YoshimiO
Drummer, vocalist and serial collaborator Yoshimi Yokata, AKA YoshimiO, has been an inescapable presence in the Japanese and international experimental rock and avant-garde scene for over 30 years. Hailing from Okayama, YoshimiO began her career in 1986 with the band U.F.O or Die, a side project of experimental vocalist Yamatsuka Eye, before joining Eye’s Boredoms a year later and eventually becoming one of its longest serving members. She began releasing music under the name Yoshimi P-We (now YoshimiO) in 1993, all the while collaborating across various projects, including the experimental ensemble OOIOO; the Saicobab quartet, which fuses Indian raga traditions with punk and electronic music; and with international musicians including Kim Gordon, Mats Gustafsson, Susie Ibarra and Robert Lowe. While best known as a drummer and vocalist, Yokata also plays the trumpet and keyboard, and often works in improvisational contexts.
YoshimiO sat down with Masaaki Hara at the Cerulean Tower’s Noh Theatre for a rare public lecture as part of the Red Bull Music Festival Tokyo 2019, during which she revisited key moments in her career and discussed her approach to collaboration, musical training and performance.
Hosted by Masaaki Hara OK, let’s get the lecture started. So once again, our speaker, who has a concert coming up soon, is YoshimiO. Another round of applause, please. YoshimiO Pleased to meet you. [applause] Masaaki Hara And I’m your interviewer, Masaaki Hara. It’s pretty rare, almost unheard of, to do a lecture after a show. YoshimiO I actually don’t know. Masaaki Hara What’s more, here we are sitting on tatami, on a Noh stage. It’s pretty surreal. YoshimiO Pretty far out of the norm. Masaaki Hara It’s really rare. Kind of once in a lifetime. YoshimiO Let’s make it that way. [laughs] Masaaki Hara So today... I’d like to speak mainly about the things you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished and your creative endeavors. I think most of the people here know you from the Boredoms and OOIOO, so we’re taking that as a given. But there’s also your solo work, your collaborations with other artists like Saicobab here today. You’ve been doing projects like that the entire time, so we’re hoping you can look back over these and share some stories with us as we listen to some of the music. That’s the gist of it. YoshimiO OK, got it. Masaaki Hara So we’re going to be playing some recordings here, and we’d like to hear your thoughts on them. We’ll go over things in chronological order if that’s okay. I wonder if it’s okay to play one like this right off the bat [points to playlist on computer]. Maybe that wasn’t a good way of putting it. YoshimiO You still said it! That’s how it is. Masaaki Hara This is probably one of your earliest projects, huh? YoshimiO Which one are you trying to play? Masaaki Hara This one. YoshimiO It’s a pretty rude one. Sorry. Masaaki Hara So this is from 1993. Free Kitten. YoshimiO This single is actually what led to me joining Free Kitten. Masaaki Hara Free Kitten was with someone from Sonic Youth... YoshimiO Kim Gordon, and then Julia Cafritz from Pussy Galore. Masaaki Hara And then you joined the band they started as a drummer? YoshimiO Yeah, or I guess it wasn’t so much of a band when we recorded this. Actually the name of the band was Kitten. There was a girl from another indie band called Kitten, and she asked Kim not to use the name. The names would be the same, and that’s why it became Free Kitten. I thought it was “Kitchen” the whole time. They said they were going to record and wanted me to help. I didn’t know all the details, but I went anyway and they told me to cover this song. Masaaki Hara I see. And actually it only ever came out on 7". YoshimiO This label only releases picture 7"s. Masaaki Hara Do you have a copy of it yourself? YoshimiO I think I have maybe two around the house. Masaaki Hara I don’t have a copy, and it isn’t available digitally either. YoshimiO There aren’t any records left, huh? Masaaki Hara Yeah, so I’m sorry, but this recording is from YouTube. So this is a cover of a song by the UK punk band X-Ray Spex, right? YoshimiO Yeah. Masaaki Hara So we’re going straight into it. Please check out one of Yoshimi’s earliest recordings. (music: Free Kitten – “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” / applause) YoshimiO There’s trumpet on this. Like just really blaring. And then I’m playing drums. Masaaki Hara Pretty amazing stuff. YoshimiO So with the record cover for this, I had a dominatrix friend from New York that was into bondage fashion, so one picture is with something she told me to wear. The other is with the kimono my mom gave me for my coming-of-age ceremony. So I had these two photos and gave them to Kim for her birthday. I told her that we wear kimono like this when we turn 20 here. The other S&M one had nothing to do with that but it was just something I had. Then they just used those for the cover photos, on sides A and B. The front is me