Since it’s a human thing, maybe it’s a little different from evolution. It feels more like I was born with these senses, like converting ways to circumvent my own physical condition into grooves. So maybe deepening, moving towards the truth. That’s become part of my style, and I have a sort of affection for it. Maybe you could even call it a quirk. Like my looping, my sense of volume, my equalizing. It’s kind of like with the flavorful phrases you get from jazz musicians of yesteryear. Even if it’s just continuing to play the same music, DJing that allows one to pass the hours focused on the mood or flow of time will always be good.
I think the more experience you gain, the more your skills improve, but do you also feel a sense of evolution, like your ears get sharper, or your sense of sound becoming more clear?
There’s that phrase “beautification with age”, like how old buildings get only get better with more character the more time passes. This can mean lots of different things, like in terms of color or texture or a feel that grows deeper with history, but my hope is that I can share the way I face this deepening with age.
A lot has changed about how people listen to music now in the time since you started your career. What are your thoughts on this?Vinyl became CDs, then we got the Internet, which probably changed things dramatically for most people, but for me this change has been ongoing the entire time. When you’re a DJ, there are always changes with mixers, new types of needles, speakers, and all the other gear you use, not to mention the sounds and frequencies you want to hear. The music coming in and the trends change, too. And I go through life feeling something about all these changes. I can’t ignore them in this line of work—DJing is just that kind of world. I see changes as a given, I guess, like they aren’t really anything special to me. Back in the days before subscriptions, I’d go to record stores and listen to stuff from open to close, which, though physically different, is kind of similar to using a subscription service now. When it comes to analog stuff, I’m always interested in the evolution of needles and mixers, and that can change the sources I play with them. If we’re talking digital, I’ve always got my eye on the latest CDJs, AI, and other playback gear.
Do you have a specific image for a track in mind when you begin creating it, or maybe when putting it in its finished form?Maybe this is obvious by now, but pretty much everything I do is based off feeling, and that’s what leads into the occasion or impulse to make a track. I record and archive moments of sound that I find interesting for later use in DJ sets or sessions, or just go crazy tinkering with my gear when I get inspired by listening back to them. Most of the time I make tracks using these samples as the pieces. If I take samples of what I feel, I can then go back later to mess with the sound and approach a final form.
So you collect sounds?Yeah. I went to this club in Vietnam a while back where everyone was taking hits from this huge black balloon filled with laughing gas... The fwoosh sound of the gas going into the balloons on the dancefloor was so cool that I recorded and stocked various versions of that sound and made a track called Balloon. Putting down my inspiration and things that happen as sound sketches lets them carry over into the features of tracks, and makes it easier to work since I already have an image. Sounds have features of their own, too. I used to mostly use vinyl as my source but now, even if it’s not intentional, a lot of the time I’m finding things in moments of daily life.
For example, I can put some effects or processing on a sample of a balloon inflating, and that then lets it function as a melody or groove no one’s heard before. Then maybe I’ll want to transform it into the kind of track I’ve been looking for. Lately I’ve been stocking up stuff like on samples I can play as-is, as well as soundscapes or ambience that use sounds I felt.
So the tracks you make are based on what you can use when you DJ.Basically, yeah. The idea is to grow the inspiration and elements I find fresh in all the different music and experiences I encounter as a DJ into proper tracks. I listen to a wider variety of music in a wider variety of formats than the average person, so I hope that allows me to put my experiences and sensations as a DJ into sound.
Interesting. So a four on the floor beat is classic and easy to groove to, but only that would be stiff and boring. In contrast, your DJing is much more organic and natural to dance to. I feel like I get part of the reason why that is now...It’s nice being able to pick up on those unique “waves” when I repeat sounds. When looping at a gig, sometimes slight distortions will emerge. Maybe I don’t need to say it, but it can feel really good when that happens. If this turns into a kind of groove hooked into the fluctuation or discord, then that’s even better than four on the floor in my mind (laughs).
There are moments when everyone is moving to the same beat, doing the same thing to where it almost looks like they’re marching, that I wish people could be more free. I like soundscapes or spaces where people are free to immerse themselves in the music however they want, like where everyone could be on the same dancefloor but move to the rhythm in their own way. That’s why I’m so interested in polyrhythms lately. Each rhythm moves at its own cycle, standing distinct and free.
I got my start as a disco DJ, so I’d been taught that playing the big hits and upping the volume to get the crowd hyped and control the energy level all that was one technique. And since experience has also shown me that this is possible, now I want to DJ in a way that this goes on forever even more naturally in better spaces with better vibes. That’s why I’m also such a fan of minimal music.
Back when I was asked to do one of Kazuma’s parties, maybe “Communicate Mute” in 2000 or so, Kaoru (Inoue) played Monolake’s Gobi. The Desert EP.
That track goes on for almost 30 minutes, and we just listened to the whole thing down on the floor with nobody DJing. But it just felt so good. It was the best, a truly free space where we could dance and chill. I still remember it sometimes, how there were all these people there listening to that music in that big space. But I’m sure some of it was how things were back then.
You played with Monolake in the past, too. His music really is timeless...He really has a sound that’s all his own. There was a point in time where I thought that the sounds created by gear belong to the person who made the gear, so maybe making instruments and setups was actually composing. I always have the urge to do performances where the sound waves are visualized in some way that isn’t images. I made a record of Locked Groove a few years ago, and as it happens I’m now in the middle of making a hardware version of the Buddha machine from it with the other guys from Mujuryoku Session. It’s a bit of a different approach than Monolake, though
Speaking of Mujuryoku Session, the last time I went to see them play, it was an experience quite unlike anything else.The session has been recorded a lot, and it’s really interesting how different it feels every time. Each moment is selected bit by bit to switch up the soundscape...some of which have been put onto CD. Since recording things on media can also convey how things came about as sound in that time and space. I even use it in my sets sometimes. The sound is like shouting in front of a huge electric fan with the wind pressure of the bass, like the pressure and low range tones are just crazy but also feel awesome at times. I can’t really explain it in words—you almost have experience it for yourself.
Mujuryoku Session will only have the space at the building in Hacchobori until next year, but we’re still doing shows regularly, so please come by if you get the chance.