KALX
Berkeley Interview
by
Sean Cooper
Tetsu Inoue's
music is more than simply ambient -- it seems to fill the listener's space,
creating a different environment. His pieces slowly unfold, evoking a
range of emotions and images. Although not popularly known, Tetsu Inoue
continues to be an innovator in modern electronic music. He has recorded
almost thirty albums and has collaborated with other well known ambient
musicians such as Bill Laswell, Peter Namlook of FAX records, Jonah Sharp
of Spacetime Continuum, and German producer Uwe Schmidt who records as
Atom Heart. A versatile artist, Inoue's work is difficult to categorize,
and spreads over multiple genres. He has recorded trance tracks as 'OM',
deep chill monochrome with Namlook under the moniker '2350 Broadway',
and more psychedelic ambient with Atom Heart as 'Datacide.' Recently,
he and Atom Heart joined Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra to produce
the funk and jazz influenced album 'HAT.' As a solo artist, Inoue's work
has evolved from melodic ambient projects like _Ambiant Otaku_ and _Organic
Cloud_ to the looser, more organic works _Slow and Low_, and the recently
released _World Receiver_. On _World Receiver_, location recordings from
different countries mesh with elusive melodies to produce music which
owes as much to 'classic' ambient as it does to more experimental cut-and-paste
music. It appears as if this experimental trend will continue with collaborative
projects planned for John Zorn's label, Tzadik.
Conducted
September 1995, at 2350 Broadway, and August 1996, at KALX Berkeley
Interviewer: Sean Cooper
When did
you start doing music?
In high
school I played guitar. I played sort of rock music, the Beatles and that
sort of thing. I grew up listening to the Beatles and Yellow Magic Orchestra,
Tomita, that sort of thing. I started experimenting with playing it when
I was around 18. I started out using mostly just a sequencer, like monophonic.
Those were reasonably priced. I still have some tapes of that early stuff;
actually, Peter [Namlook, of Fax Records] wants to release it.
What's that
stuff like?
It's ambient!
(laughs)
You actually
started out from the beginning making ambient? Why? What drew you to it?
As a musician
I was very much inspired by Pink Floyd and Tomita. The reasons why I liked
these groups was that they put you in a very different state of mind;
turn off the lights, listen to it. It was great. And I wanted to make
music that could be listened to that way. Because there weren't really
drugs in Japan that you could take for that, so music would [play that
role].
Did you
release anything then?
No. But
I did make music for ballet and things like that, dance companies. Of
course, nobody really liked what I was doing. But I was able to get work,
and people pay...a little bit, not much. I knew a musician who was making
music for them, drums and things like that, but I thought doing this sort
of [electronic] music would be more interesting.
When did
you come to the U.S.?
About 10
years ago. I lived in San Francisco for a time, six or seven years ago,
on a houseboat [in the North Bay city of Sausalito]. That was really nice.
A friend of mine, Peter Campbell, used to be in a famous sixties band
-- South With Camel, I think it was called -- a famous sixties band. "Hello,
Hello" was their hit. Anyway, he used to take care of the boat, and I
rented a room for $150 -- very cheap. [Up to that point] I was playing
guitar and singing in a Japanese bar, like karaoke style; that was in
New York. I came to New York first, I kept an apartment and saved up enough
money to move for a time to San Francisco. I was in a way bi-coastal.
While I was out there I also recorded with Naut Humon.
Really?
Was any of that ever released?
No. He rarely
puts anything out. He likes to take a lot of time working on things before
putting them out. But I like his work on the _Throne Of Drones_ record.
It's good. It's important work.
From there
how did you get hooked up with Peter Namlook?
Peter worked
with Pod Communications in Germany, based in Frankfurt. And I was also
working with Pod at the time with a project called Station Rose. When
I visited Austria with Ingrid [his girlfriend, an Austrian, whom he met
in New York] I got involved with a multimedia project -- Mind Machine
-- dealing with light and sound. I was doing frequencies, and they would
do visuals. We made a record called _Gunafra 2000_. So I was involved
with that kind of thing. Anyway, they were in Frankfurt and through Pod
I was introduced to Uwe [Schmidt, aka Atom Heart] and Peter. That was
in 1989. The beginning of rave culture. Acid and techno.