as dominatrix and the back is me in a kimono. My mom was the only one who liked seeing the kimono photo spinning on the turntable. They got me really good with that single. Masaaki Hara It’s a really rare recording from your early years. Was this before you were doing Boredoms? YoshimiO I think I was already in the band. Oh yeah, I was. Boredoms and Sonic Youth did a tour together in ’92. I visited the house Thurston and Kim were staying at back then, I remember they grabbed me, each by an arm, and dragged me into the studio. Masaaki Hara And they forced you to record? YoshimiO Yeah, they were like, “Copy this right now.” Masaaki Hara So, was the actual recording for this first? [points to laptop playlist] UFO or Die. YoshimiO I think so, but... Masaaki Hara We have another recording from your early career. YoshimiO I don’t remember. It’s all a bit fuzzy. Masaaki Hara This says it was recorded between ’92 and ’93. Maybe before? YoshimiO I guess that’s what it must be then. Masaaki Hara It was released in 1996. As part of the album Cassette Tape Superstar. Do you remember? YoshimiO Oh yeah, of course. It’s got some wild art by Eye on it. Masaaki Hara Yeah, it’s a pretty intense cover. YoshimiO This is our sink. Masaaki Hara Then there’s a record with stuff written all over it. It has 23 tracks. YoshimiO This was a famous one, though. I really want to hear it, but maybe it’s too much? Masaaki Hara No way, let’s play it! There’s one track where you really hammer the drums. Here’s one song from the album called “We Are Rice.” (music: UFO or Die – “We Are Rice” / applause) YoshimiO Glad that’s over with. Masaaki Hara Do you remember the making of this song? YoshimiO This was recorded in a room at our house with an MTR [mastering tape recorder] or something. Masaaki Hara I guess it was still the era of tapes. YoshimiO The sound quality is great since it was all on tape. Masaaki Hara So, when did you first start playing drums? YoshimiO I think UFO or Die was probably when I started. I just did it because I was told to, so I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Masaaki Hara So you weren’t taught. YoshimiO No. Drums make a sound just by hitting them, so that’s what I did. Back in those days we were doing lots of Battle of the Bands type shows. I’d have to play after the drummer that went before me, right? I had no idea what I needed to unscrew in order to adjust the height of the set. So if a big guy was playing before me, I’d end up playing like this [raises her arms]. Other times I’d be like, “Man, the set is so low!” Things went on like that for quite a while. I didn’t know you could take the sets apart, either. Masaaki Hara So you thought it was one piece. YoshimiO Yeah, just one big instrument. Masaaki Hara You thought they carried it around like that. YoshimiO Yeah. I didn’t know anything, like not even how to adjust the throne. I can put on heads, tune the drums and all that now, though. I thought figuring out how to work around what the previous guy did in my style was a concept that came with playing drums. Masaaki Hara When I saw Boredoms and others back in the ’90s, I thought you seemed really confident while drumming. YoshimiO In the beginning, yeah, I was like, “Hey, I’m making noise, so I must be doing it right.” Masaaki Hara It definitely seemed that way. YoshimiO I wasn’t particular about my playing. But, a contrived man-made instrument all set up like that was probably just something I found easy to use. Whatever goes. Masaaki Hara It’s the more primitive instruments that are harder. YoshimiO Yeah. I think the tones are more linked back into nature. But with like piano and so on, you’ve got these things you have to do all lined up. It’s so contrived that it’s a bit freaky. Masaaki Hara So is that why you kind of drifted towards folk or ethnic music? More primal sounds. YoshimiO I don’t really think of it as ethnic. Instruments that seem like something a god made should be played on impulse, is how I think about it. I found it easier to work that way. It makes it easier for me to get into it, I guess. And then things that feel human-made should be played in a more human manner. It’s easier for me to play the more primitive instruments if I feel like I’m channeling something while I do it. Masaaki Hara So after this you got into field recording, right? Like recording sounds from nature and using them to make music. Do the spiritual things you mentioned play into that, too? YoshimiO No, the field recording started when I happened to get ahold of a binaural mic. I wanted to capture what I was hearing. Masaaki Hara Binaural recording? YoshimiO And then I... You’re going to play it, right? Masaaki Hara Yeah. YoshimiO So I’d put the mic on, hop in the back of a light truck and just drive all around a mountain. It would be me and Yuka Honda, formerly of Cibo Matto, in the back of this truck. We made an album that way. We’d set out early in the morning, then wind our way up the mountain. The basic pattern was to record