Suzuki Ami and Nakata Yasutaka Supreme Show interview for MARQUEE magazine

reporter: MMMatsumoto
publisher: MARQUEE vol. 69
published: October 10, 2008

The gorgeous, glittering texture of ‘80s disco unfolds with a flash into the latest electro mode. Suzuki Ami and Nakata Yasutaka’s sure-bet, no-holds-barred collaboration is as clean and sharp as the edge of a knife. In this interview, the pair reflected on the creation of the singer’s new album, touching on everything from the production process to Ami-san’s own intentions and Nakata-kun’s vision for the project. For me, the album was nostalgic with its incorporation of science fiction phrases seen four or five years ago in the likes of capsule’s “cosmic tone cooking” (back then, of course, the unit explored a fusion of jazz and lounge, while this record takes a fresh turn with a mix of disco and electro). It’s solid electro even in spite of the keyboard orchestration, but there’s something emotional in its composition, and the rapid evolution of Nakata’s sound in the wake of his work on GAME by Perfume is a standout.

10th anniversary talk

―― Go ahead and talk about whatever you want. You must’ve been quiet throughout the recording, so you probably haven’t talked about the songs, right?
Nakata: It was quiet when we recorded, but we talked the whole time at events.
Suzuki: We worked out all our material there.
Nakata: It’s easier to talk about what’s on our minds in the club or wherever.
Suzuki: Yeah. Once we get in the studio, it’s like, “All right, let’s get started!”
Nakata: And Ami-chan can really hold her liquor. I drink, too, but I was so startled by it that I felt like, “Damn, she’s really knocking them back.” When we did a show in Kanazawa recently, she was downing sake left and right. Just in a really great mood. I was like, “Whoa.”
Suzuki: Hahaha. I can handle any alcohol except for shochu.

―― So were you just running on momentum in the studio while the songs were still fresh in your mind?
Nakata: That and being able to judge by her expression when I played her stuff, like, “Oh, I think she’s kind of into this.” I might be working, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still communicating.
Suzuki: It isn’t the kind of work you can do and be chattering away at the same time.
Nakata: Yeah, I can’t talk. But as we go along like that, we both come up with ideas.
Suzuki: Nakata-san isn’t cold or distant — it’s more like he’s just completely absorbed in what he’s doing. He can finish a track in the blink of an eye, and it really blows me away.
Nakata: As I’m working, I’ll throw her an idea to gauge if she thinks it’s cool, and if she seems happy with it, then it passes. Ami-chan loves music, so she gives an honest reaction when she likes something.
Suzuki: If it isn’t great, Nakata-san will kind of make an excuse like, “Well, I'm gonna change this part a little bit anyway.” (laughs) Like, “It's still a work in progress.” (laughs)
Nakata: We repeated that process over and over, just building up the songs.

―― Was it because of Ami-chan’s image that you decided to go with a more intense, glitzy ‘80s disco type of sound for this album?
Nakata: The concept came to me as a visual of something bright contrasting in a dark place, so I created the sound around that image. When I tried to capture the idea of something glowing or shining from within that space through sound, not like CG drawn over a black backdrop, it turned out to have an ‘80s influence.
Suzuki: But it’s not a completely digital interpretation of the ‘80s. It just has a sound that’s a little bit nostalgic and that anyone can identify with, given a new feel by Nakata-san.
Nakata: From our perspective, it’s not uncommon for our generation to find the ‘80s uncool, right?
Suzuki: Totally. It’s not our thing.
Nakata: So it’s more about that image than any musical reinterpretation. I pictured a place or a scene that I thought would be cool to hear sound coming from, so I went with a sound that I thought would fit. The ‘80s landscape isn’t what I had in mind, so it doesn’t amount to a revival.

―― Still, I didn’t expect Nakata-kun to ever write a song like “LOVE MAIL” or “Flower.”
Nakata: Ami-chan wrote the lyrics to “LOVE MAIL,” and it was the first time I'd ever started from preexisting lyrics since I became a professional musician. There was no designated first verse or prechorus or anything like that, just this long uninterrupted string of lyrics she sent me. She told me I could change them around however I wanted, but I thought I should keep it as close to what she originally gave me as possible, and that song was the result. I found it really interesting to do.
Suzuki: Hahaha. Really?
Nakata: There were a lot of things I wanted to do with this project, and I think when I made this song, I probably wanted to create a good melody. I think about the balance of the album when I work, though, so it wouldn’t have been the earliest track I made. I always start from the harder-hitting songs. But on the other hand, “can't stop the DISCO” came a lot later in the recording.
Suzuki: Yeah, it did. At that point, it felt like, “Let's just play around and have fun with it.”
Nakata: Like, “We’ve got this!” (laughs)
Suzuki: Was “TEN” recorded all the way at the end?
Nakata: It was the last. We started recording with “ONE” and ended with “TEN.”
Suzuki: “TEN” was the very last track we recorded, and “can’t stop the DISCO” came sometime before that. All the songs on the first half of the album were laid down in the second half of recording. “Mysterious” and all of those were finished towards the end. We started off with the material we needed to feel confident in how the album was progressing, and everything else was just play.
Nakata: Just at our own pace. Towards the end is when I work on the tracks I can't predict until I make them. That’s why I always find that I tend to come up with good songs around the eighth track of an album. We started with heavier music, then gradually experimented with something different in the slow songs, and I think “can't stop the DISCO” was what came about around the end when we wanted something a little more intense.
Suzuki: By that point, my approach to the vocals wasn’t set in stone either, and I was just going with the flow of the lyrics. “can’t stop the DISCO” especially brings out the vibe of switching on for the night and having a good time, so that one really sparkles.
Nakata: It's not about being somewhere bright, but lighting up someplace dark. Like the sound is that light.
Suzuki: I hope the pleasure of just making fun music will come across more than some polished image. I think the best response I could get from listeners would be if it made them feel good and want to dance and have fun.
Nakata: I didn't want it to be just any old electro. I can’t stand the way people are trying to make an electro version of anything and everything these days. The people marketing that just want to turn it into a standardized format. They approach it thinking electro is one thing, and then when they cover some old song in an approximation of that style, they’re like, “Look, it’s electro now!” That really pisses me off. I say make something original. There's nothing wrong with electro, but when people say they're going to do that, I feel like they expect it to stay the same forever. You can call something house in a word, for example, but there's so many variations of house across multiple decades. I don’t want this thing they claim they’re doing to be prevented from changing. I hate the thought of electro being pigeonholed into one type of sound. So maybe people will say the electro I produce isn’t electro, but if that’s what they think, it doesn’t matter to me either way. All I want to say is that this isn’t the electro of the past. I want to stay current. I wish every creator would bear that in mind. I don’t want them to stop at the point where they thought something was cool once.

―― That’s for sure. I think it’s a well-balanced album in a lot of ways. When people hear it on the dance floor, I bet the reaction will be really, really good. The songs are memorable, too.
Nakata: I think we’ve pulled off something good.

―― And yet in spite of the album being done, you still haven’t figured out a title for it (laughs).
Suzuki: Ahaha!
Nakata: Ami-chan should be the one to come up with that, not me, but… 
Suzuki: I can’t think of anything. Nothing has jumped out at me like, “That’s it!” This is the first time I’ve ever struggled so much to title something. There's no way I could reflect everything or sum up my whole career until now in one title. It’d be lame if I just named it “Ten Years,” and I can’t necessarily call this a representation of that entire decade either.
Nakata: It really is hard to tie all of that together.
Suzuki: I was like, “I can’t be the one to think it up!” Somebody think of one for me (laughs).