First off, may I hear the reason for using "RAINBOW" for the album's title?
A: A rainbow is something that everyone's seen at least once, so there's not gonna be anyone saying "huh? a rainbow? what's that?," it's something they'd immediately recognize. But you only see it for a moment, you can't gaze at it forever. And when you want to see one, you can't. And it's not a tangible thing, either... When I thought about that, I thought, I wonder if I really saw a rainbow? Is a rainbow really even there? People have the general notion of "a rainbow is a seven-color arc", sure, they know what a picture of a rainbow looks like, so when they see a rainbow, maybe they ascertain with their own knowledge that that's what they've seen... But what if that's not really what it is? For example, maybe it's only three colors...
And also, no one's ever sad when they see a rainbow. They say "Look! It's a rainbow!" and a part of them becomes happy. I thought I wanted to do that, I wanted to have that kind of existance. I can't be right next to you, but when everyone sees me, I'd like for it to feel nice, like times when you see a rainbow maybe. So I chose "RAINBOW" for the title.
I'd like to hear a little about the shooting of the jacket photo though. The shoot took quite a long time, didn't it?
A: It took forever! And the pose wasn't comfortable at all. But it would have been bad if I couldn't conceal everything... (bitter smile) And I was sitting on top of this pool, like a fish tank, but I'm a human so I wanted to move. (laughs) And then they'd have to change the water... and I'd have to wait for it to stop moving around.
The inside of the tank wasn't really cold water... was it??
A: Oh no, it was warm, it was warm! (laugh) But it would get me feeling cold after awhile. So they'd have to keep adding warm water to it over and over... but eventually it'd cool down again. Plus, I wasn't wearing anything, so.
Nothing at all??
A: That's right. So Leslie (Kee, the photographer) was the only man who was allowed to be there, the others were all tossed outside. (laughs)
By the way, starting with this album, you're using English lyrics, what was the thought behind that?
A: I went and did alot of things in Asia this year, and I think it was a big influence in the decision. I felt like the "language barrier" was a big deal at the time. It's meaningless if they can't understand me, and I wanted them to be able to know who I was. As such, I thought that studying English would be necessary, since the language the world uses to communicate to each other = English. For example, if you say "I love you" in English, everyone's more likely to understand than than if you say "(facing a lover) aishiteru."
That seems to be good for interviewers understanding you, but doesn't it make you uncomfortable to sing lyrics in English?
A: Very uncomfortable. How should I explain this... It's like, my "tone" is there, right? But I don't really know (bitter smile), what kind of accent have I been singing with all this time...? Now it's like I've been saying useless things all monotone (laughs). If I say things in Japanese and then suddenly change them to English, the emotions are left behind somewhere else because I don't understand anymore, right? It's kinda like that. When that happened, I thought, is it maybe a mistake to do lyrics in English? and I felt very blue about it, I felt really defeated (bitter smile).
How was it to write the lyrics? And was the singing afterwards difficult?
A: Now that I think about it, I did it pretty quickly. For example, in Japanese 1 kanji symbol for 1 word can take three syllables to say, like "watashi," and if I don't have that much room, that's no good, but in english the same word can be one syllable, "I," and that might be possible to say. And, if I only have two syllables available, I can still say "konya" for "tonight" if that's all I have room for in the phrase "let's be together tonight" or something.
Can you tell me a little bit about working on the album? Was it a really good experience this time?
A: Wasn't it the absolute best time ever? I think the staff around me were very impatient. Since I finished choosing the songs to put in, everyone was saying "Now that that's done, how many more days to you need?" Everyone was saying that stuff, and it was like they were challenging me. But I'm grateful for it. They have my thanks for focusing their efforts that much.
This album, RAINBOW, is in what kind of place inside of you? What kind of work is it?
A: A good example would be when I wrote the title track fro "I am...". "I've shown the real me, but what is it exactly?" "Okay, this is who I am, but what am I going to do about that?" I've always fought with such a "gap between myself and the world" type of thinking, but I started to think lately that "that gap is always going to be there, right?" I used to think it was a good thing to fight like that. To meet friends who carried the same wounds and suffer together with them... But I don't think that's true anymore. I think I and everyone can perfectly understand people who hold such pain.