like that until evening. Then we went into the studio and mixed it all into an album. Masaaki Hara So this is from 2003, under the name Yoshimi and Yuka with the album title being Flower With No Color. YoshimiO It was on Mike Patton’s label, Ipecac. Masaaki Hara So it came out from there, and when I heard this I was kind of surprised that you made something like that. And I don’t mean that in a rude way, but just that you’d changed maybe. It feels like that was around when you started doing the things you do now. Anyway, let’s give it a listen. You recorded this on a truck. This is the last one. YoshimiO It’s from around evening time. Masaaki Hara Did you get tired of being in the truck? YoshimiO I actually get carsick pretty fast. Masaaki Hara So this is a track from back then. (music: Yoshimi and Yuka – track from Flower With No Color / applause) YoshimiO The original track stopped in the middle, really abruptly. That was the end there. The piano keeps going, though. The piano there was me. Masaaki Hara So you played piano occasionally? YoshimiO I did study it a bit as a kid. Masaaki Hara So you can play? YoshimiO I could, but part way through I started caring only about the black keys. I only played the black keys. I like them a lot. Masaaki Hara I see. I think I get what you mean. YoshimiO I like the black parts better than the white ones. Masaaki Hara This album has a kind of ambient feel to it... YoshimiO You mean overall? Masaaki Hara Yes. YoshimiO We’ve had DJs play it before. The middle tracks. Shhhhh and other guys. Actually Saicobab and C are doing a show together. At Bonobo. Shhhhh helped me remember. It’s tomorrow, so... Masaaki Hara So these past few years overseas and here in Japan, too, ambient, environmental music and new age have been pretty popular. That wasn’t really the case when you made this. It must have been new. YoshimiO I don’t know... Masaaki Hara It’s improvisational, right? YoshimiO We had this recording of a sort of audio landscape, then brought in instruments to see what we could do with it. We just picked up whatever we liked and then worked it into the piece. That’s all. We were just having fun. Masaaki Hara Well, playing around and improv are pretty tightly connected. YoshimiO This one was a lot of fun. Masaaki Hara But you’ve been making things in a kind of improvised way all along, right? YoshimiO Yeah, that’s true. Like the Boredoms Super Roots series, all of those started with us having the instruments set up and we all improvise. But since we were doing albums with jackets and stuff we compressed them down into songs. Masaaki Hara You had something bigger than a song and had to compress it. YoshimiO We had to fit it onto that small CD. Masaaki Hara Did you have a lot of session time where you went into the studio together? YoshimiO I mean, in the sense that you have to pay money to book the studio for the time, which then means you have no choice but to go that day, right? You can’t just go at will. In America and so on everyone has studios in their basements. Can’t really do that here in Japan. That’s why we worked part-time jobs to have that studio money. Masaaki Hara So it was pretty much the same as with any other people in a band. YoshimiO Exactly the same. Masaaki Hara I have to wonder again how you were able to make this in that kind of setting, though. Something that feels so freeform. YoshimiO We weren’t saying, “Let’s do this genre,” or, “Let’s do that genre.” It was all just us. So there was no other outcome. Masaaki hara After this album, you started doing solo projects where you worked with other artists. Was there some kind of turning point involved there? YoshimiO It just worked out that way. I went overseas with OOIOO, like America, New York, and while there friends would say, “Let’s do something.” Little YoshimiO collaborations, that bit by bit would become albums or live shows. With my solo projects, I’m usually the drummer, and then I’ll always have another drummer right there facing me. Then in the middle will be someone else playing a different instrument. That’s been my collaboration style. Two mountains and the moon between is the image when picking people. Masaaki Hara Two mountains and a moon. I like it. YoshimiO The two drum sets are mountains, and then in the middle is the moon. A lot of times people would suddenly wonder why they’re there, but they have to play, so they do. Masaaki Hara So how is it that you kept getting invited to do stuff while you were overseas? Everyone seemed interested in you. YoshimiO Maybe because we were friends, but I don’t really know. They just ask me to do it, and I say, “OK.” Masaaki Hara But a lot of those things you’re asked to do turn out really good. YoshimiO Yeah, maybe some of them did. Masaaki Hara I’d like to play one of them. This is from 2007, so it’s a bit further along. It’s with Mats Gustafsson. YoshimiO He’s got a band called Fire! now. Masaaki Hara He’s a sax player from Sweden, right? And his background is in free