immi Spiral interview for livedoor

publisher: livedoor
published: July 23, 2010

After releasing her first indie album Switch in the summer of 2008 and going on to reach #1 on the iTunes dance chart in its digital pre-release period, the singer-songwriter immi achieved her major debut with the single “WONDER EP” in July 2009. In May of this year, she released her single “Sign of Love,” the opening theme song of the anime House of Five Leaves, which aired on Fuji TV’s Noitamina programming block. Now, on June 16th, she’s released her long-awaited second album, Spiral.

It’s very human while retaining an electronic sound

It’s been a little under two years since the independent release of your first album Switch in September 2008. Did you have any specific image in mind when creating your latest album Spiral?
Nothing in particular, I think (laughs). But each track had a specific feel, and I collected those together one by one. To be precise, there was no one concept that I decided at the outset, but as it came together, things came into view for me that put into perspective what kind of album it was going to be. When I look back on it, the process behind the album wasn’t really about doing one thing now or something else next time, but more like, “If I die, I can be at peace with this” (laughs) — it strongly feels like something I made with the intent to explore everything I could only do right now to the fullest.

When did you begin production on the album?
Right after I released the EP “Alice,” I guess around September.

Which song was made first?
The oldest track is “Swimmer,” a song I’ve had around since my indie days. I’d perform it live sometimes, but I could never quite find the right timing to put it on a single. I included it on this album for the first time.

On the other hand, how about the songs you made most recently?
When it was time to drop the first single, I had four songs — “FIGHT BACK,” “Sign of Love,” “circle - square - triangle” and “sora to i” — made in advance, plus “Swimmer,” which I’d been holding on to for some time, and the singles I’d already released. The rest of the tracks were finished towards the end. But there were quite a lot of songs I worked on simultaneously, just getting the choruses laid down all at once. Once they were all finished, the complete picture of the album came into view somehow. It was just polishing one thing at a time.

Were there any tracks you recorded alongside the ones included on this album that didn’t make the cut?
There were about four songs. But maybe there were only so few because I don’t keep any songs stockpiled (laughs). Rather than finishing the whole track, I have a lot of songs that I’ve gotten about halfway through, set aside like “hmm, I guess I’ll leave this one for another day” and then forgotten about (laughs). I’m not the type to write a lot when it comes to the number of songs.

Why did you make the album title “Spiral”?
It has a lot of different meanings to it, but part of it is related to “Secret Place” as the first track. The song is based on the idea of nature and going deep inside the forest, but the sound is entirely digital, and that kind of contrast is everywhere throughout the album as a whole. I’ve always liked to write about realistic human relationships and emotions, and most of my lyrics have to do with emotional or spiritual things. I want to express something very human while retaining an electronic sound, so thinking about human beings, I made the connection to DNA, and the form that that takes is a “spiral.” As I wrote the lyrics, it also came up in conversation that the image of something being really chaotic — not immediately leading to an answer, but just turning in circles and climbing — is like me (laughs). And it’s a bit of a stretch, but there are five songs on the album that begin with the letter S. Come to think of it, my previous album Switch starts with an S, too (laughs).

When you put it like that, your next album will also...
I’ll have to make the next one start with an S as well. Like I’ll need to flip to “S” in the dictionary and figure it out from there (laughs).

What do you mean by turning in circles being like you?
I can stay quiet forever without giving any response, and even at home, I spend hours at a time just thinking (laughs).

Did you decide the tracklist easily?
Yes. I thought about it objectively as I listened, but I came to a decision quickly, because I knew what I wanted to bring out first. The first three songs are important to me even when I listen to other people’s albums.

I thought the first track “Secret Place” with its theme of going deep into the forest and third track “Sign of Love” that feels like a broadening of horizons were fitting for the opening, but “FIGHT BACK” as the second track came ever so slightly as a surprise to me.
Really? (laughs) That was something I decided from the beginning. The track order is where people listening to me for the first time will determine what kind of artist immi is, so it’s like I took the aspects of me that I wanted them to hear and put those at the beginning.

Like the phrase “What is normal? Abnormality” in the lyrics, do you ever feel like you don’t fit in with the world’s values?
I feel like that at times. Because of the generation we’re in now, I feel like people with all kinds of different values have become more visible than before, and I think everyone fundamentally believes their own views are the norm. When that’s disproven, you find that there are many different philosophies out there, and those can influence and change your own way of thinking.

Minorities can be oppressed by the majority, but which category do you think you fall into more often?
My way of thinking can differ depending on the subject, but I felt like I’ve tended to be in the majority so far in my life. When choosing my position, I want to stay conscious of who I am so that I’m not just swept into the majority. But I don’t think I’m such an intense person either (laughs).

