INDEX
Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Song Sympathy with Cornelius
-What about “voice”? I think the Cornelius version of ASA-CHANG’s “Confession” is a song that strikes a surprising chord.
Oyamada: There is a filmmaker named Kazumasa Teshigahara, and ASA-CHANG read his profile and found it so amazing that they wrote the song using a soundtrack of a girl reading it out loud.
-So Teshigahara himself is an important point.
Oyamada: By coincidence, Mr. Teshigahara was one of the artists who created a video for the “AUDIO ARCHITECTURE: Sound Architecture Exhibition” at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT in Roppongi. He is a wonderful abstract and psychedelic filmmaker, but I heard that he grew up this way (laughs).
-I think the human voice is a very mysterious instrument. Shuntaro Tanikawa’s “Here” also reminds me of this.
Oyamada: I wrote this song for Tanikawa Shuntaro’s exhibition. I asked Tanikawa to recite his own poems, analyzed each note of his recitation, applied it to the Do Re Mi Faso Rashido scale, and then harmonized the notes to that scale. I used Melodyne, a pitch correction software, to decide on the chords and melody.
In Steve Vai’s first album, there is a song that Frank Zappa wrote by handing a conversation to Steve Vai and saying, “Copy this conversation on the guitar. In Steve Vai’s case, he used his own ears and guitar technique, but even though he uses mechanical power, the idea of capturing the human voice by converting it into a musical scale is similar.
Do you have a strong self-awareness as a vocalist?
Oyamada: Not really. If I could get someone else to sing, I think the music would become something else, but since I do my own live performances, it’s too much of a hassle to ask someone else to sing every time. I am not good at singing at all, but nowadays machines are so advanced that even I can manage.
-I don’t know whether to be passive or active.
Oyamada: Well, it’s both [laughs].
-What about the cover of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Thatness and Thereness” that closes the album?
Oyamada: Because it has more weight when it’s in the middle of the song.
-Koyamada: It’s a song that has a lot of weight to it when it’s in the middle.
Oyamada: When Mr. Sakamoto was still fighting his illness, we covered this song for a tribute (“A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto – To the Moon and Back,” released in 2022) that we made together on his birthday, with the hope that he would get well. I like the song simply because I like it. I chose this song not only because I like it, but also because I wanted to play a song that Sakamoto-san sings.
Do you like Sakamoto-san’s vocals?
Oyamada: I really like it. I like the simplicity of it.
-I like the simplicity of your vocals.
Oyamada: Yes, yes. The songs are very simple, and I like the way they are sung in a simple way.
-The contrast is fascinating. For example, there are many different types of ambient music, and I think Sakamoto’s sound is the exact opposite of the simplicity of new age music. On the other hand, your songs are extremely simple.
Oyamada: In the case of Mr. Sakamoto, his music is different from that kind of simple music, because he also composes the sounds properly. I think it would be a shame to have your music be lumped in with the “it feels so good” type of music. I think the spirituality of the music is another reason for the resistance.
-I think that is the root of your resistance, too.
Oyamada: I do have a sense of resistance to being oversimplified.
