INDEX
Seasonal Culture, Sound Design, ASMR, and Hugo Zucarelli
-When we spoke the other day, you mentioned that “Ethereal Essence” is like Haruomi Hosono’s “COINCIDENTAL MUSIC” (1985). I think that various orders like that open up new ways of creating your own sound.
Oyamada: That’s right. It gives me a chance to open drawers that I normally don’t open, to see what kind of approach I can take to an order, and it is a chance for me to discover that “this kind of thing is possible,” or “this kind of thing is interesting. For my own work, I have to come up with my own themes, so if anyone has any ideas, I’d like you to think of them [laughs].
-The second song, “Sketch For Spring,” is the background music for the opening of Shibuya PARCO, which is also on the cassette.
Oyamada: A little while ago, I was selecting background music to be played inside PARCO, and I made one song for each season, selecting songs for spring, summer, fall, and winter. In spring, this song is played once every few hours, mixed with songs by various artists I selected. At this time, I also made the closing music and the time signal.
-So you are involved in Saison culture in a concrete way.
Oyamada: The current PARCO staff grew up with Saison culture, so I wanted to keep the Saison spirit alive. They invited Mr. Ukawa (Naohiro) to hold DOMMUNE as “the last cultural stronghold in Shibuya,” and there are people who have that kind of spirit. I was also a child of Saison, so I was very honored to be asked to be a part of this project.
-This song was rather close to Oyamada’s field of work. Like “Design Ah”, this kind of cross-media expansion is an important point to consider for “Cornelius in the 21st century”. When we talk about “design and music” or sound design, Cornelius is the first name that comes up.
Oyamada: It is true that people say that sound design is something that everyone does.
-I think sound design here means placing as much importance on sound resonance and texture as melody and harmony.
Oyamada: I think that’s what everyone is thinking about, too. But perhaps not many people recognize music as “something that arranges sounds within a space and time axis. Of course I think about lyrics and melody, but in my case, I always focus on that when I formulate a piece of music.
-Do you remember the “holophonic sound”? When I was a student, there was an ad in Gakken’s “Mu” magazine, I think it was, on the front or middle page, and I mail-ordered a cassette tape that claimed to have “Holophonic Sound”.
Oyamada: Was it Hugo Zuccarelli? I heard him at the listening machine on the first floor of Roppongi WAVE. It was the kind where the sounds of hair cutting and hair dryer application were so realistic that it was a bit like an optical illusion. I didn’t know they sold them in “Mu” [laughs].
(Laughs.) But I heard that they didn’t reveal how they were able to make the recordings so realistic. Hugo Zuccarelli is a great guy, and he’s done work with Michael Jackson, Lou Reed, Pink Flyold, and there’s sound in Psychic TV’s “Yu Words of the Temple” (1982’s “Force the Hand of Chance”).
-You are strangely knowledgeable.
Oyamada: I did a lot of research at the time (laughs). (laughs). I went out to buy it with Masaya Nakahara. Under his influence, we used dummy heads and binaural recording* for “FANTASMA.
Binaural recording is a stereo recording method in which omni-directional microphones (which pick up sound equally in all directions) are attached to a dummy head (mannequin’s head) or to both ears of a person. Eisuke Yanagisawa, “Introduction to Field Recording: Encountering the World in the Sound of Sound” (2022, Filmart-sha), p. 19 (in Japanese).
-That was a shock. I was taught the fun of “sound that is not music” when I was a teenager.
Oyamada: It was that kind of experience.
-I think it was something like what we now call ASMR.
Oyamada: In the sense of the pleasantness of the sound of reality, it’s completely in that vein.
-For “Forbidden Apple,” you are aware of ASMR, aren’t you?
Oyamada: Yes, I am. That’s why Hugo Zuccarelli is in it [laughs]. I wonder why the sound of an apple being nibbled on feels so good.
-The sound of biting an apple is very symbolic, but it has a sonic complexity. Is that sound a library source?
Oyamada: Yes, it is.
