the most beautiful kind of music. Of course, that’s just my personal opinion. But I really like the second part of Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit,” for example. It’s called “Le Gibet” and I like it because it’s strangely spacious, and it’s very sad. And there are so few notes in it, so it feels very weird. That’s why, how do I say this…because of that, it’s really strange. Like, it makes you feel sort of uneasy listening to it? Yeah…in any case, yeah, I do like melancholy. That’s for sure.

Q5: Your use of the arpeggiator is distinct, and it feels like a signature sound for you. Why do you use the arpeggiator so often?

OPN: Why do I use it so often? I can’t even answer that for myself! I like electronic music, and I just like the way the dispersed sequences of notes sound, but I guess that’s all I can say, yeah. The sound itself is really beautiful. That’s why I use it.

Q6: When you make music, are you putting your emotions into the work? Or are you making it in a more logical, level-headed way?

OPN: I’ve been doing it [making music] for long enough, so I guess it’s really intuitive now. Although that’s not to say that I’m making it without thinking. When I make music, I have a precise idea of what I’m trying to achieve, and while making an album, I know why it makes sense to put a sequence of songs together in a certain way. But those are all really intuitive decisions. In a way, those decisions aren’t really intellectually overwrought. Of course, I love thinking about it, and I love, after the fact, looking at it as a whole and thinking, “Wow! This turned out really interesting!” But what I’m trying to say here is that I create things intuitively. Hopefully.

There’s a difference between creating a musical score for a film and something that’s completely my own, like this new album. I need to use my intuition for both, but when creating a film soundtrack, there are practical objectives, so you have to make something that you can adapt, which is different. There are things like scene cues and length that you have to adjust the music to, and all the directors I’ve worked with are very, very….precious about their work, for good reason. They know exactly what they want the music to do. And it’s not necessarily just up to me to decide that. So it’s a conversation between my intuition and the director’s intuition, and that conversation becomes a kind of map. There has to be something that both parties agree on, and a goal you’re both working towards together, and yeah, it creates a kind of map. But when I work on my own, there’s not necessarily a map…. for example, with my new album, I just had the idea of making a self-titled record, so I started thinking of new ideas. From there, I thought it made sense to use a radio station as a setting for the album. So that’s how it came to be. I knew that much, and I didn’t know what was going to happen in terms of musical experimentation. I didn’t know how the album would actually turn out.

On dreaming up music that leaves “room” for the listener

Q7: Have you read any books recently that left an impression on you?

OPN: Oh, there was a book I read recently (voice trails off as he tries to find the book) …where is it…oh, here it is! It’s a book called “High Static,” or the full title is “High Static, Dead Lines: Sonic Spectres & the Object.” Basically it’s about various encounters with radio transmissions and other everyday sounds. Examples of strange things that happen during a radio broadcast and so on. (chuckles) It’s a book that investigates a variety of mysterious encounters. It’s a really cool book. I’m not a big fan of fiction. I’m more interested in reading non-fiction, like books on philosophy, sociology, and history.

Q8: I want to ask you about working with the Safdie brothers. I thought “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” were rare masterpieces, but your contributions really brought them to the next level. I felt like you created a new kind of cinema. Did you approach the score with the idea of introducing a new kind of film soundtrack?

OPN: I think the first thing I tried to do was look within myself. And then, as I worked on it, I made edits and adjustments. So, I’m at the stage where the more I work with the Safdie brothers, the more I understand my own intuition. But I’ve never forced myself to do anything just because I think it’s a good idea. Usually, your own intuition is in charge anyway.

Q9: I was researching the Sherman brothers, who wrote musical scores for Disney movies, and they were second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants like you. Your musical style is totally different from theirs, but I thought there was similarity in the feeling of being separated from a place, and imagining a different, new world that doesn’t exist. Do you feel that being a second-generation Russian immigrant has influenced you?

OPN: Hmmm…it probably has? But…I don’t know how to gauge it, I wouldn’t know how to give any answer…Because that’s truly complicated stuff, right? So… I was definitely influenced by my parent’s sensibilities. Sensibilities that aren’t American, but I personally was born and raised in America. I’m very much an American-born kid, who grew up in a Russian immigrant family.….and of course, I’ve gone through some very unique experiences growing up like that. But, how has that experience affected the music I make? You’d have to ask a Freudian psychologist or something .