So, for "RAINBOW," I'm of course singing about the hesitations and anxieties, and also the joy and hope, inside of me. But I'm not saying it like "me, me, me" all the time. I've become aware of the listener, saying that "people who hear this will be able to stand up, and without that, this album is meaningless."
The themes of "human existence" and "what does 'human' mean?" are definitely strongly depicted on this album. Alright, lastly, what do you want to say to people about this album?
A: "RAINBOW" is the most "personal" and "peaceful" album I've released so far.
ALBUM "RAINBOW"
AVCD-17239 / '02.12.18
00 "RAINBOW"
This song isn't actually on the album, but you can access a website whose URL is printed on papers enclosed in the first pressing of the album, and hear it there. Although I haven't put any words to it yet, I think it's a very beautiful tune.
01 "everlasting dream"
"everlasting dream," which decorates the album's opening, was given to me by CMJK at the very last moment. Of all the various instrumentals on the album, like "taskinillusion" by tasuku and "neverending dream" by HAL, I thought this one was the "most like an actual song." Words just seemed to come to me naturally as soon as I heard it... Actually, I should say, even before that I wrote words like these at my TeamAyu site, and I thought of it while I was writing the lyrics.
02 "WE WISH"
WE WISH is a very strong song. There's a strong force you're feeling from the very first track. And not just the lyrics and the melody-the vocals are also stronger and rougher than usual. It's probably fair to say that it's not a track that plays nice with words. That's probably its defining trait. The title isn't "I WISH," using "WE" instead was a natural decision, but it's not about "my wish alone," I thought that "everyone is probably wishing for this too."
03 "Real me"
"If you're a woman, you should fight!" "Real me" is packed with these sorts of thoughts. Inside me, there's this image that men are great fighters but women don't really fight much. A man always seems to have a "little boy" part inside them no matter what kind of adult they've become. But women can become unexpectedly substantial when they're in a pinch, I think... "I want to become such a woman," I thought.
The song has a bit of an R&B style, but it's the only song on the album that really does something like that. Although I'm really not the type that likes to lay it on thick in the chorus, the chorus of Real me seems to come pounding in from a special world. So, it took a bit longer than usual to complete the track (bitter smile). But once it was done, I thought "Wow, this turned out great!" like everyone else did. (laugh)
And TRF's CHIHARU and ETSU made an appearance in this song's PV. This is, when I thought I wanted to make a dance video, "we have to invite two people for this!", I felt like "I want to collaborate with like, CHIHARU and ETSU for the dance scene!" I made the decision in my mind very quickly! I'd already mentioned to them that "I want to work on something together," having privately made friends with everyone in TRF after the a-nation concert over the summer.
04 "Free & Easy"
In Free & Easy, I wrote what I am feeling at the moment. In other words, "I want to be a person who lives by taking responsibility for my own freedom," and "I want to be a person for whom these words are perfectly applicable." But, when it came to recording, because I already had a nearly complete picture of "what I wanted to say," it was more difficult than usual to create a melody that would fit with the message of the lyrics.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
05 "Heartplace"
"Heartplace" was written as a cry from my heart. Of all the songs on the album that include English lyrics, the first one I recorded was this song. At the time, I was wondering, was it a mistake to use english? and it was making me feel kinda blue (bitter smile).
Recording usually involves getting into the vocal booth and then singing a song from start to finish. But for this song, I went into the booth, sang a little bit, came out, thought about the song, went back into the booth, sang a little bit more, came out, listened... It was a different work process than usual. So, in that sense, it's a very memorable track.
06 "Over"
The day that a love passes by is painted in "Over." I asked Umesaki and Sato for "an arrangement with a bit of an Asian feeling" and that's what they gave me. They'd never been to Asia though, so they'd ask "Hey, does this seem asia-ish maybe?" until I thought it was good, and they definitely balanced the feelings I imagined.
