INDEX
The Theme of Luminescent Creatures and the Image of a Galaxy of Life Stirring in the Darkness
The title Luminescent Creatures refers to glowing life forms. How did this theme come to emerge?
Aoba: On my previous album, there’s a song called “Adan no Shima no Tanjōsai,” and its English title is Luminescent Creatures. That was actually the first song I wrote for Adan no Kaze, around March 2020, I think.
By that time, I already had a rough image of coral spawning and life wriggling in the dark, and as I gradually focused on it, it naturally led me toward the world of Luminescent Creatures. While studying more about it, I became particularly interested in the origin—why these luminescent creatures began to shine in the first place.
Why did these luminescent creatures start to glow?
Aoba: Apparently, at some point, they realized, “I am an individual.” At that moment, by sending signals to other individuals, they could prove their existence, “I am here, ”and try to understand one another. That became bioluminescence, and blinking was the method they used. When these individuals came together, new life forms were born. I find that incredibly romantic.
Absolutely.
Aoba: Even in our own cells, if you think on a small scale like synapses, our bodies are glowing too. When an idea sparks, you feel a jolt of electricity, that’s a kind of bioluminescence as well. There’s no real difference between our bodies now and the creatures that have just appeared on Earth. It made me start thinking about how we are all life forms of the same planet.
One thing that really stood out in your new album is the beauty of your lyrics. In a comment about the sixth track, “FLAG,” you wrote, “I usually write the lyrics first, and often the imagery and scenes evoked by those words inspire the music.” Does that mean the words come to you before you even picture a scene or landscape?
Aoba: The words do not just appear out of nowhere. They are usually based on the landscapes I have seen and the emotions or fluctuations of feeling I have experienced. But lyrics are different from regular prose because they are short, condensed phrases. As I work on a song, they often bring new imagery to mind. I then translate that imagery into melodies and chords.
So as you write, new scenes emerge.
Aoba: Exactly. Sometimes writing the lyrics also leads me to notice things I had not realized before or opens up new interpretations. The spaces between the words invite the music to fill them in.
Some of the songs include words like “you,” such as in the fourth track, “tower.” Who is “you” referring to here?
Aoba: Compared with Windswept Adan, my previous album, there is a big difference in Luminescent Creatures. This time, the songs delve more deeply into everyday human life.
Just as luminescent creatures find each other and form bonds, I think we humans follow similar patterns. Even if it is not a romantic partner, everyone lives within relationships with others. In “tower,” I used the word “you” in that sense.
When I heard you sing “you” in this song, it felt to me as if you weren’t addressing a real person but rather a spirit. During sacred rituals, you sing toward transcendent beings, right? I felt that kind of nuance in this song.
Aoba: I think that interpretation works too. “tower” might not be directly connected to my experiences on Hateruma, but just because that is what I feel, listeners might find their own meaning in it. With that feeling in mind, I want to try singing it again.