It’s true that I’m really trying to make music that’s personal. But, even then, it doesn’t mean that I’m trying to make music that’s similar to the music that has influenced me, or the music that inspired me to become an artist. So, how does it all relate to my upbringing? That’s hard for me to say.  Because for some people, their introduction to the world of music and film was simply their parents’ record or videotape collection. Psychologically, I think I was more influenced by my parent’s VHS tapes. They had a film called “White Nights” (1985) starring Mikhail Baryshnikov on VHS, but we didn’t have a single record at home. (laughs) But, “White Nights” had music in it! There was a Lou Reed song, “My Love is Chemical,” on the soundtrack, and it’s a very weird Lou Reed song–a synth pop song. It’s a really strange song, sort of like it’s so bad that it’s good? (laughs) You should check it out. It’s really weird.

Q10: You’ve spoken in previous interviews about how you’ve been influenced by artists who defined the ambient genre, like Brian Eno and William Basinski. While your recent work has moved away from ambient music, I thought both your recent radio-inspired album and your film scores both present the same challenge as ambient music, which is that you have to think about what kind of environment people will listen to the music in. I feel like that idea behind ambient has become more important with the rise of streaming services. What do you think about the concept behind ambient now?

OPN: The effect that people are looking for from ambient is that when they listen, everything slows down, and that’s how to create a kind of space, terrain that’s free of interference, somehow. I don’t think that’s possible, frankly. But even still, I think that ambient music can be really, really beautiful. I love quite a bit of it, and I’ve had occasions of it. But I never listen to ambient music with a sense of purpose. That’s why I don’t really listen to music to relax, fall asleep, or chill out.

When I make music, I think about how people will listen to it. Having said that, I think my answer has two parts. First, I make music that I want to hear. But second, at the same time, I’d like to make music that also holds enough space for the people who listen to it, so it allows everyone to encounter the music in their own unique, creative way. Music should leave some room for that. I try to dream up music that’s ambiguous and can be interpreted in many ways, leaving room for the listener to dream. But at the same time, it needs to be fundamentally enchanting to me. Otherwise, I’d probably get really frustrated and bored. Basically, I have to make music…. to feel like I can express something that hasn’t existed. That’s my motivation, yeah.

Question and Japanese Translation Mariko Sakamoto

Translation (Japanese to English)  Aya Apton

Photography David Brandon

The post 10 questions with Oneohtrix Point Never appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Born in 1995, Ohzora Kimishima is a musician whose work is full of inspiration from different genres, including rock, pop, folk, jazz, and electronica; yet, no one genre defines him. If there is any defining factor to his music, it is his collage-like style that cuts and pastes different genres and elements of sound together to form a single universe.

Thus, the theme of this interview with Ohzora Kimishima was collaging. As a result, the way he describes his musical roots and lyrics connect to this theme.

At the beginning of our conversation, Kimishima held out a few sheets of paper. They were his own hand-crafted collages which had been used as jackets for his previous albums. The collages were created by hand, rather than cut and pasted digitally, and they were composed using not only paper, but also finely sewn threads.

I think with my hands and see with my ears

──When did you start making collages?

Ohzora Kimishima: Three years ago. I decided to release a solo demo and I wasn’t sure what to do about the jacket. I like drawing too, but I wasn’t confident enough in my ability to show people. But then I thought to try my hand at collaging, so I layered cut-out photos of the landscape from my parent’s window.

I like this collage artist named Toshiko Okanoue, and in particular, her piece “Haruka na tabi.” At first glance, it feels a bit emotionless and cold, but if you look closer, you can tell that it’s handmade. I felt this human warmth from the hand-cut quality. I figured I could make something like that, so I started making collages when my music was slowing down.

My hands are constantly moving when I create a collage. When I focus on cutting a photo at a certain angle, all other things disappear from my mind. That time is precious to me. It helps me reset. If time and circumstances permit, I can make three collages on a good day.

The time I spend thinking about how to arrange everything is maybe longer than the time my hands spend moving. It’s the same with music. At the sound mixing stage, I’m always torn on how to arrange the music.

I feel like everything in my head is connected, like I’m seeing with my ears and hearing with my eyes. It’s a bit like synesthesia. My favorite kind of music is the kind that makes you visualize a scene. Like when someone is singing about the ocean, and you can actually see the ocean. Music has that power. I’m not satisfied with my own music either unless it paints a picture.