jazz, free improvisation. But he’s also done stuff with noise artists like Merzbow. YoshimiO There’s this small town in Sweden called Ystad, and for some reason they kept inviting me there. Masaaki Hara Was that with the Boredoms? YoshimiO No, solo. Just me. So Kim went, and Thurston and Jim O’Rourke were there, too. Then there was me and others like DJ Olive, so you had all these musicians together. We were all meant to do an improv show there. I did a duo with Thurston, it appeared in the newspaper in this small town of Ystad, saying, “Who needs Yoko Ono now?” Masaaki Hara That’s quite the headline! YoshimiO I was shocked. “Is that what people think of me?!” So then I did a duo with Mats because he said he wanted to do something with just him and my voice. So we went to another city called Malmö, and we played a show with about 100 metronomes. Masaaki Hara So it was like a sound installation? YoshimiO I think so. Everyone set off the metronomes at the count of three, but even if you have a hundred of them, it’s the final three, two or one that add the charm. When it’s all said and done. Masaaki Hara There was a contemporary composer named Ligeti who did something similar. With a bunch of metronomes. YoshimiO Maybe this was a follow-up on that. Using the same technique. But yeah, we played with a bunch of metronomes. Masaaki Hara So this is from Sweden, and the label is from Norway. Smalltown Supersound. A very interesting label. That’s where the recording was released. YoshimiO I didn’t know any of that. I don’t really listen to my own stuff once it’s done. Masaaki Hara You don’t? YoshimiO No, I pretty much just file and forget. Masaaki Hara But you keep copies of your work, right? YoshimiO I probably have at least one copy of this somewhere. Masaaki Hara But you don’t listen to your work. YoshimiO Not really, no. Masaaki Hara OK, well let’s listen to it now. Was this also improvised? YoshimiO Yes, completely. Masaaki Hara There’s one song that’s 20 minutes long, and then another that’s three minutes. That’s all there is. It’s a two-song album. Shall we play the three-minute one? YoshimiO So it’s a really short album. Masaaki Hara Yeah, not even 30 minutes. Shall we? I’ll play the three-minute track. (music: Mats Gustafsson and Yoshimi – “Soundless Cries With Their Arms In The Air” / applause) YoshimiO Mats made me remember, but the day after tomorrow I’m going to be doing drums with these guys Matte and Guro from Sweden in Shin-Okubo... At this placed called Earthdom. They’re Swedish, I think. Masaaki Hara What’s that all about? YoshimiO So one time I was asked to go to Singapore to play drums. The musicians I played with then were going to be doing a tour in Japan, and they wanted me to drum with them somewhere. I just happened to have an opening the day after tomorrow, so I booked it. So that’s it. Masaaki Hara Go check out Earthdom if you’re keen. YoshimiO So Matte is this female sax player and Guro is a bassist. She’s really interesting. She wraps her bass completely in tape, and then plays by ripping it off a bit at a time. Masaaki Hara I see. But you’re going to be playing drums normally? YoshimiO I don’t know if you’d call it normal, but I guess. Masaaki Hara Going back to Mats, what you guys did here was just vocals? YoshimiO That’s right. Masaaki Hara He just wanted you to sing. He liked your voice? YoshimiO I think a lot of people are particular when it comes to voices. Masaaki Hara You mean they want your voice? YoshimiO A lot of times they just want me to scream. Masaaki Hara Like what you did with the Boredoms. YoshimiO I screamed too much when I was young, though, so whereas I used to have like 70 variations, as I get older there are fewer and fewer. Sometimes a new vocal cord will open and give me 70 or 80, but they’ve really been decreasing, to where now I’ve only got like three. Masaaki Hara But you had some range tonight. YoshimiO Those weren’t screams, though. Masaaki Hara You were holding back there. YoshimiO That was singing. I wouldn’t do that at an event like tonight’s. Masaaki Hara But you’re also a vocalist, right? YoshimiO It seems that way. Ever since I started drumming, for some reason I would just start screaming. I’d sing the whole time I played. Masaaki Hara You couldn’t help but vocalize while you played. YoshimiO Right. Masaaki Hara It felt really natural. I see. I’ve always felt your vocals really made an impression, and I guess that’s why. That’s the order things work in for you. YoshimiO It’s like something comes out before I talk, before it can become words. It’s all so quick, see? They’re already in me, so I don’t need any material to work with. They come out easily. Those feelings I have inside me in the moment. Masaaki Hara Voice is the most primal instrument. Are you interested in vocals, as in more like singing? YoshimiO I do have these ongoing melodies. Masaaki Hara In your head? YoshimiO If I let those out they become the melody. That’s the kind of singing that interests me. Things where