12/09/2022

SIPPING BIRCH WATER AND TUCKING INTO TEACAKES--a conversation with Bradley Kurushima (of Prince Shima) about his music practice, the ins-and-out of his latest album (Matsu's Forest of Dreams), pushing the art of emptiness, rentable CDs, the language of the big screen, and lugging gear through the forest...



Alright Bradley, let's jump right in, Matsu's Forest of Dreams was created almost entirely in a virtual space is that right? You used Reason, almost exclusively...now is that because none of your hardware was doing what you wanted for the sound of the album?
The reason why I did that actually is because...I had this deadline. I wanted to finish this album for Henri Matsu's birthday--get it mixed, mastered, and then [snaps fingers] burn a CD, make some album art for it and send it down to him. I mean...he was one year old so [chuckles] did not understand the significance of his birthday, but, it was important to me and...I was able to move faster just working entirely digitally. Anytime you record something in a real space it opens up a door to all sorts of potential engineering problems.

OK, anomalies that you might have a hard time ironing out or controlling...
Yeah.

Interesting, I was actually going to ask you about limitations, if there were any specific limitations you had set on Matsu's Forest of Dreams--I guess one was 'time'--there was like, a time constraint.
Yeah, I had the idea for it and...I wanted it to be an album length, like 45 minutes to an hour--something like that, and I knew when I wanted it to be released...so I was sort of reverse engineering from that deadline. I've done that also with the video game score I was doing, and I did a score for a short film in which I started out using real instruments and recording little phrases and...the other co-creators, you know, wanted to change things, like "we're going to extend this part" or "make this part longer", "can we have the beginning of this phrase time-up with this event?", and it was so much work to go back...I was re-recording...so then you set up an instrument--it takes so much time.

Right, it's not the same as pushing sliders or layers around, you've gotta set up everything from scratch.
Yeah, like if I wanted to just cut out these eight notes [highlights layers in Reason] I could just select them, and...they're gone. So basically when you're working with softsynths, nothing is finalized until you export it at the end. So it's a very liberating kind of like...playspace, you can just experiment without any consequences--you can save at any given point, in a way that's very hard to do when you're recording actual sonic events in a real space. You know, you have some idea...and then you want to re-create it...there can be a lot of conditions to reproducing it sometimes.

That does sound liberating.
Some of the tracks were really simple. Like this one is just two instruments, this is 'Light Through the Leaves' [brings up track on laptop]. So there's just...[music beginning to play]...just these notes here...[music]...these long paths...[music]...and also there's these...[music]...sort of xylophone plucks...[music]...So this track is quite simple. So this one...I actually did not use Reason at all for this one. I used a different software that's more suitable for capturing live sounds. This one is just using the little Casio...

The MT-41, OK.
There's this beautifully simple, serene, almost monastic quality to Matsu's Forest of Dreams, an emptiness and stillness that the sound blooms out of...it emerges and just hangs there...I find it so transfixing. So how would you say emptiness factors into this specific recording? Was it something intentional that you wanted to cultivate?
Empty space is definitely an idea that I wanted to explore on this album. There was...one of the first electronic albums I ever had in my possession, and could spend some time with, was a Squarepusher album from the mid 90s called Feed Me Weird Things. I went down to this record store called Boomtown and they used to rent CDs [chuckles], but also the guy who ran it had this horror rap group called Disturbed Company, 'Dis Co'--he was super knowledgeable about electronic music, he was a very interesting guy. I went in there, I was mostly into punk music and ska and stuff like that, so I went in there and said "can you recommend a weird electronic artist"? Two CDs: one was Plug, which is like a drum and bass album, and that Squarepusher album, which is also technically drum and bass. On that album, in the liner notes, he (Tom Jenkinson) describes his approach to sound design as thinking about the negative space that notes or sounds would create in an environment. It was a CD, but, if it had been a tape...I would have worn that tape out--I listened to it over, and over, and over again. I made tape copies of it and would listen to it on my Walkman and ride around, that was one of my favorite late-at-night-albums. His approach to sound design was hugely inspiring, Squarepusher is still an artist I go back to time and time again.

Matsu's Forest of Dreams--I find the sounds on this album create such an image in the mind's eye...you really visualize these sculptural forms taking shape, emerging out of nothing, hanging there, slowly rotating, and then fading away...the sounds make me think of certain visualization techniques or meditation practices...do you have any relationship with meditation at all?
I don't meditate in any kind of formal way, no. But I am definitely interested in the connection between music, and sound, and health. I think they are integrally connected. Music, for me, can be the deciding factor of whether or not I can walk through a super crowded space...or whether or not I get sick on a bus ride...for me, music is comforting and has the ability to...not to protect me but...it has the ability to transcend certain situations.