Were you
experimenting at all with those styles?
Peter was
very much involved with techno and trance. Peter and I made mostly ambient,
but he never used any of it! He would cut it! [laughs] I was really surprised.
We would do a one-hour session, and he would only use portions of what
we did for the b-sides. He would put out 12-inches, so of course he had
to put some beats on them, but I think at that time he wanted to do strictly
ambient, but was concerned that there was no market for it. Ambient was
not very popular at that time.
When did
you guys decide to record together? Had you heard some of his music?
He just
came here and said, "Let's play!" [laughs] We didn't really plan anything
in the beginning. That's how _2350 Broadway_ came about. We just pushed
the record button on the DAT and started playing. No programming, no nothing.
Just "ERRRRRRR," from beginning to end: the recording session became the
running time of the CD. Very intense.
And the
idea for that album, according to the liner notes, was "Music for a city
that is unlivable."
Yes. Peter
doesn't like New York. At that point we were both so sick of New York,
and it was so hot. And New York in the summer can be quite horrible. But
the recording of that album was a very natural process. I would play some,
and then Peter would play some. He brought the Synthi -- that's his favorite
synthesizer -- and we both used that.
The next
album you did together was _Shades Of Orion_, which of course begins with
a very beat-oriented track. Yeah. I wanted to do more ambient stuff, but
Peter said "No, let's do something different," so we did that. Half of
that album is beats, and half ambient.
And your
solo work has been for the most part strictly ambient, except for a couple
of tracks here and there that incoporate very experimental beats.
Right. Although
some of my earlier stuff, like _Om_ and some stuff with Peter is more
like hardcore, trance, that style.
So you enjoy
experimenting occasiomally with more beat-oriented styles?
I used to.
I wouldn't mind doing it again. I like the stuff Rephlex is putting out,
Aphex Twin's label. I like that style, really weird sound. Very interesting.
I think
there's a similarity in the way that the both of you approach beats in
your music, a novel approach that tries to do beats in a way that's musically
very interesting, that's not just throwing a standard breakbeat in or
a standard four-on-the-floor beat.
Yeah. I
try to avoid doing beats which are very obvious sounding. In fact, I strictly
avoid 808 and 909 drum sounds altogether, because everybody is using them.
I use synthesizers to generate drum noises and sample them. I find that
more interesting. It's essentially the same thing, but more interesting.
Which do
you like better, working solo or in collaboration?
I like both.
Collaborating is more like vibration and feedback and it's kind of interesting
in that respect. I get bored sometimes just working by myself, because
there's no feedback. It's very hard to get feedback with a machine, but
with people it's very easy.
Do you find
that different collaborators bring out different aspects of you music?
Of course.
What does
Peter bring out?
Oh, that's
very difficult. [pauses] Spirituality.
Uwe?
Uwe brings
out beats and texture.
Uh-huh.
Although, I find you music to be very textural anyway.
Yeah, that's
true.
How about
Bill Laswell.
Bill...
[laughs] Bill I think is one of the greatest producers of our time. He
brings out in me, like, vibrations...[pauses] It's hard to explain...
What's it
like working with him?
I think
Bill's ideas and my ideas are often very similar in the way that we choose
sounds -- very similar. That scares me. In the last session we did [the
day before the interview] I brought sounds, and the sounds Bill had were
almost the same sounds. Very odd. We plan to work more. I'd like to do
something like _Outer Dark_, very organic. A little bit dark. But very
organic.
Is _Slow
And Low_ a step toward that sort of a sound?
No, I think
_Slow And Low_ is totally different. I did it in part as a sort of sculpture
-- no emotion. I just didn't want to put any emotion into it, and that's
why I think a lot of people find it hard to get into. Also at that time
I was so sick of regular ambient. You know, like chords and being very
easy to listen to. So much of that stuff just sounds like New Age.
Well that's
a good point. How do you think ambient is doing these days? Is it still
vibrant, or has it reached a brick wall of sorts?
Well, many
people have stopped doing ambient, so I'm kind of happy. It started to
become like trance, just an empty style. It was almost becoming like New
Age again. In the beginning some New Age music was very interesting, but
then big record companies began to market it and it became Easy Listening.
