INDEX
Towards an Unseen Peak: Reflections on Midlife and YMO
When we talked about Haruomi Hosono recently*, you mentioned that Sketch Show became an opportunity for the three members of Yellow Magic Orchestra to reunite. At that time, did it have aspects like being a vessel for cross-generational collaboration in ambient and electronica genres?
Oyamada: Sketch Show was the catalyst for me to join the three of them. I don’t know if I should be included, but I think there was something in that music that certain people could share back then. It had been quite a while since Mr. Sakamoto had joined up with those two, and it had been quite a while since Mr. Hosono and Yukihiro had been in a band together to begin with.
*Interview in “Yukihiro Takahashi: Music Ikijin no Zenpo” (2024, Kawade Shobo Shinsha)
-Sketch Show itself had a spontaneous aspect to it. What were the things you shared?
Oyamada: In terms of music, I think it was a “minimal, delicate” kind of element. Also, in the early 2000s, there was the 9.11 incident, and times were changing a bit from the competitive side.
In the 1990s, Sakamoto was playing house in New York, and electronica is close to the context of minimal music and contemporary music. In the case of Hosono and Yukihiro, I think their folk-like delicacy had a strong affinity with electronica. I think that in the case of the three of us, we were able to arrive at electronica from a variety of different contexts.
Oyamada: I think there is also the age factor: between Sketch Show and the re-formation of YMO, in the mid-2000s, Hosono-san was around 60, and Sakamoto-san and Yukihiro-san were a little younger than I am now, around 53 or 54. So, in terms of lifecycle, they have settled down once.
-I guess there were a lot of coincidences in terms of music, time period, and life cycle of each of us.
Oyamada: In the 1990s, when YMO got together again, all three of us said at the time that it was a bad idea to be business-driven because there was not much we could share. Compared to that time, we now genuinely share music and eat dinner together.
Looking back on it now, I think all three of us were still young, but we started talking about “getting old. I was talking about quitting smoking and so on. So I would like to talk with them as they are now, because I am a newbie to the geriatric world (laughs).
-What do you think about getting old, Oyamada? Should I wither away from now on?
Oyamada: I don’t know. It is really difficult, this first aging problem [laughs].
-During the time of “POINT,” I remember being interviewed by Yuichi Kishino*, and you mentioned feeling a sense of “wabi-sabi.” Perhaps Keigo Oyamada had reached that state at a young age.
Oyamada: No, of course I was conscious of it in some aspects, but it was just the wabi-sabi of a young man in his 30s (laughs). Sakamoto-san’s “out of noise” (2009) and “12” (2023) have a very wabi-sabi feel to them. Compared to those works, mine are still very childish [laughs].
-It is not truly a source of physical deterioration.
Oyamada: I think they are completely different dimensions.
*Referring to an interview that appeared in the November 2001 issue of “STUDIO VOICE” magazine, “Special Feature: The New Century of Post-Techno/Electronica.
-I think there is a reality in that.
Oyamada: But I think there is a reality due to that.
-Sakamoto-san, your works after “out of noise” are very good.
Oyamada: I love it.
-I think it was a challenge to the very end. I think it was challenging right to the end.
Oyamada: Yes, yes.
-Given the fact that you are a musician, I think you have a long way to go before you reach your peak.
Oyamada: I hope so.
Cornelius
Ethereal Essence” (CD)
Released on Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Price: 3,300 yen (tax included)
WPCL-13566
1. Quantum Ghost
2. Sketch For Spring
3. Heaven Is Waiting
4. Too much like sauna, more deeply
5. Xanadu
6. Xanadu
7. Step Into Exovera
8. Forbidden Apple
9. Melting Moment
10. Confession – Cornelius ver.
11. Mind Matrix
12. Windmills Of My Mind
13. Thatness And Thereness – Cornelius Remodel
https://wmg.jp/cornelius/discography/29449
Cornelius
Selected Ambient Works 00-23″ (cassette)
Friday, October 6, 2023
Price: 3,410 yen (tax included)
[Side A]
1. Quantum Ghosts
2. Wataridori 2
3. Too Pure
4. Windmills Of Your Mind
5. Tokyo Twilight
[Side B]
1. Dream in the Mist
2. Summer Waves
3. Take Me To The Green World
4. Loo
5. Tone Twilight Zone
https://store.wmg.jp/products/3567