Yeah, music can have that soothing quality or offer that reassuring sense. I mean, this album in particular, the songs feel--to me anyway, I feel like I'm almost getting inside of something, wading into deep water that is immediately calming and cooling. When I listen to Matsu's Forest of Dreams I feel like I'm getting into a vehicle of some sort, being taken somewhere. And it's exciting! I'm seeing all these new things outside the window. But it's also comforting...I'm inside this save...space; I feel like I'm being guided. And that's another thing we should talk about, you conceived this album as a journey of sorts, right? You're bringing the listener through a specific space, I believe you used the word "biomes"?
Definitely. All of the song titles are connected to different forest phenomena--wildfires, migration of birds, seasonal changes in ecosystems...And even things that are connected to perception--how do you experience light through the canopy of trees? How do you experience sound differently when you're in a forest compared to a field or a city? I think you could create equally compelling examinations of urban, or plains-spaces, or aquatic environments. For me, I wanted to focus on forests.

How do you think the naming of the tracks on Matsu's affects the listener's experience of the sound?
I would hope that it greatly influences the perception of these compositions...because they are, in my mind, incredibly visual. When I'm thinking about this very familiar feeling of seeing Canada geese flying in formation, either coming or going...that to me is an image that I experience this year and that I experienced as a child, it's something that's been with me for all my life. Of course everyone can experience music in their own way, and there's nothing to say that you couldn't listen to one of these songs and think, "oh this is about being on a bus or a subway moving through an urban space" but...that wasn't my intention, for whatever that's worth.

I think the intention of the artist can absolutely come across to the experiencer on the other side. I mean, because the sounds activate the imagination...having the names, having the track titles, these can guide the mind's eye to a specific space--and you do start to feel branches brushing past your skin, you can feel water, you can feel wind; it's exceptional...But there are so many different phenomena one can experience in a forest...how did you land on these specifics? Like: 'Needles on the Forest Floor', 'The Texture of Bark', 'Trembling Poplars'...were these the things that naturally came to mind as you started to imagine this forest scene?
Some of the tracks I had a vision from the beginning...well one was actually an outtake called 'Above the Canopy', I struggled with the mix on that one...'Maples Turning Red' was another one that I had this image right from the very beginning, but some of the other songs, like 'The Texture of Bark', that was one that I started the sound design on it and then the visual component started to crystalize. Usually I'll sort of pause midway through a composition and I'll then settle on a working title, and that will help guide me through the second phase of whatever I'm working on.

So they're kind of being created hand in hand, the sonics and the naming, they're informing one another as you create and sculpt the song.
Yeah--the naming...surprisingly happens pretty early on in the process, it's really rare that I change a name of a track to reappropriate it for a different collection of songs. I find it very hard to think about a song with a different name--once I've been working on it.

Right, the song becomes that and cannot be anything other than that at a certain point.
So you and I have talked about the concept and background of the album, your nephew Henri Matsu...but for folks who are going to be reading this who may not know the story, we should touch on that: so your nephew was born during the pandemic?
Yes. I saw my sister Christmas time before all the lockdowns started happening. This is when she announced to the family that she and her partner were going to have a child. So that's Christmas, and by February...everything was in pandemonium, and then by March 2020...full on lockdown. And really scary things happening, like in Italy...hospitals overflowing, people dying waiting for care. And she currently lives down in the USA, so we were unable to really be a part of the pregnancy and the birth other than through Zoom or in mediated ways. Like everyone's experience with the pandemic, month by month you just kept waiting to see "how is this going to play out"? And then it got to be a year later and there's still travel bans...and even if I could have gone down to the US...it would not have been a cool thing to do, in terms of the implications of exposure to this young child who is not vaccinated. So it took quite a long time before--he was almost two before I actually met him. So leading up to his first birthday I knew that I wouldn't be able to be part of it in a physical way, and I wanted to make him something special that he could have and remember, and...he may never listen to the album, but years from now at least he can look back on this thing and say "there was family that was thinking about me, even before they met me".

I think that's awesome. And so the name of the album: Matsu's Forest of Dreams. Matsu...this is a Japanese name that means 'pine'?
Yes, Matsu is the Japanese word for 'pine'.

Did the nature and forest concept for the album come directly from the translation of this word?
Yeah.

So Matsu really is like the genesis of this album.
For sure. His parents are both very outdoorsy people, his father worked for the forestry department for many years. That's part of why he has Matsu as a middle name, because of his parents lifestyle. His name definitely informed the concept of this album. Because his name was a word that was connected to trees and forests, and because he was so far away...I started to think about "what are all of the different forests and physical phenomena that would be in-between us"?

