In 2015 you went to Thailand, Laos, and India. Was that for field recording?

With India, I went more because my mind was calling me there more than with any musical intent. I think I realized that in going through life, I was in need of some fresh sensations, positive changes, spiritual growth. I’m grateful to Shree for pointing me toward India.

Did you DJ while you were in India?

That wasn’t the plan, but I did bring my gear with me just in case I got the urge to spin while I was there. But once I got to India, DJing was out of the question. Everything was inconvenient there. Even the meals were challenging. Everything there operated on different common sense than Japan and nothing went as I expected, so if I were going to do an extended stay and tune myself to life there, I’d need to be in a good mental state with plenty of emotional leeway. Knowledge and respect for India are a must, too. While I was there, I constantly had to keep myself in check, and I really felt like I was being put to the test. During my stay, I visited ashrams for meditation, learned to play the tabla, and listened to a lot of raga and bhajan. I had some insights about eternity as a concept of time, too. Maybe you could call the whole experience DJing in a way? I remember being kinda happy when I spun some minimal techno after I got back to Japan and one of the other DJs, ALTZ, said, “Hey, that’s raga”.