I locked myself in my hotel room to write the lyrics, but I just couldn't come up with the words for the B melody. I was really racking my brain. The bridge melody suddenly rises in a unique way, so I tried various ways of singing before I finally settled on the final form. That might have been because it was my first time singing a melody written by CMJK. I really like how this song flows into the next track, "HANABI."
07 "HANABI"
When I was writing the three 「H」 songs, I wanted to wrap up with a song that expressed the idea of "a summer that ends in deep sadness." What resulted was HANABI.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
08 "taskinillusion"
Although this album feels very integrated in a sense, it really has an unsettled undertone. I was looking for something in the middle that would express this feeling of unsettledness, and just then the perfect thing came along. I thought "this is magic!" And that's why it's an illusion. (Laughs)
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
09 "everywhere nowhere"
This tune was composed by pop, who plays the keyboards behind me. I decided to include it in my album the moment I heard it for the first time. I thought it presented a good image-kind of surreal but at the same time very fresh-so I really liked it. But the beginning A melody is dark enough, so my way of singing there is very serious too, the way I put it down is very serious... like a ticking time bomb (laugh), but one that takes a very long time. And the arrangement just had to have a hyper-techno type of feeling (laugh), and I insisted to CMJK that he do that. The lyrics end in the past tense. I thought the past tense would suggest the feeling that what had happened is over, and it's time to look toward the future.
10 "July 1st"
The lyrics to July 1st are cheerful, and the melody has some spots that are subdued and others that come out and grab you.
This was the first time I had ever written a song from this viewpoint, and I even surprised myself! (Laughs)
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
11 "Dolls"
Whenever I get lost, I go to HAL with this "Please God help me!" feeling, but HAL always make me feel better saying stuff like "Maybe we're psychic!" and then they always give me the arrangement I hope for. It feels like "Yes yes yes! That sound! That's the answer!" It was like that with "Over" and with the instrumental track "neverending dream" too, but this one was especially strong, and I didn't even need to say "it's for the movie 'Dolls'," which was surprising!
As for the lyrics, when I listened to the completed tune, I pictured a painting that depicts blooming flowers that fill the landscape. From this, I came up with "kirei-na hana wo sakasemasho" (let us make the flowers bloom), which I used as a starting point to develop the lyrics. The phrase -masho (let us) appears repeatedly because I wanted to create a pretty tune and to emphasize the delicate images that are inherent to the Japanese language.
12 "neverending dream"
13 "Voyage"
D･A･I and I had the melody, and I had the lyrics and vocals, but there was just something missing. That's when Ken Shima's arrangement came into the picture. When I heard the finished product, I realized the song had reached amazing heights that I could not have achieved.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
14 "Close to you"
Close to you is Christmas song for me. Or, rather, it's what resulted when I attempted to infuse my own sense of Christmas into a song. (Laughs) It did occur to me that perhaps I should be more aggressive in making the song more Christmassy. But I thought it was more important to have the whole song suggest the season than to have my words say so directly, and I didn't want to waver from this approach. When I wrote the song, the album creation period had already passed, but I was thinking "I can't NOT put this on the album" (bitter smile.) Aside from this song, the album recording schedule had been very tight... So I had no free time to warm up and get my voice in tune, so it was a challenge to record this, and it's possible that there are tiny nuances that listeners wouldn't notice, and the recording did not go very smoothly... it really was done at the absolute very last moment.
15 "independent+"
Well, what I should say about it... It's based on "independent" but it's longer. The "+" is kind of like a fun puzzle that you'll understand when you hear it. (Laughs) I wonder if you'll get it if you listen to the ending song of ayu ready? In "+," the Hamo Hamo Boys & Girls, my two managers, bancho, tasuku, and Natsuki, people who are always by my side, and my friends participated in the chorus. I wonder if you can tell who is who. That said, Bancho's voice is pretty famous (loud laughter)!