you have to do it like, “one, then two, then three,” bug me. Masaaki Hara Do you ever sing? YoshimiO I just sang a lot. Masaaki Hara Yeah you did today, but do you ever do more than that? YoshimiO I sing in OOIOO. Masaaki Hara You do. YoshimiO I sang in Boredoms, too. So I do sing a bit. Masaaki Hara Understood. It was a bad question. Let’s move on to the next selection. This next one is something you did all on your own, right? YoshimiO Yeah, that’s right. Masaaki Hara Bor Cozmik. This is your second album? YoshimiO My second solo album. Masaaki Hara So it’s your second album and... You went somewhere for it, right? YoshimiO So my family... We went to Borneo. It was during a Boredoms tour. I danced with some headhunters while I was there. When I heard a recording of it, I decided to use it for something. Then I went into the rainforest, deep into the wilderness. I also used some recordings of that. Masaaki Hara This is part of a conceptual series, correct? You were asked to make it, right? It says here that it was film director Mike Mills and the editor of a French fashion magazine. YoshimiO Helen from Purple. Masaaki Hara Yeah, the three of you were asked to make something by the brand Cosmic Wonder, which is also by a modern artist. To use a recording. Do you remember? YoshimiO Not really. Masaaki Hara I think it’s interesting that you were involved in something so conceptual. YoshimiO I don’t think that’s Bor Cozmik. Masaaki Hara Oh really? It came out in this series [points to laptop]. YoshimiO That series... Ellen from Purple did this thing called Light Source for Cosmic Wonder, and she asked me to write an essay on light. So I wrote something and then gave her a recording. The recording had Hama-chan, who was in OOIOO for a bit and played today. Hama... Audience Member Hamamoto. YoshimiO Where is he? He... Where is he? I can’t see. [waves] He played the gamelan while in OOIOO with Kohei from Taiku Jikan. I first met the two of them during that Cosmic Wonder session. We had the two of them on gamelan, and then Ai, the girl who played drums at the time in OOIOO, was on gamelan, too. The recording had me doing improvised vocals over that, and that’s what we gave to Cosmic Wonder. Masaaki Hara And that was Light Lodge? YoshimiO Yes. Masaaki Hara So this wasn’t a follow-up to that, but an entirely different solo album? YoshimiO Yeah, it was called Yunnan Colorfree. I think it was Kim Sung-Yoon... But they made a documentary showing the clothing of Yunnan Province, and I made this album as the soundtrack. Masaaki Hara Today we’re going to hear a sample from Bor Cozmik. The song is pretty long. 40 minutes. YoshimiO Yeah, it ended up that way since it was made over field recordings. Masaaki Hara It’s long, so we’ll just touch on a little bit of it. (music: YoshimiO – “Untitled” / applause) It really gives a sense of the local music. YoshimiO It’s a bit mysterious. Masaaki Hara Yeah, it is. It goes back to what you said earlier about the dissonance of academic elements over tribal music. You were avoiding that, right? YoshimiO Exactly. Kind of like how you don’t wear shoes indoors. Masaaki Hara I’m not sure if calling it “ethnic” music is right. YoshimiO Well, they were doing music from their tribe, so it’s not really a genre. Masaaki Hara I guess maybe “local music” fits better. Have you always been into non-Western music from other countries? YoshimiO I really think punk, hardcore or anything impulsive can be called tribal music. Like that Brazilian hardcore band we mentioned earlier. The recording method is really out there, and the balance is super unique. Only the vocals are really loud, with guitar just blaring like a vacuum cleaner. Then the drums are way far off. There’s something so real about it. I can just feel the drive behind it. That kind of recording style has always been a big reference for me. It’s distorted yet real. Masaaki Hara But like early hardcore bands had that drive, which then becomes a style. It turns into regular rock. YoshimiO I’m fine with that. Masaaki Hara But what you’re doing is always kind of running away from that. You’re not trying to go that way. Like you had some hardcore type stuff early on, but now it feels like you’re going in a more tribal or local direction. YoshimiO I don’t really know myself, but I guess everything, including what you mentioned, is the same inside me. Masaaki Hara So you haven’t changed in terms of how you interact with sound. YoshimiO I don’t think so. Masaaki Hara Drive is a bit difficult, though, huh? Maintaining it, I mean. YoshimiO Like even with Saicobab, things come out of my mouth before they’re even words. If I don’t create a place for me to do that, then I can’t do what I do. Masaaki Hara Like you’re thinking about controlling it? YoshimiO I do control it. Masaaki Hara So it’s not like you’re just letting yourself run free. YoshimiO I have to control myself and create a proper vessel, or else I can’t catch these things popping into me. So I live a serious