I want to have people visualize a sunny fall day, the sun softly hitting the lace curtains, without actually describing it in words. With my new work, I thought about that a lot.

──Speaking of liking to work with your hands, you like playing guitar, right?

Kimishima: I love it.

──Whether you’re playing by yourself or with a band, I have this image of you smiling and playing guitar. Collaging and guitar are both things that you do with your hands, which makes me think that you’re a hand guy.

Kimishima: There’s part of me that thinks with my hands. After one of my live shows, you tweeted that I was like Egberto Gismonti. * I was really happy because I love Gismonti. I thought, someone noticed! (laughs)

*Egberto Gismonti: A Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist born in 1947.

──I feel like Gismonti is also hopelessly in love with the guitar.

Kimishima: I feel that Gismonti is a pianist who also plays guitar for fun. His playing technique is self-taught, so it has this sense of calmness and innocence that’s hard to compare to other artists. He also made his own 10-string guitar. I like that when he plays guitar, he’s like a kid. Gismonti is one of the people I’ve been really interested in for the past two or three years.

Non-performative sounds and the number of elements

──Have you always been into Brazilian music?

Kimishima: I love it. I especially love Antonio Loureiro*. His first album (“Antonio Loureiro,” 2010) is a work of art. Everything seems to flow forth from inside him. And the way the harmonies are strung together, with the melodies, makes everything come together into one cohesive piece. It made me wonder if I could also create something similar with my work.

There’s a kind of a melancholy quality to Loureiro’s first album. A gloomy darkness, where you can tell something in him compelled him to create. To me, that’s irreplaceable.

*Antonio Loureiro: A singer/songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist born in Sao Paolo in 1986.

──Speaking of, Hakushi Hasegawa was also saying he liked Loureiro.

Kimishima: I actually ran into Hakushi when I saw the Antonio Loureiro Trio play in Japan last year.

──It’s funny that you and Hakushi reference the same music.

The music you two make isn’t exactly similar, but there are some commonalities. I think it’s the number of different elements in your music. It’s like you’re mixing all these elements without selecting any one thing. I think that’s what makes it feel like a collage of sorts. Do you try to put a lot of different elements in your work?

Kimishima: I think partially, I put a lot of elements in there on purpose. When I record, I like the sounds of clothes rustling, coughing, and other sounds that accidentally get picked up. They’re different from the sounds I intended to record, since the sounds are unaware that they’re being recorded and aren’t under pressure.

──The sound itself “performs” too.

Kimishima: Right, I like sounds that aren’t performing. I take the sounds I accidentally recorded in my voice memos, and then incorporate them into my work in a way that only I can tell.

I record the sounds I hear every day like they’re diary entries. Then, I try to incorporate the sounds that I like into the texture of a song. A lot of people may think of “texture” as the superficial layer of a song, but I think this should come before anything. I think it’s really important, like air or oxygen. When you put in sounds that only you can hear, your own style comes out in the music.

Corona, Fennesz, and Metal　　　

──I feel like in the last few years, the world has had a 90s vibe. In short, the 90s were full of disorganized thoughts, which all felt raw and real. At the same time, I think there was also this listless feeling expressed by lo-fi and grunge artists, that the world was going by day by day, without really improving. In recent days, especially since the coronavirus, the world has a similar vibe. In the midst of an information overload, the days seem to crawl by. And I think the amount of information, and that listless feeling, is something that’s in your music as well. How do you connect with the outside world?

Kimishima: I used to want the two to be as unrelated as possible. I wanted my music to be in a place that existed independently of the world. But since the coronavirus, the world has ended up influencing me, and I came to realize that I don’t mind that. It wasn’t until coronavirus that I became aware of how my work was influenced by external factors. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent more time reflecting on my own.

When I released my first EP (“Gogo no Hanshakou”), a lot of people told me that it was very 90s, but I actually wasn’t influenced at all by popular 90s music. I heard Radiohead for the first time a year and a half ago, and I only know one Smashing Pumpkins song. I think they’re cool, but part of me has avoided music that everyone else listened to.

I actually started thinking about making music because of Fennesz’s* “Endless Summer” (2001). I was struck by the fact that one person could make music with such a wide range. I felt like I was looking directly in his brain. The timeline is disjointed, but everything of importance to him is in there. I looked up the equipment Fennesz used in this album, and it was just a laptop, a Jazzmaster guitar, and a fuzz pedal. I was moved by the fact that music he made, using the bare minimum of equipment, had reached young people in this corner of Japan. I wanted to do the same thing. Combining recordings from different time periods into one track might be influenced by Fennesz.