A: A rainbow is something that everyone's seen at least once, so there's not gonna be anyone saying "huh? a rainbow? what's that?," it's something they'd immediately recognize. But you only see it for a moment, you can't gaze at it forever. And when you want to see one, you can't. And it's not a tangible thing, either... When I thought about that, I thought, I wonder if I really saw a rainbow? Is a rainbow really even there? People have the general notion of "a rainbow is a seven-color arc", sure, they know what a picture of a rainbow looks like, so when they see a rainbow, maybe they ascertain with their own knowledge that that's what they've seen... But what if that's not really what it is? For example, maybe it's only three colors...
And also, no one's ever sad when they see a rainbow. They say "Look! It's a rainbow!" and a part of them becomes happy. I thought I wanted to do that, I wanted to have that kind of existance. I can't be right next to you, but when everyone sees me, I'd like for it to feel nice, like times when you see a rainbow maybe. So I chose "RAINBOW" for the title.
I'd like to hear a little about the shooting of the jacket photo though. The shoot took quite a long time, didn't it?
A: It took forever! And the pose wasn't comfortable at all. But it would have been bad if I couldn't conceal everything... (bitter smile) And I was sitting on top of this pool, like a fish tank, but I'm a human so I wanted to move. (laughs) And then they'd have to change the water... and I'd have to wait for it to stop moving around.
The inside of the tank wasn't really cold water... was it??
A: Oh no, it was warm, it was warm! (laugh) But it would get me feeling cold after awhile. So they'd have to keep adding warm water to it over and over... but eventually it'd cool down again. Plus, I wasn't wearing anything, so.
Nothing at all??
A: That's right. So Leslie (Kee, the photographer) was the only man who was allowed to be there, the others were all tossed outside. (laughs)
By the way, starting with this album, you're using English lyrics, what was the thought behind that?
A: I went and did alot of things in Asia this year, and I think it was a big influence in the decision. I felt like the "language barrier" was a big deal at the time. It's meaningless if they can't understand me, and I wanted them to be able to know who I was. As such, I thought that studying English would be necessary, since the language the world uses to communicate to each other = English. For example, if you say "I love you" in English, everyone's more likely to understand than than if you say "(facing a lover) aishiteru."
That seems to be good for interviewers understanding you, but doesn't it make you uncomfortable to sing lyrics in English?
A: Very uncomfortable. How should I explain this... It's like, my "tone" is there, right? But I don't really know (bitter smile), what kind of accent have I been singing with all this time...? Now it's like I've been saying useless things all monotone (laughs). If I say things in Japanese and then suddenly change them to English, the emotions are left behind somewhere else because I don't understand anymore, right? It's kinda like that. When that happened, I thought, is it maybe a mistake to do lyrics in English? and I felt very blue about it, I felt really defeated (bitter smile).
How was it to write the lyrics? And was the singing afterwards difficult?
A: Now that I think about it, I did it pretty quickly. For example, in Japanese 1 kanji symbol for 1 word can take three syllables to say, like "watashi," and if I don't have that much room, that's no good, but in english the same word can be one syllable, "I," and that might be possible to say. And, if I only have two syllables available, I can still say "konya" for "tonight" if that's all I have room for in the phrase "let's be together tonight" or something.
Can you tell me a little bit about working on the album? Was it a really good experience this time?
A: Wasn't it the absolute best time ever? I think the staff around me were very impatient. Since I finished choosing the songs to put in, everyone was saying "Now that that's done, how many more days to you need?" Everyone was saying that stuff, and it was like they were challenging me. But I'm grateful for it. They have my thanks for focusing their efforts that much.
This album, RAINBOW, is in what kind of place inside of you? What kind of work is it?
A: A good example would be when I wrote the title track fro "I am...". "I've shown the real me, but what is it exactly?" "Okay, this is who I am, but what am I going to do about that?" I've always fought with such a "gap between myself and the world" type of thinking, but I started to think lately that "that gap is always going to be there, right?" I used to think it was a good thing to fight like that. To meet friends who carried the same wounds and suffer together with them... But I don't think that's true anymore. I think I and everyone can perfectly understand people who hold such pain.
