INDEX
Balancing Life as a Researcher and a Musician
Both of you spent part of your student years pursuing research before eventually focusing fully on music. Could you talk about the kind of research you were doing at the time?
Sumino: When I was in university, I was researching something called source separation. It’s similar to how Siri works — extracting important information from noisy audio, or isolating the sound of a specific instrument within a performance. My research focused on improving the accuracy of that process using machine learning techniques, which were just starting to gain momentum at the time.
In graduate school, I worked on automatic transcription and automated arrangement based on it at IRCAM, the French Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music. Since I often play different kinds of music on the piano by ear, the question I was exploring was whether a machine could do something similar. It was a line of research that felt very close to my own musical interests.
Ichika: I was researching ways to use viruses to kill cancer cells. It’s part of cancer treatment research. There’s a type of DNA structure called a plasmid, and the idea was to cut out a portion of it and insert a new DNA segment, essentially creating a virus that could shrink cancer cells. Then we’d culture it, modify the genes, and run experiments to see whether it actually had the intended effect. I basically spent a long time doing that kind of work over and over. So for me, it had nothing to do with music at all [laughs].
But looking at what both of you have gone on to do as musicians, I feel there’s something very researcher-like in your approach. Maybe that background is part of why you connected so quickly.
Ichika: That’s true — there might be a logical side to how I approach music. At the same time, there’s also a philosophical aspect that’s really important, so maybe it’s not entirely scientific. But in my case, I tend to imagine something first and then genuinely want to make it real. To get there, I think through the logic very carefully, gather data, and experiment. In that sense, it does feel a bit like running experiments.
Sumino: When I shifted from being a researcher to becoming a musician, I think the mindset I developed during my research years had a huge impact on me. At the same time, there were parts of it I consciously tried to move away from, so it’s really a mix of both.
One side is that experimental spirit — wanting to try things out, take in different influences, and build one more step on top of what people before us have already achieved.
The other side has more to do with being a musician, or an artist. It’s about expressing something that comes from an inner urge — something you genuinely feel compelled to put into the world. As a researcher, objectivity is everything, no matter how far you go. So the challenge for me was learning how to think more subjectively. In the few years after graduating, I think my awareness around that shifted quite a lot.
Ichika: What would you say the balance is like now?
Sumino: I think fifty-fifty is ideal. My ideal state is having two constantly competing sides of myself, each perpetually critiquing the other.
Ichika: Ideally, it’s fifty-fifty. In my mind, there are always two versions of myself in tension — constantly questioning and critiquing each other. That kind of balance is probably the ideal state for me.
Ichika: I feel exactly the same way. When you’re trying to turn your ideals into reality, you have to look at things very objectively, and there are times when it’s honestly not that fun. It can get pretty stressful. But at the same time, it’s really important that the music remains a form of self-expression — something you truly want to make and genuinely enjoy. So figuring out how to keep those two sides in balance is something I think about all the time.
