【 I think it’s very important to express people and sounds purely as they are. 】

OY : What kind of artists do you interact with, machìna? Are there any musicians that you are particularly close to?

machìna : Among my modular friends, I often hang out with Taro (Taro Aiko / M.A.S.F. from ENDON).  Lena (galcid) and Hisashi Saito gave me a lot of advice when I was building my first modular, and I’m always grateful to them.
I also have lunch with Sakura (Sakura Tsuruta) and Kyoka and talk with them. Since we are all female producers and artists, we share a lot of the same feelings, and we want to support each other and make things more exciting together.

OY : So, what do you look for when you make music?

machìna : I think it is very important to express people and sounds as they are, purely as they are.
For example, last year at the MUTEK , I used tesla coils to create a performance.
Simply put, I wanted to convey the idea that the electronic music I was playing was being played by this “pure” electricity.
I’m used to seeing the waveforms used to make music through modular devices, but it’s hard to see the shape of the electrons, so I wanted to somehow convey that to the audience.
This feeling and the way I express it is also a “pure” concern of mine.

OY : It’s true that both auditory and visual information are important in a live performance.

machìna : I think that in the future, music will be able to be expressed using VR, lasers, and many other methods.
It is felt that there are more and more ways to approach music experientially.
Of course it is a prerequisite to move the listener with music, but I think that the visuals will allow for a greater range of expression and possibilities.

OY : MUTEK is an event for expressing such audio-visual ideas.
machìna, you just released your third album “Compass Point”, an album I’ve been enjoying for a while now.
When composing music, would it be that you work with a PC or modular, but while touching the equipment and sounding sensitively, it gradually takes shape? Or do you have an image of the song in your mind first, and then use the modular equipment to give it shape?

machìna : There are many different patterns, but I wanted to make sure that the direction of the sound was clear for this album.
So I rented a space in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture for a month and built my own studio there for some alone time.
There, I decided to jam every day to record something.
During the day, I would jam with modulars and such, experimenting and layering sounds that flowed intuitively one after another, and at night I would relax and read.
The world view of the album was very much inspired by Carl Jung’s “The Red Book” that I brought with me at that time.The way I spent my days and nights during this period flowed very naturally, and as I repeated it for a month, I came to understand the meaning of my daily life and how I wanted to express it through music.
I think I was able to learn a lot from them.