INDEX
Delving into Music with Vocals
-You went to college at the Tokyo College of Music, majoring in composition and conducting, and it was right around the time of Corona, wasn’t it?
Umei: That’s right. Because of Corona, I moved to Tokyo around October 2020, but I couldn’t go out or do anything even if I wanted to make friends during that period. But the trio’s album came out in January 2021, so I was suddenly in a situation where I was going to perform at COTTON CLUB 4 months after moving to Tokyo, and when I went to play at sessions, there were people who knew my name. I was grateful for that, but it also put a lot of pressure on me.
-So, it was because of that period that you were able to fully launch the singing unit haruyoi with Shoka Sugano, right?”
Umei： I started thinking about things I could do at home and began making songs with my new DTM setup, so that was a big deal, I think. Before entering high school, I wasn’t really interested in music with vocals, but after entering high school, I started liking Taeko Ohnuki and began listening to various songs. At that time, the task of composing music to existing lyrics overlapped perfectly. At first, I couldn’t do it at all. Because I’m from Hyogo, the intonation of standard Japanese and Kansai dialect got mixed up and messed up. It felt really uncomfortable when it turned into a song, so I was told to redo it, like, go back and do it again, and I went home depressed every week.
-Surely from that experience, you must have thought, “I want to be able to create music with vocals too!” And of course, Sakika’s presence must have been significant as well.
Umei: Yes, that’s right. She originally studied clarinet in high school, but then she moved to Tokyo saying, “I really want to sing,” and I thought that was cool. She often talks about how she grew up listening to reggae because of her dad, and I think it’s because of that different background that her ideas and perspectives are so fresh, and being around her is really stimulating.
–On the contrary, what kind of music do the two of you share?
Umei：Mononkul, Gretchen Parlato, Hiatus Kaiyote, and so on. We often have conversations like, “This kind of sound production is great, right?” and find ourselves saying, “I get it!” quite often.
-The title “euphoria” was taken from Sugano’s favorite “Euphoria” by BTS.
Umei: At first it didn’t feel right, but gradually I came to like it. I am not really good at putting things into words, and I am very cautious about limiting myself to a single word. So with “euphoria,” at first, I was concerned that if I just defined the word “happiness,” I would limit the listener’s perception of the song. I was concerned that if I defined it as “happiness,” it might narrow down the audience’s perception of it. But when a friend of mine who came to the last day of the release tour said, “I was filled with happiness after seeing the live performance today,” I was glad I chose this title.