Like literally, geographically between you?
Yeah. So there's references to deciduous trees, to conifers, to birds that migrate north and south, to mountains, to all of the things that would be...between us.

So, the order in which the songs appear on the album, is that related to how one might literally, physically move from this part of the world to where your nephew is? Or is it more related to how the songs sonically lead into each other?
It's definitely an experiential map, and not a map that's rooted in real world geography. That would have been an interesting project as well but...the other side of this album was that my sister and I always wanted to have music playing when we were going to sleep, so I wanted this to be a collection of songs that were connected to dreaming and sleeping as well. So there is a kind of dream logic at work in the geography that is inherent to the song structures.

It certainly feels that way. When I listen to it I'm almost going into almost a hypnagogic state, halfway between wakefulness and sleep; it's a different level of awareness. That side of the album totally comes across for me. You spoke about this experience of requesting music before falling asleep as a child as almost a ritual...can you speak to that further? Do you remember what you were requesting specifically? What kind of music?
[chuckles] Honestly, looking back it's hilarious, at a certain point I got a little Sanyo boombox...but my parents used to just play one side of a record, it would be like...Kate and Anne McGarrigle, the McGarrigle sisters, or...I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they even just put on Thriller.

--[chuckles].
It just needed to be music, I don't know what it was...I don't think they specifically chose relaxing music necessarily...but I was...really insistent about it. The way that some children like the light left on, or the door open...for me it was always "I want some kind of music playing".

My Mom did that for my brother and I too; and yeah, it used to be a must-have. I think it was a cassette of Chinese classical music. It's incredible how much can seep in, especially when you're falling asleep, and really take over your internal space. I used to love it. So when you are creating these songs...for the listener they're so immersive, you feel like you're really inside something, navigating, things are coming up out of the woodwork...so when you're creating these songs are you also having this experience where you're moving through and immersed in this environment? Or is it more nuts-and-bolts?
That's a good question...because I was with these songs the whole way through, from inception to mixing and mastering, the mechanical logistics of it are obviously omnipresent. It really broke my heart to not include this one song called 'Above the Canopy', which was actually the first song I wrote for this project. It was supposed to be the flagpole of the whole thing...it was sort of an astral projection, Little Nemo, lullaby...I wrote it as a 3/4 time signature waltz, like a classic waltz, it's sort of like these soft bells and string sounds...and I just could not get it to sound right in the mix. It was a tough call at the end, the engineer in me said, "You can't put this on the album", you as the artist want this to be on the album but you as the engineer has to also say "No. No it can't".

Right, I guess that comes with wearing multiple hats...Well, it's good that you're letting different parts of yourself speak when they need to be heard.
So there's always a battle between artistic vision and engineering realities, or engineering problems--That's actually happened in several of my albums; there's a song that I am convinced is crucial to the thematic flow or concept of an album, and I just cannot get the mixes to work...and it ends up on the chopping block--late, late in the game, because I'm so fixated on including it.

--You're attached to it.
Yeah, and then in the end...As a mature artist I really appreciate what it means to edit, that it is an important part of creation.

So I know that cinema is an important part of your practice, or it feels like cinema is important to your practice...
--Oh yeah, for sure.

I know on an album like Fantasy Themes Vol. 1 that it is maybe conceptually more upfront...
--Yes.

But it seems to pervade all your work...
--I think so.

Could you speak to that further? There is such a visual sound happening with your work.
I think people connect with different media and different art on a personal level in different degrees of depth, and even though I'm a musician, movies are really the language I think in...more so than print, text, or static visual art...

The language of cinema...
Yeah, and even distinguishing cinema from television. I do like television, in a different way, but...my first love is for sure, for sure, the big screen.

The first time I heard the opening track from Matsu's, 'The Texture of Bark', I immediately thought of the opening sequence to an epic film, I was moved in that way. It actually reminded me of the soundtrack to Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God by Popol Vuh.
--Popol Vuh! Yes.