So, for "RAINBOW," I'm of course singing about the hesitations and anxieties, and also the joy and hope, inside of me. But I'm not saying it like "me, me, me" all the time. I've become aware of the listener, saying that "people who hear this will be able to stand up, and without that, this album is meaningless."
The themes of "human existence" and "what does 'human' mean?" are definitely strongly depicted on this album. Alright, lastly, what do you want to say to people about this album?
A: "RAINBOW" is the most "personal" and "peaceful" album I've released so far.
ALBUM "RAINBOW"
AVCD-17239 / '02.12.18
00 "RAINBOW"
This song isn't actually on the album, but you can access a website whose URL is printed on papers enclosed in the first pressing of the album, and hear it there. Although I haven't put any words to it yet, I think it's a very beautiful tune.
01 "everlasting dream"
"everlasting dream," which decorates the album's opening, was given to me by CMJK at the very last moment. Of all the various instrumentals on the album, like "taskinillusion" by tasuku and "neverending dream" by HAL, I thought this one was the "most like an actual song." Words just seemed to come to me naturally as soon as I heard it... Actually, I should say, even before that I wrote words like these at my TeamAyu site, and I thought of it while I was writing the lyrics.
02 "WE WISH"
WE WISH is a very strong song. There's a strong force you're feeling from the very first track. And not just the lyrics and the melody-the vocals are also stronger and rougher than usual. It's probably fair to say that it's not a track that plays nice with words. That's probably its defining trait. The title isn't "I WISH," using "WE" instead was a natural decision, but it's not about "my wish alone," I thought that "everyone is probably wishing for this too."
03 "Real me"
"If you're a woman, you should fight!" "Real me" is packed with these sorts of thoughts. Inside me, there's this image that men are great fighters but women don't really fight much. A man always seems to have a "little boy" part inside them no matter what kind of adult they've become. But women can become unexpectedly substantial when they're in a pinch, I think... "I want to become such a woman," I thought.
The song has a bit of an R&B style, but it's the only song on the album that really does something like that. Although I'm really not the type that likes to lay it on thick in the chorus, the chorus of Real me seems to come pounding in from a special world. So, it took a bit longer than usual to complete the track (bitter smile). But once it was done, I thought "Wow, this turned out great!" like everyone else did. (laugh)
And TRF's CHIHARU and ETSU made an appearance in this song's PV. This is, when I thought I wanted to make a dance video, "we have to invite two people for this!", I felt like "I want to collaborate with like, CHIHARU and ETSU for the dance scene!" I made the decision in my mind very quickly! I'd already mentioned to them that "I want to work on something together," having privately made friends with everyone in TRF after the a-nation concert over the summer.
04 "Free & Easy"
In Free & Easy, I wrote what I am feeling at the moment. In other words, "I want to be a person who lives by taking responsibility for my own freedom," and "I want to be a person for whom these words are perfectly applicable." But, when it came to recording, because I already had a nearly complete picture of "what I wanted to say," it was more difficult than usual to create a melody that would fit with the message of the lyrics.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
05 "Heartplace"
"Heartplace" was written as a cry from my heart. Of all the songs on the album that include English lyrics, the first one I recorded was this song. At the time, I was wondering, was it a mistake to use english? and it was making me feel kinda blue (bitter smile).
Recording usually involves getting into the vocal booth and then singing a song from start to finish. But for this song, I went into the booth, sang a little bit, came out, thought about the song, went back into the booth, sang a little bit more, came out, listened... It was a different work process than usual. So, in that sense, it's a very memorable track.
06 "Over"
The day that a love passes by is painted in "Over." I asked Umesaki and Sato for "an arrangement with a bit of an Asian feeling" and that's what they gave me. They'd never been to Asia though, so they'd ask "Hey, does this seem asia-ish maybe?" until I thought it was good, and they definitely balanced the feelings I imagined.