And ambient was sort of moving in that direction. And I got really sick
of it. Just like [monotone intonation] "Oooohhhh"-then a chord, some singing,
then another chord. And it became like, how many of those records are
you going to do? Why don't people do a different style?
And now
a lot of people are making trip-hop, and a lot of people are making experimental
techno, electro, and jungle. Do you think ambient will start getting back
on track?
Yeah, I
think so. Also, I think, with something like jungle, I don't think people
are going to be into it as much in a couple of years, whereas with ambient
I think there will always be an audience. But I think jungle is very interesting
-- music is music.
What about
performing. Do you ever perform out?
Yeah, sometimes.
Mostly in New York, at clubs or festivals. But it's very tiring, transporting
equipment around and things getting stolen or broken and things like that.
I prefer the studio, it's much easier. Unless you have a roadie [laughs].
What are
you listening to these days?
Street sounds.
The sounds of the city, texures and things like that. When I listen to
music its mostly older stuff, from the sixties, not new stuff so much.
Jazz -- Jimmy Smith, I listen to a little electronic music. I like Terre's
new album very much [Terre Thaemlitz's "Soil," on Instinct]. Skylab is
kind of interesting, very similar idea to the _Masters Of Psychedelic
Ambience_ CD, though more commercial. _Masters Of Psychedelic Ambience_
people didn't get. "How can you make such music? It doesn't go anywhere!"
Reviews
of your stuff pop up from time to time, but I haven't really seen enough
to get a sense of what people, say in the U.S., think of your music? Have
you gotten a sense of that?
Um, I don't
really care about that, actually. I think I probably shouldn't care about
that. I don't know, I don't have internet access, and I don't really read
reviews or anything like that, so I can't really tell. Sometimes I'll
ask you or I'll ask Will-E what's going on. I ask Terre. Sometimes I'll
hear an album is reviewed or whatever.
People seemed
to like _Organic Cloud_.
Yeah. A
lot of people liked that album a lot. I was surprised. It was done very
quickly and it was old at the time of release. Peter kept it for almost
one year before releasing it.
What do
you consider to be your best work or the work you are most proud of? You
mentioned _Masters Of Psychedelic Ambience_. What of the solo stuff?
I think
my new solo stuff is very similar to _Masters_, but with more changes.
Some other new work I've given to Bill to use on a new Divination album
[_Distill_, 1996, SubMeta].. Hosono is on it, Mick Harris, and Peter is
on it, too.
A running
criticism of Fax, which I tend to think is somewhat bogus, is that Fax
utilizes limited releases to secure a collector's market for their releases
and keep the price and demand high. The Fax line on that is that a release
limit is what allows the label to continue operating at a sustainable
level, providing an avenue for artists to make a living with their music.
Whatever the case, do you feel constrained as an artist by an arbitrary
limit like 1,000 copies being placed on any given release, regardless
of the quaility or demand?
Yeah, of
course. Some records I think deserve to be released beyond 1,000 copies.
If it's a good record and people want it and it sells out really quickly
then it deserves to have more copies put out. But on the other hand, I
understand where Peter is coming from because he's releasing so much stuff
he can only really do one record pressing at a time, and then he has to
move on.
What are
some Fax releases that you think deserved a higher run?
_Outland_,
definitely. At least 4,000 copies. It's a good record. It's old school
ambient, but hey have a feel to it. That sort of old school sound I think
stays fresh for a long time. [Puts on DAT of noises used on Laswell/Hosono/Inoue
project for Polygram Japan.]
Tell me
about the project you're doing with Bill Laswell and Haruomi Hosono. Did
you start with a concept or with sounds?
I usually
just start with sounds. To me a sound has to be really...[pauses]...sounds
are very important. Right now I'm trying to get more to the organic side...it's
hard to explain. It goes with something Bill told me: collecting information.
[Piece begins to build.] This is just the basic song structure, then Bill
will go back over it and add something and Hosono will add something.
Do you sort
of hang out and listen to what their adding, or do you just drop the tape
off and sort of let them do their thing.
No, I just
let him do it...Lately, Bill's been working with a lot of, not breakbeats,
but like jungle influence that's really interesting, very treated. I think
Bill is really good at it. He's constantly trying to do new things. He's
got a lot of equipment, too, and he's been around a long, long time. Just
incredible. [Sounds begin stuttering.] This is the subway. I recorded
the subway and then fast-forwarded through the DAT so it's like "dut-dut-dut-dut."