When you meet people for the first time, do they feel a gap between how you come across and the image they had of you beforehand?
Most of the time, yes (laughs). People tell me that my vibe is surprisingly soft. That’s the majority opinion, though (laughs).

Just based on how you talk, you might come across like a mori girl [“forest girl,” a fashion subculture that emphasizes loose, natural clothing and a soft or gentle atmosphere] (laughs).
That I take issue with (laughs). Just think of it as hiding my inner power, if you will.

The lyrics of the fourth track “Swimmer” are very evocative. Do you swim yourself?
I don’t go anymore, but at the time, I’d been going to the gym and swimming there, so it’s like I used that for material (laughs). But I think if I hadn’t been swimming then, the idea would’ve never occurred to me.

The fifth track “Jeezy Peezy” is a collaboration with The SAMOS, and your last album featured Shigeo on the song “Go with the flow” as well. What was that process like?
I worked on the demo with my producer JETBIKINI to start, then we sent him files of the track and my vocals. The SAMOS added their arrangement with Shigeo-kun’s vocals over the top of it and sent that back to us.

I was sure you must’ve recorded the vocals together, but I was wrong. Were there parts of the lyrics that got added in later, too?
There were. The first vocals we sent were just the chorus and the phrase where I’m saying “jeezy peezy.” Even after we got the track back from The SAMOS, we kept adding in other things. Like me singing over the part with Shigeo-kun’s vocals, just sort of as I felt like it? I guess (laughs).

Did you make any requests?
When we collaborated on Switch, that track had a lot of rap-like elements, so I requested that Shigeo-kun include more of his mellow melodies on this one. I heard later that he added that big, sweeping progression to the end of the song based on that.

I’d never pictured you as someone to drag out a past love like in the sixth track “Step Up!”, but would you say that you wrote these lyrics less as a realistic depiction of yourself and more as an imaginative exercise?
That’s right. “Step Up!” and “Go Around” were songs I consciously wrote from a woman’s perspective. Just like men can be romantic, girls can also be delusional at times. It’s a little bit tragic, and I had fun exploring that, too. It feels more like something I took a step back from to create rather than being true to life. The track sounded really pop, so I decided to go with a “brokenhearted” theme to contrast against that.

In relationships, they say men save to a new file and women overwrite data, but are you the type to move on or drag things out?
I’m not sure how much normally counts as dragging things out, but if there’s already someone else in my life, I’m the type to forget about the old relationship instantly (laughs).

Compared to “Step Up!” preceding it and the image I had in mind from its title, the eighth track “Rainbow” has a dark melody. Do you tend to write your lyrics when you’re in a good state of mind, or do they flow more easily when you have a lot bottled up inside?
I prefer writing in a better frame of mind. When I sit down to focus on my lyrics, if I’m not feeling positive in one way or another, or if I’m in a dark place, I can’t write. Like I can only write once I’ve gotten out of that state.

Do you have a technique you use to change your mood when you’re feeling dark?
Maybe I can get out of that dark place by writing lyrics (laughs). I can’t write when I’m at my absolute lowest point, but if I write them as I’m slowly starting to climb out of that hole, I can sort of break out of that mindset. I’m not good at shifting my mood, so I’m not the type of person who can let my feelings out just by playing around. I might actually be more likely to feel down in the middle of hanging out or doing something fun (laughs).

Do you like rain, by the way?
I hate it (laughs). But turning on the light in my room on rainy days feels uncomfortable to me, so I might like it after all. Since it’s dark outside when it rains, it can feel like the room is too bright. It makes me remember being in school. In school, there’s windows right across from you, so the outside looks dark, but inside the classroom is all bright and noisy with people. I can’t say it doesn’t evoke that kind of nostalgia (laughs).

What do you do most often at home?
Sit in front of my computer (laughs). I have a lot of work to do, and lately I enjoy looking at fashion or photography sites online, so I collect different things on there and time goes by just like that. I’m out and about a lot these days, working on stuff or attending meetings, so I haven’t had much time to spend all day at home, but I’ve mostly been working on sewing projects a little at a time (laughs).

Are you very interested in the arts?
(laughs) To be fair, I’m not really an “otaku” who gets extremely absorbed in one thing. I like cameras, too, for instance, but I don’t have it in me to read a bunch of books about cameras and accumulate that knowledge whatsoever. Maybe I don’t tend to go beyond what I can do intuitively.

The tenth track “Black or White” contains the line “I hate the gray zone.” Are you the type of person who prefers when something is clearly black or white?
I think I often end up in the gray zone when I’m going on autopilot, but there are a lot of things where I need to make a distinction somewhere. I probably tend to leave things ambiguous more often, so that’s why.