Some of those opening images where the camera is sitting on these hillsides, mist and fog slowly rolling in, and then the drone of the score comes up...it's like this ominous but...I don't know--welcoming announcement of something to come. And those first drones and reverberations on 'The Texture of Bark' really have that feeling, like something is coming, something big is coming...it's almost frightening but very clean and clearing at the same time. And even that first ninety seconds of Akira...some of those really minimal percussive strikes that are in...'The Coming & Going of Songbirds', they sound so physical...like they're announcing something.
There are a lot of soundtrack or score compositions that would sit up in my top ten lists of favorite compositions, and part of it is first experiencing that music with a visual component...and there are things that I just can't disconnect now. The music--the whole soundtrack to Akira is incredibly evocative; even if I don't have the movie playing, I picture all of the Neo-Tokyo skyline...all of the telekinetic phenomena in there--

--Giant teddy bears, rupturing stuffing and what not...
And some of my absolute favorite artists like Tangerine Dream and Vangelis...I was probably exposed to them through watching movies. And then you find out, "Oh, you mean they have albums? They don't just make movie music".

Right, they exist outside of that framework but are also really connected to it too...
'The Texture of Bark', some of those really low drony tracks...they almost sound like vocal tracks--I mean I know they're not, it makes me think of Gregorian chant or something--how are these sounds produced?
So when we think about synthesis and different tones...they're often divided into different categories, some of them are based on real-life inspiration like strings or brass or percussion...but then there's also categories that are just called "pads"...and pads are tones that are really dependent on being held for long, long periods of time, they have these long, what are called, "tails". These are sounds that have a very ethereal quality, that definitely allow the listener to perceive a sense of space. And so that one is a choral or vocal inspired pad--it's totally made by a synthesizer but...there was a lot of work in the early '80s that went into trying to understand what a sound is, break it down into its constituent parts, and then reproduce it using machines. I recently watched a video where Wendy Carlos, who did the TRON soundtrack, she is explaining how she is attempting to reproduce the sound of a xylophone using a synthesizer. She says "it's the reverberation of a tone and it's also the wood, the clacking on the wood"...and then she gets towards the end of it--she says "you know, something's missing...", and what it is, "it's the slight rattle that the mallet makes, not the xylophone", and so she adds in this little noise that has a slight fluctuation to it, and sure enough...that's the thing that makes it sound alive.

Wow.
So she's breaking down the acoustic phenomena into different parts and then...trying to reproduce it.

You can tell that you've taken that level of attention and detail to your work...it's shocking to me that it's created in an entirely virtual space--it sounds so physical. You must develop kind of a language, or almost an alphabet of textures and sounds...is that fair to say? That you have a palette you work with for each album?
I'm starting to develop that...I think--but no, actually you're absolutely correct...for the different musical projects I have, I do impose certain sonic limitations because I would like this Prince Shima work to be different in theme and in feel than say a collaboration that I'm doing with my friend Ai called Itoko, which is definitely influenced by anime and traditional Japanese stories and music, it's a different musical language, and so...that has a very different feel than what I'm doing with Prince Shima. It's tempting to say "I have a favorite synthesizer, I'm gonna use this in everything I do", but I've actually divided my gear between different projects. You impose that limitation, you say "You know what, for this project I'm only going to use these two keyboards and this drum machine", I'm going to explore what those instruments can do, and the limitations of those instruments are going to help create difference between that project and a different project.

Absolutely. In my visual art practice I find it's the limitations that actually start informing and really creating the work...If you don't have those setup...then your palette is endless and infinite...but once you set some boundaries, you're able to work creatively within those boundaries. So do you start with, for example, maybe a folder--'Matsu's Forest of Dreams', and all of your textures and sounds that you want for that album are in there before you even start sculpting and crafting? Or does some of the discovery of what you use come in the creation of the music?
I think I was still in the process of learning how to best establish those limitations when I was working on this project. So I've done that in future projects...but I didn't do that for this one. The video work that I was doing immediately after this project...because I traveled to a specific location and met with the videographer and the dancer there--I was composing on site...so I thought very carefully about "what things am I gonna bring?", "What is gonna make the most sense?" Because you have to get in the car, and then eventually I had to hike into a forest with it...

--Wow, how much can you take with you!?
Yeah, so I was definitely thinking about space and I was trying to maximize the efficiency of the things I was bringing. Once of the things I did is...I sat down with one of my favorite keyboards, I was so determined to bring this one keyboard even though it's so big, because it's very expressive and very rich sounding, and I went through and I did a bunch of sound design before I even met with the other artists...I put together maybe ten or twenty tones--potential tones, that I thought would work well together and would capture the spirit of this project we were working on.

This is The Kiln Project?
Yes.

And this is a multimedia project based around ceramic kilns on...which island was this?
Charcoal kilns actually, it's a pit kiln that early Japanese settlers were using on Galiano Island to produce charcoal--commercial grade charcoal that you could crush up and make into ink, that you could filter water with, that you could burn as a smokeless fuel source, they used that for the tea ceremonies, and you could use it for cooking inside as well--because it burns clean.