life. Masaaki Hara No, I think you’re very serious. But, would it be right to call this thing of yours a technique? YoshimiO I don’t know. I have no technique when it comes to instruments. Not with drums or guitar. I still have trouble tuning a guitar. Even with a six-string guitar I still only use like one or two strings. Using all six is too much for me. I just do what I can do. And I guess every instrument looks a bit tribal when I play them that way. Masaaki Hara But there’s still people out there with crazy tuning like Arto Lindsay, right? YoshimiO Everyone has their own tuning, though, so it’s naturally going to be a bit off. The so-called proper scales or tuning were always so rigid, so I’ve never understood what people think feels good about them. It makes me feel a bit dark or down. Masaaki Hara When you hear proper tuning? Like classical or Christian music? YoshimiO They do have an influence. Scales that can drive people to war and the like. I think there may be something to it. But like a normal person says “do,” [the C musical note in French or Italian] I think it’s going to be slightly different for everyone. They call that being tone-deaf, but I don’t think there is such a thing. The only reason we have tone-deafness is that people have contrived these proper tones. Masaaki Hara So it’s that type of music with irregular tunings or rhythms, music that doesn’t follow a steady rhythm, that you feel drawn to, right? YoshimiO My ears lean that way, but I do like some precise music with proper tones. Masaaki Hara I see. You don’t make it yourself but... YoshimiO I can see how it’s great for what it is. Masaaki Hara Got it. Let’s play our next track. Up next is... This one is pretty recent. YoshimiO Yeah, very much so. I just got back from touring for this. Masaaki Hara This is you and a drummer named Susie Ibarra and... One other person. YoshimiO Robert Lowe. Masaaki Hara Is he a vocalist? YoshimiO He was a vocalist. Masaaki Hara He was in a band, right? As a bassist? YoshimiO He was in Om. Masaaki Hara I thought so. But now he does stuff with modular synths and the like. YoshimiO He works for a modular synth maker. Masaaki Hara It seems like he’s been getting some attention in noise techno circles. So it’s the three of you? YoshimiO Yeah, this is a recording of a random YoshimiO collaboration in New York. And then we started touring with it. Masaaki Hara Then an EP came out on Thrill Jockey. It’s from last year, right? YoshimiO I think so. Masaaki Hara It says 2018 here. Flower of Sulphur. YoshimiO Yunohana. Masaaki Hara Right. It says Yunohana Variations. YoshimiO Yunohana means Flower of Sulphur. Masaaki Hara Since it has variations, is it like a concerto or rhapsody? YoshimiO Rob decided that part, so I’m not sure. Masaaki Hara Got it. So would you say this is your latest recording? YoshimiO I’d say so. Masaaki Hara Let’s hear a song from it. The titles are really simple. “Aaa,” “Bbb,” “Ccc,” and “Ddd.” YoshimiO A-side, B-side, C-side, D-side. It’s a two-record album. Masaaki Hara I see. Let’s check out the A-side then. (music: YoshimiO, Susie Ibarra, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe – “Aaa” / applause) The sound there is quite something. YoshimiO Susie was a student of Milford Graves. Masaaki Hara She’s an incredible drummer. YoshimiO She is, though she wasn’t in that clip much. Masaaki Hara That was you playing just now. YoshimiO It’s a drum set, but it doesn’t sound like one. Susie can play her drums like sand [imitates drum sounds]. All these little taps coming down, with her sticks upright making a buzz. And then I come in and put a rock in the middle of it. Like I’m pounding rice with a mallet. So we’ve got twin drummers with a combo of those two styles. And then Rob does his awesome vocals. He put a contact mic here [points to neck], hooked it up to a modular synth rig, and then ran these high vocals through it. And then there’s my voice, too. So it was twin drums, twin vocals and modular synths. Masaaki Hara That’s an interesting mix. YoshimiO I had a synth by me while I drummed that I played off and on as well. So I would play it, work the stick, and then do the hi-hat. It was a weird set. Masaaki Hara Was this live? YoshimiO Yes. Masaaki Hara We could only listen to a bit here today, but it’s a really wonderful album to listen to in a place with good acoustics. Have you tried that? The sound is great. Each of the artists stands out well, but it gives the impression of being both improvised and a composition. It just seemed like an impossible sort of performance. YoshimiO We did a UK tour, just jamming together every day for ten days. We learned each other’s trademark tricks that way, so we decided to start trying to do something outside of those routines. That made each day different. If Susie was hungry, then her music would be hungry, too. Those kinds of things started to jump right out. Like if everyone was having a chill day, then our session would be chill. It was really experimental. Like