The album booklet is very striking with your vivid red dress against a monotone background. Do you have a favorite color?
That’s hard. I have a lot, but it’s because I like combinations of colors more than specific individual ones. I like combinations like yellow and purple or pink and orange, for example. Red was the theme for this album’s color, so we emphasized red in a lot of places (laughs). Like my clothes, for one, and I think I’ll probably go for red again when I perform live as well.

By any chance, did you go to an arts college? You seem to like creative hobbies like photography and sewing even outside of music. It’s just the impression I get (laughs).
I am from an arts college (laughs). Maybe that’s why?

The eleventh track “No.1 GIRL” has a showgirl-esque mood even in its sound. Do you have your own personal concept of the feminine ideal?
Even when I draw, I typically illustrate women quite often, so I really like the female figure in terms of physical appearance. Not just something erotic from a male perspective, but I like people who are sexy from a female point of view. I think that charm probably comes from the inside, but it differs from person to person, too, so I don’t know what exactly makes me feel it... (laughs)

I suppose your electro sound may give all the songs a cool image, but “Step Up!” shows you as a cute girl, “No.1 GIRL” expresses a seductive sexiness, and I thought it was interesting how your vocal color changed from track to track across the album as a whole.
For “No.1 GIRL,” I originally envisioned something like Moulin Rouge, and I wrote it based on that image of sexy women who seduce men. But I intended to write it from the feeling of still longing to be chosen by a man, even for someone like that. To some extent, each track has its own character that I’m expressing.

In the twelfth track, “Go Around,” you depict the scene of an arranged meeting. Do you seek an equal level of investment between yourself and a partner, or do you wish for your partner to be the one who chases after you more than the other way around? Some people enjoy arriving first and having time to wait for their company, but are you able to wait for a long time?
It depends on the situation. I think I could probably wait however long it takes when I’m in a very good mood, but the girl in “Go Around” didn’t have such good timing. I would rather we both feel the same as each other.

On a personal level, I especially like the ninth track “sora to i” and thirteenth track “circle - square - triangle.” Why didn’t you choose them as singles?
I didn’t feel like I was shortchanging them at all; as songs, I thought each of them was about as good as the other (laughs).

With that single’s black and white visuals, maybe those two songs weren’t as contrastive as “Sign of Love” and “FIGHT BACK.”
That’s true. In that sense, I chose a good pair of songs for that. I started working on the album songs right after those four tracks, but I didn’t think about them as light or heavy, or in terms of certain songs being singles and others being album cuts. Each song is its own complete work, and that was a prerequisite for them to go on the album. So part of it had to do with thinking of them like that.

“circle - square - triangle” feels like the perspective of someone gazing down at the natural earth from overhead, but do you spend time in nature, like mountains or rivers, or visit zoos and aquariums?
I went to Kinuta Park recently to shoot a video. I haven’t been to the zoo lately, but I do like them. I get enough comfort from my cat at home (laughs).

A greater kudu is shown on the album cover. According to Wikipedia, there aren’t any in Japanese zoos.
I wondered what kind of animals were out there, so I went to the museum in Ueno and looked at a variety of animals that were stuffed and mounted there. As I was looking around, I came across the greater kudu. Its horns are spiral-shaped, and I was so pleased to find an animal that fit my theme so well, so I chose it based on that (laughs). I thought there might not be any in Japan and had half given up, but miraculously, we found one. It had occurred to me that I wanted to use an animal, though, and I’d already thought a lot about how far to incorporate that into the artwork.

How far does it continue down from the neck?
There’s nothing below the neck. We showed as much as we could possibly show. So that’s why it’s actually more like I’m straddling its neck (laughs).

What do you have in store for the Spiral release party on July 20th?
I’m going to have a complete band setup this time, so I’ll be performing with an emphasis on drums, synthesizers and bass guitar. I plan on going with a totally different arrangement from the album, so it might be like a special performance just for that day. There’ll be one song with just dancers and video part of the way through.

Do you plan to offer any goods?
I’ll be making goods for the first time (laughs). There’s a duo called YATT, and one of those members works as a designer. We’ll be selling T-shirts by YOSHIRO-kun who designed my “Alice” EP. There’s also a watch brand called NOOKA and they’ve been really friendly with me for some time now. I’ve been thinking about holding an exhibition at NOOKA and producing some collaboration watches. I’m also going to make iPhone cases (laughs).

It sounds like you have your work cut out for you, but from where I’m standing in the audience, I’m unbelievably excited.
Thank you very much!