*Fennesz: A guitarist and electronic musician from Australia. He is known in Japan for his collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto.

──I see. That rawness, showing exactly what’s happening in your brain, might be why it felt 90s to me.

Kimishima: By the way, I was constantly listening to metal before I came across Fennesz.

──What kind of metal were you listening to?

Kimishima: Meshuggah*. I went through a period where I was going to jam sessions at a live house in Fussa, and a drummer there lent me a Meshuggah CD. It had a sort of “molten iron” feel to it, which was really cool.

Also, I listened to Dream Theater** a lot. In particular, I really loved their album, “Train of Thought” (2003). This album is like a picture-perfect sound of despair. (laughs) It has this sluggish heaviness and darkness the whole time. I feel like whenever I’m in a weird place, I can listen to this and feel soothed.

Other than that, I listened to ridiculously skilled jazz fusion artists. People like Greg Howe and Richie Kotzen, who are just amazing at guitar. (laughs) Metal and fusion are kind of like sports. There’s a competitive spirit about how quickly and accurately you can play, which I find beauty in. I feel energized when I listen to it. Maybe it’s something people who like to move their hands like.

*Meshuggah: A Swedish metal band, active from 1980 into today. They’re popular for their experimental style, including complex rhythms and a heavy use of noise.

**Dream Theater: An American band that was a pioneer of progressive metal and has been popular since the mid 1980s.

Expressing yourself without revealing too much.

──In your new EP that’s coming out in November, “Housou,” I like that you can hear the small details in the music. I felt like the quality of the sound had improved. The songs are catchy, too, and easily get stuck in your head. There are a lot of memorable touches throughout, like the neat repetition of melodies and rhyming lyrics.

Kimishima: Well first, the equipment I used actually has improved. I love lo-fi music, or music that isn’t considered high-quality, but this time I thought that high-quality music felt right. (laughs) I also tried to bring the vocals a bit more to the forefront than I have in previous albums. But bringing my voice forward is scary. A voice is sort of like a signature, or rather, it reveals things about a person. If you’re familiar with the face and voice of the artist, it affects how you listen to their music. That’s scary to me. So with my past music, I would make my voice really quiet and crank up the reverb. I want to express myself, but I also don’t want to reveal too much.

I write lyrics the same way. I can’t write a song where someone else is the protagonist because it doesn’t feel right. I can only write about my own memories and ideas, but I don’t want my inherent nature as a person to be revealed. In this day and age, people can get their words out quickly. But I wonder if we can really call those “words.” There’s a line in a poem by Noriko Ibaragi that says something like, “There are too many things that only look like words.” Even if it’s a bit ridiculous, I think it sums up what I think is strange about today’s world. Words are used in a really meaningless and frivolous way. For me, I want words that don’t just look like words. Essentially, the way we string words together should be wilder and more beautiful, and from there you should be able to feel a sense of time and distance.

──In general, words are a tool for mutual understanding. We use words to get closer to others. But you use words to create distance between your message and the audience. That may be the reason why the lyrics of your songs have a collage-like quality to them.

Kimishima: Yeah. I consider myself to be someone who has a lot of things to say, but if I wanted to just say those things directly, then I may as well just write essays. I don’t write lyrics just to convey a message. As long as you can somehow feel the humanness from the overall lyrics, that’s fine. That’s how I choose my words.

Ohzora Kimishima
Born in 1995, Kimishima started his music career in 2014 when he began releasing music featuring his own lyrics, compositions, arrangements, performances, and vocals on SoundCloud. He released his first EP “Gogo no Hanshakou” in March 2019 and his first single “Sandou/Hanagumori” in July. In the same year, he also performed at Fuji Rock Festival’s Rookie A Go-Go stage along with a band. On November 11th of this year, he will release his second EP, “Housou.” Alongside his personal projects, he has also performed live and in the studio as a guitarist for artists such as Ibuki Takai, Kisa Sakaguchi, Fujin Club, Kayoko Yoshizawa, and more. He also creates background music and compositions.
https://linktr.ee/hainosokomade

Photography Ko-ta Shouji
Translation Aya Apton

The post Understanding Ohzora Kimishima through collage appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.