That's available online? People can see that?
Actually it is not...because it's currently being shopped around to different festivals. So it's not web hosted in any permanent form at the moment. In future I hope it will be; it's something...I feel very proud about the finished project, I would love everyone to see that.

It is an awesome project...
Matsu's Forest of Dreams seems to call for and inspire active, deep listening...it's so sculpted and so thoughtful and cared for...the listener is really rewarded for giving it their full attention; put the lights down low, put the headphones on and really just sit with it...
I think the goal for a lot of ambient music is to create something that's going to be satisfying to a listener who is either actively listening, or who is passively experiencing that music...I think the best ambient music functions in both settings. So, it's fine...I mean if you're trying to fall asleep, that music is just playing in the background and it's just a texture that you are experiencing on maybe a very subconscious level. But--my hope is also that, yeah, you could sit down and really visualize this music.

It could be a vehicle into dreaming for sure, or, it could be that you're walking the streets of the album, exploring every nook and cranny--really digging down into it. So when you listen back to it--wait, do you listen back to it?
I do. I listen to all of the music that I make. I don't remember where I heard this motto, but I remember hearing somebody saying "You should make the art that you'd like to consume". And this is why I don't typically do commercial commissions, and why I never got into teaching music, or having it associated with income, because I always wanted to have the luxury to just make the music that I would like to hear as a listener.

So when you do listen back, do you know what's around every corner? Can you anticipate the music? Or is it surprising every time? Do you discover new aspects when you listen to the Matsu album?
Oh yeah, it changes. For sure. That happens with anything, whether I've created it or not. Because you, the listener, are different every time you interact with a piece of art, so...the experience is an equation of product and audience, and the interaction between those two components.

That's the beauty of it...it's going to be different every time.
You've already touched on some of the albums that inspired you in the past...do you remember what you were listening to at the time you were making this album?
Honestly, one of the biggest influences was this album that Moby put out for free, I think it was on his web page, it was called Long Ambients (1: Calm. Sleep.) or just 'LA'. The album art is the twinkling lights of the L.A. skyline from up in the hills. It's all long form ambient pieces, like each track is maybe twenty minutes or something like that. I was astounded when I heard that album. His pop music is interesting I think, but I had no idea he had that kind of depth as an artist, to really get into the minutiae of sound design. And I love that--I mean this is kind of the dream, if you're an established enough artist you can create something like that and then just give it to people for free. I would love to be in a position where I could more freely do that.

OK, I really want to check that album out now.
Well Bradley, what do you think? Is there anything else you wanted to say about Matsu's Forest of Dreams or about your sound practice in particular?

I don't think so. I've had a really good response from people who have either listened to the album or have seen it performed live in some capacity...and that's really, really reaffirming...to get that kind of feedback. Some of the comments I get are just so close to what I had hoped people would feel when they experienced the album, without any kind of prompting...I'm quite surprised by that, honestly it's one of the most rewarding things to hear.

I think that's the highest compliment you can get as an artist, when the thing you're trying to evoke is just...happening, without pointing to it, without explaining it. That's so awesome. More people need to hear your stuff...that's why we're doing this, trying to get the word out!
So you have a performance coming up in Vancouver? September 24th?
That's right, at the Red Gate Revue (Granville Island). Brock (Mayer), who I've already performed with, it's so nice to be with him again. But also: Midden and Playback Head are two artists that I had discovered on my own, totally unrelated to putting this show together, and it was such a happy revelation to see how that bill unfolded.

Everybody is super excited, it's going to be really fun, I can't wait.
One more question for you: if Matsu's Forest of Dreams was a type of food or a flavor...what would it be?
OK, I got this. I briefly had the joy of experiencing birch water [chuckles]...they were selling it at Fairway Market, there was a period of several months where every time I went to the store I would buy one of these birch water drinks, nobody else seemed to...like it, and they no longer carry it at the store [chuckles]. But it was the oddest beverage, it was refreshing and felt very free of artificial flavors, it had a lot of flavor without being sweet or salty or spicy. It was just sort of like...fragrant.

I can kind of conjure the smell of birch, I'm trying to imagine what the taste would be like, I suppose it would be quite similar...
Yeah, it was basically...the water from the tree, you could process to make a kind of syrup...this was unprocessed. Yeah. I just was in love with this drink that came directly from a tree. It was amazing.

I think that's a fitting beverage for this album.
Last question: "Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite...would you like a toasted teacake?"
[chuckles] umm...Red Dwarf? Season 1?

You got it (well, it's Season 4 but we'll give it to you).
Yeah! Never say no to a tea cake!

Thanks Bradley.

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