reaching the point where nothing else comes out and you’ve reached the bottom of the ravine. Just jamming together until you’re completely empty. I say “jamming” but simply playing along with each other isn’t jamming. My state at the time is going to jump to the forefront. I had to figure out how to put that in sound. And I was playing with others, so I needed to watch what they were doing, but I wanted to do something other than that, I guess. If all we did was go with the flow then all we’d be doing was copy each other. It was a really difficult tour. Recently the three of us played in America at the Big Ears Festival. Masaaki Hara And that’s where you just were? YoshimiO Right. So, in that sense each time we play together is different. Masaaki Hara I felt like this trio was a really interesting one. You’re all coming from different places, too. YoshimiO Completely different. Masaaki Hara Susie Ibarra has heritage in the Philippines. Her parents were probably immigrants from there, and then she grew up in the US. But apparently she researches indigenous music from the Philippines. YoshimiO She’s a teacher. Masaaki Hara So she’s quite academic. YoshimiO Very much so. Masaaki Hara It’s cool that you’re doing music with someone like her. YoshimiO It’s interesting that we’re so different, huh. Masaaki Hara It’s also interesting that this mix came out on Thrill Jockey, which put out things by the likes of Tortoise and Jim O’Rourke. YoshimiO This was a live recording, but it was mastered. Masaaki Hara But you’ve also put out your work with Mats on that label Smalltown Supersound. And then your solo work is on Commmons, right? Ryuichi Sakamoto’s label. Commmons has also released music by the Boredoms and OOIOO. All of the labels you put stuff out on are really interesting. YoshimiO Thrill Jockey has been releasing all the OOIOO stuff recently, though. Masaaki Hara It’s cool to see how worldwide your music is, how you’re connected with all these different interesting labels. YoshimiO I didn’t know about Mats’s label at all. Even though I’m on it. Masaaki Hara So there’s this DJ called Prins Thomas, and he released a three-disc mix for Smalltown Supersound’s 25th anniversary. It’s got a really cool mix of everything from improvised music to more traditional stuff. I think this recording was on there. YoshimiO I see. I learned something new there. Masaaki Hara Give it a listen. YoshimiO I will. Saicobab is on Thrill Jockey, too. Masaaki Hara Let’s play some Saicobab. Something we didn’t play live today. So before Saicobab there was Psycho Baba. YoshimiO Baba, right. Saicobaba was Yoshida Daikichi’s thing. Then I joined, and Saicobaba became me, this tabla player Yuzawa and Yoshida. The two of them did kind of classical stuff, and then I came slamming in from left field. Just throwing my voice in there. Singing on the songs Daikichi writes really just... It puts me into the zone, enables me to really put myself on full display. That’s why we switched to Saicobab. Saicobaba meant “psycho old lady,” but “bab” means a rebirth into the world’s oldest baby. Masaaki Hara I see. YoshimiO So we became Saicobab, but all along I’d had this desire to do a hardcore band, like grindcore. So now I’m doing this as ragacore, a raga/grindcore band. Masaaki Hara Interesting. YoshimiO I don’t think the other guys care about any of that, though. Masaaki Hara But in your mind it’s a hard raga... YoshimiO Grind ragacore. Masaaki Hara So this is also some of your newest work. YoshimiO Fairly new. Masaaki Hara It’s an album from two years ago. YoshimiO Is it? Masaaki Hara 2017 is when it dropped. I think this is the song. YoshimiO We played pretty much everything today. But we didn’t have time for this one. Masaaki Hara Yeah, you had just 40 minutes today. This is a studio recording? YoshimiO It’s studio, or more like things we all recorded at home and brought together. Everyone uses their computers now. I can’t use them well, though. Masuko from DMBQ did my recording for me. Masaaki Hara I see. OK, let’s give it a listen. (music: Saicobab Unknown Track / applause) You have sheet music with Saicobaba, right? YoshimiO You mean “bab?” Yeah, we do. Masaaki Hara I saw the members had sheet stands earlier. YoshimiO Raga doesn’t have bass in it, though, so Daikichi makes the phrases himself and we do our best to play it. Masaaki Hara But you’re kind of off... YoshimiO He does make me vocal melodies to reference, of course. There are some songs where I stick to that, and then others where I do my own thing once we’re recording. So sometimes those off-the-cuff vocals become the song. So some are like that, and some are set from the get-go. Raga is a bit too tough for me. I don’t understand any of the theory, so I just dive in with my just my sense of it. I try to keep one step ahead with my singing. Masaaki Hara You are extremely prolific. We really only showed a tip of the iceberg today. But to hear you say that you don’t listen or look back on what you’ve done, it depicts