Hosono is
kind of a key figure in your own musical coming-of-age. How did you hook
up with him?
Bill gave
me his number and I sent him some of my CDs -- _Masters Of Psychedelic
Ambience_, _Datacide: Flowerhead_, and _Ambiant Otaku_, and _Organic Cloud_.
He liked them, and he said, "Let's do it."
Speaking
of Hosono, maybe we can talk about HAT a little bit. Collaboration has
been a pretty big part of your output, working with Namlook, Atom Heart
and others. And, for albums such as Masters of Psychadelic Ambience, and
Flowerhead, the results have been pretty complex. How does that collaboration
work? Do you do it through the mail, or are you in the studio together?
With Masters
of Psychadelic Ambience and Flowerhead, Uwe and I worked in different
studios. We'd discuss a concept, and work on it independently. Then, we'd
go into his studio with our material, and link them together.
Did it work
that way with HAT as well?
HAT was
more of a live thing. Uwe and I flew to Japan to record with Hosono. We
were jamming in the studio, and the material was edited later.
HAT is coming
out on a separate label in Japan, possibly on vinyl?
Yeah, Hosono
is starting a new label, Dasiyworld, this coming November.
And then,
of course, your most recent album World Reciever just came out. Why don't
you tell us a little about how that came together. I know that you travelled
around the world and were gathering up source recordings.
I was more
involved with environmental recordings, specifically digital. When I bought
a DAT walkman, I started recording samples of the city. I played them
back in my studio, and noticed very interesting textures. Lots of unexpected
rhythms and lots of different textures. I put them through a sampling
machine and processed them. That was the idea of World Reciever.
Well, it's
a pretty phenomenal work as a whole. It's very integrated and coherent.
Yeah, it
took a lot of time to finish.
How long
did you spend on each piece?
Each piece
took three or four days, but collecting the sounds and programming each
sound was quite difficult. I had to choose from lots of different sounds.
How much
source material did you gather?
Oh, over
two hours of environmental recordings. I used lots of them, but it doesn't
sound like a big environmental recording.
Yeah, there
are some sounds which are so effects laden, for example, you walking on
the beach, that you can barely tell what they are any more.
That was
the idea. Not just using regular environmental sounds.
Was this
an idea that you've had for some time?
Yes. I've
had the idea since the late eighties, but I couldn't do it. I didn't have
the right equipment -- a DAT walkman, a good sampler. In the past couple
of years I've been travelling a lot. I have a landscape in my mind that
I had to express. A lot of ambient music -- I don't want to use the term
ambient music -- but that kind of music is so boring. I wanted to make
something that would be more interesting.
You told
me earlier of some projects you've got going with members of the New York
experimental music scene, like Ikue Mori and Kato Hideki. What do you
percieve as some of the commmon elements of your music and their music?
I think
they're quite similar, actually. Recently, I've been getting into more
of a New York funky, underground, avant guarde sound. It's really exciting
for me. I'm starting to incorporate more of a jazz and funk influence
into my music. I liked their album, Death Ambient. The way their work
is structured and the way it moves approaches what I'm trying to do.
Have you
begun recording?
We haven't
really played yet, but we should begin recording this year.
Will you
be integrating acoustic instruments along with electronics?
Kato is
probably going to play electric bass. Most likely, I will be playing electronic
instruments. It will be harder to listen to than my earlier work.
I hear this
is going to be released on John Zorn's label [Tzadik], will Zorn be involved
with the recording?
I have no
idea. I spoke with him, and he's interested in releasing the project.
In the immediate
future, what do you have coming out?
There will
be a new Datacide album in October. It will be an easy listening, lounge,
environmental recording. And, I'm going to Germany next month to record
with Peter.
Will the
album which you're going to record be part of an existing series, or a
new work?
I have to
talk with Peter, but I hope it will be a new work. I don't want to call
it 'something two' or 'something three.' I'm getting sick of it.
And what
about the piece you've recorded with Jonah Sharp for EMI in Europe?
It's called
Instant Replay. It's more of a funky ambient hip hop album.
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