Armed only with some basic stems salvaged from an audio/video installation project he was working on with contemporary artist Karin Zwack, Fukuzono set out to combine the long-existing tunes in his head with the video and other field recordings on his phone to create of musical synapses between memories they had
remained unconnected.
Fukuzono states:
“In this way, I wanted to show that lost memories exist everywhere, apart from themselves, and are connected to the present.” Like Ekaki Uta [a Japanese drawing song] I wanted to convey the image of a circle where all the memories overlap.”
We spoke with Yasuhiko to learn more and discuss the unique circumstances behind the release of the new album:
Tell us about the inspiration for this new record?
“There are so many things there at certain times in the past that I have seen and experienced. In any given scene that I watched or listened to, there must have been other scenes that I didn’t see. There is something that exists behind me in this setting that I am experiencing. I was forced to remember after I had lost a memory, so I tried to find and recreate a new perspective in a different way, retrieving that memory.
There is an inversion of excess and minimalism to express each moment. Each one is also linked like a Japanese painting song to shape and create a particular detail. In 2017 our label HQ at FLAU was robbed, losing my entire catalog of finished and work-in-progress music, as a direct result I decided to create something away from the precarious confines of my computer and more from the inner sanctum of my mind.
How did the music community react to the hack?
“The theft was done by a guy named Ametsub, a famous electronic musician in Japan, so it was very big news. Because he was a very popular artist, most people in the music industry were initially silent. In Japan, it is easy for anyone to throw stones from a distance, but everyone tends to keep quiet about nearby evils. In fact, a very famous festival in Japan even booked it anonymously. FLAU artist Kushe was also hit hard by physical and online harassment.
Finally, those at Blueberry Records, who released his music, condemned what he did, as did the Japanese music industry. However, there are probably still fans who are eagerly awaiting his return and are horrified by the fact that he has cleverly scrubbed his criminal past online.”
How did losing everything affect the way you created the new album/sound?
“I was making electronic music that was all about the details – the combination and overlapping of sounds, and I couldn’t recreate it from where it was lost. Then I also realized that I was obsessed with the past.
Of course, what’s in my head can’t be stolen. So I realized that I have a lot of tunes that I’ve had from a long time ago, tunes that I’ve heard on my travels. And I had a cell phone handy that wasn’t stolen, where I found a lot of records and videos that had nothing to do with music. They also sent back to me sound material from a video installation by the Munich artist Karin Zwack, and that was the beginning. After losing the hardware equipment I was using, I had to switch to software.”