a really wonderful stance of focusing on what’s ahead. What do you plan on doing from here on? Is it okay to ask? YoshimiO It isn’t like I want to do this or that. With Saicobab, I had this longtime drive to do grind ragacore. But I’ve never been the type to say, “This is what I want to do, and this is how I’ll do it”. Masaaki Hara So all these things we checked out today came about because the other people reached out to you. They were all looking for the right person and... YoshimiO That’s how it usually went. Masaaki Hara They’d reach out to you. YoshimiO Things would just work out that way, in terms of meeting people and timing. Masaaki Hara And when the time is right, you don’t miss the chance, perhaps? YoshimiO Pretty much. Masaaki Hara I’m sure you’re going to continue to create plenty more, so I’m looking forward to it. It was kind of a quick run-through, but today we mainly played samples of your solo work and things you did with others. If anyone out there hadn’t heard any of this before, most of it is still available. You can listen to a lot of it on Spotify. It’s out there for the listening, so check it out. There are a lot of cool tracks. And since everyone came here to this lecture today, and since we have a bit of extra time, if you have some questions for Yoshimi, feel free to ask away. It’s okay, right? YoshimiO I just hope I can answer. Masaaki Hara This is your chance, so raise your hand if you have a question. Audience member I’d love to know what album has impressed you the most. YoshimiO I don’t know if it impressed me the most, but what popped into my head just now is this guy from Argentina called Mono Fontana. I was really blown away by his recording style, its depth. Audience member Thank you. For me it’s Super æ by the Boredoms. YoshimiO I hear a lot of people say that about Super æ. Sometimes overseas there’ll be old guys who will only say Super æ. I always make the same face when I meet them. Audience member I could tell from your performance today, but playing in a Noh theater like this is a pretty special set-up. And then Saicobab was playing off of sheet music. Did playing in this setting influence your set in any way today? Since it wasn’t a normal concert venue. YoshimiO It was pretty unique, but I have played at a Noh theater in the past with OOIOO, the guys who were in the Boredoms guitar orchestra at the time, and then I think it was Saicobaba. Noh stages have clay jars underneath them to help sound resonate, right? So when it comes to vocals, it feels better to just sing unaided without going through the mic. The resonance is great, so Noh stages are actually easy to perform on. The atmosphere is a bit stiff, though, so it does feel like we’ve been plucked out of our natural element and placed here. But in terms of the sound Noh theaters are easy to play. Audience member Thank you. That wasn’t quite the answer I expected. Masaaki Hara The resonance is great for even just talking. YoshimiO You don’t even need a mic really. It’s easy to hear my own voice. Masaaki Hara It’d be great to see places like this used more often. YoshimiO They just have so many rules is the thing. Masaaki Hara That can’t really be helped. YoshimiO We have to toe the line. Masaaki Hara If there’s anyone else. No one? Audience member What is the most important thing for you when making music? Or when making anything. YoshimiO I think the most important thing is doing right by yourself, I guess. Like thinking about if you look good or... When it comes to food, and I’ve been making a lot recently, like the type of curry people line up for. Masaaki Hara You’re doing a curry place? YoshimiO Curry, like South Indian style. But anyway, people are going to be swallowing what I make, eating it, so I have to take some responsibility for what I make. At any rate, if you aren’t doing yourself right, you can’t show anything to others. You have to be honest to yourself. Masaaki Hara You mentioning food got me thinking, not food, but you have a brand. YoshimiO A clothing brand. I’ve been designing for it for about 15 years now. I have a collection coming up soon. On the 14th and 15th at OOO YYY Maison salon in Daikanyama. Anyone is free to come. Fall and winter you’ll have to order, but you can buy spring/summer items on the spot. Once that’s over we’ll do it again in Osaka. I’m super busy. But then I’ll be making curry in Osaka, too. Masaaki Hara I’m sure it will be great and everyone will line up. YoshimiO I find being a designer kind of embarrassing, so I always end up doing something else. I ended up where I am now in the course of doing all those things. Masaaki Hara But you have your music, too. YoshimiO Yeah, I do have that. Cooking really stresses me out. Because everyone’s eating it. It’s going into their bodies. Them eating it keeps me on my toes. Masaaki Hara Please check out her curry and clothing, though. We’re out of time, though, let’s wrap this up. Thank you for today, Yoshimi, and thank you all for coming. [applause]