I locked myself in my hotel room to write the lyrics, but I just couldn't come up with the words for the B melody. I was really racking my brain. The bridge melody suddenly rises in a unique way, so I tried various ways of singing before I finally settled on the final form. That might have been because it was my first time singing a melody written by CMJK. I really like how this song flows into the next track, "HANABI."
07 "HANABI"
When I was writing the three 「H」 songs, I wanted to wrap up with a song that expressed the idea of "a summer that ends in deep sadness." What resulted was HANABI.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
08 "taskinillusion"
Although this album feels very integrated in a sense, it really has an unsettled undertone. I was looking for something in the middle that would express this feeling of unsettledness, and just then the perfect thing came along. I thought "this is magic!" And that's why it's an illusion. (Laughs)
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
09 "everywhere nowhere"
This tune was composed by pop, who plays the keyboards behind me. I decided to include it in my album the moment I heard it for the first time. I thought it presented a good image-kind of surreal but at the same time very fresh-so I really liked it. But the beginning A melody is dark enough, so my way of singing there is very serious too, the way I put it down is very serious... like a ticking time bomb (laugh), but one that takes a very long time. And the arrangement just had to have a hyper-techno type of feeling (laugh), and I insisted to CMJK that he do that. The lyrics end in the past tense. I thought the past tense would suggest the feeling that what had happened is over, and it's time to look toward the future.
10 "July 1st"
The lyrics to July 1st are cheerful, and the melody has some spots that are subdued and others that come out and grab you.
This was the first time I had ever written a song from this viewpoint, and I even surprised myself! (Laughs)
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
11 "Dolls"
Whenever I get lost, I go to HAL with this "Please God help me!" feeling, but HAL always make me feel better saying stuff like "Maybe we're psychic!" and then they always give me the arrangement I hope for. It feels like "Yes yes yes! That sound! That's the answer!" It was like that with "Over" and with the instrumental track "neverending dream" too, but this one was especially strong, and I didn't even need to say "it's for the movie 'Dolls'," which was surprising!
As for the lyrics, when I listened to the completed tune, I pictured a painting that depicts blooming flowers that fill the landscape. From this, I came up with "kirei-na hana wo sakasemasho" (let us make the flowers bloom), which I used as a starting point to develop the lyrics. The phrase -masho (let us) appears repeatedly because I wanted to create a pretty tune and to emphasize the delicate images that are inherent to the Japanese language.
12 "neverending dream"
13 "Voyage"
D･A･I and I had the melody, and I had the lyrics and vocals, but there was just something missing. That's when Ken Shima's arrangement came into the picture. When I heard the finished product, I realized the song had reached amazing heights that I could not have achieved.
(from "RAINBOW Director's Notes")
14 "Close to you"
Close to you is Christmas song for me. Or, rather, it's what resulted when I attempted to infuse my own sense of Christmas into a song. (Laughs) It did occur to me that perhaps I should be more aggressive in making the song more Christmassy. But I thought it was more important to have the whole song suggest the season than to have my words say so directly, and I didn't want to waver from this approach. When I wrote the song, the album creation period had already passed, but I was thinking "I can't NOT put this on the album" (bitter smile.) Aside from this song, the album recording schedule had been very tight... So I had no free time to warm up and get my voice in tune, so it was a challenge to record this, and it's possible that there are tiny nuances that listeners wouldn't notice, and the recording did not go very smoothly... it really was done at the absolute very last moment.
15 "independent+"
Well, what I should say about it... It's based on "independent" but it's longer. The "+" is kind of like a fun puzzle that you'll understand when you hear it. (Laughs) I wonder if you'll get it if you listen to the ending song of ayu ready? In "+," the Hamo Hamo Boys & Girls, my two managers, bancho, tasuku, and Natsuki, people who are always by my side, and my friends participated in the chorus. I wonder if you can tell who is who. That said, Bancho's voice is pretty famous (loud laughter)!
INTERVIEW： Kazuki Okabe
Credit: Delirium-Zer0 @ AHS
Shared by Ayu's Story
Take out with full credits!
No comments:
Post a Comment