capsule’s new album WORLD OF FANTASY will be out on May 25th. Following the release of their greatest hits compilation FLASH BEST and Nakata’s work on the LIAR GAME 2 soundtrack, the announcement of this long-awaited new production has come roughly one year and two months after their previous album PLAYER went on sale.
On this occasion, Natalie carried out its first ever interview with the unit’s ringleader Nakata Yasutaka. We listened carefully to the thought he put into this album.
This turned out to be a very aggressive, high-quality and capsule-like album, didn’t it? I think so. In the process of doing my other work, I came to understand that there are some things I can only do with capsule.
Such as? capsule is the one and only project I’ve kept up since my amateur days, and it’s not music I make simply because someone asks for it. I’m just doing it because I like it, and I thought I should do more to elevate that sense of purity. That’s why, this time, I wanted the music to take priority above everything else, and I felt strongly about creating the album in a way that was genuine.
Was there anything in particular you were aiming for concerning the sound? There’s a vocalist in capsule named Koshijima Toshiko, but rather than me being the producer and having her as the vocalist, I want to approach it with a balance where the two of us make capsule what it is. Until now, I’d struggled to find a way to achieve that, but on this album, we’ve finally managed to strike that balance. So while I may not be singing myself, it feels a little like “twin vocals,” so to speak.
Twin vocals? Instead of separating the instrumental tracks from the pop vocal songs, I wanted to try to bring out a particular sense of fusion unique to capsule. Without dividing the vocals and musical interludes, it’s like the phrases I’m playing are standing on their own as vocals as well, and they feel like twin vocals in that sense. I made absolutely sure to put one symbolic phrase in each song, so that every song had one phrase that represented it. I wanted to show a kind of interest that could only come from the two of us as a unit.
So that didn’t involve, say, Koshijima-san making demands concerning the sound production? Ah, it isn’t like that. When it comes to the work itself, it’s more like a doctor and his assistant. It’s just that, in the past, I’d record her vocals as material to work with and process them on my own to fit the music. But this time, there were more parts that I could have Koshijima-san approach from her own side. I even got her to use her voice in a way I’d never heard before now in some places.
And that’s not something new you came up with, but something you’ve always wanted to do? Yes, it is.
How do you think you were able to implement that this time? Well, I really made it all in one go, and it was also helped in part by the fact that I did all the tie-in material under my own name. I guess I thought capsule should be where I concentrate purely on doing something cool and nothing else.
It seems like you focused the work over a short period of time for this album. Yeah. With capsule, there’s a certain timing when I sort of think “Oh!” as I’m going about the production every time.
Does that occur in the middle of recording? That’s right. Once I have that “Oh!” moment, it goes by fast. With my production work, I can’t just scrap things once the vocals have been recorded, but with capsule, I can bring Koshijima-san over, have her sing however many times and end up like “All of today’s takes are getting thrown out!”, so the beginning is the experimental phase. Then, once I’m partway through and see something taking shape that could potentially form the core of the album, there’s almost no time at all before it’s complete after that.
Do you ever end up in a situation where you can’t come up with any ideas to serve as the heart of the album no matter how much time passes, or fall into a slump where you can’t come up with any songs at all? Nothing like that happens to me. Although, however I think about it, the project I struggle with the most up until I start to create has to be capsule. Still, that doesn’t mean there’s ever a time when I absolutely can’t come up with anything.
Listening to the music, it’s clear that you’re freely creating how and what you like. That’s what makes it the most difficult but also the most engaging. I’m both the most frazzled and the most excited doing it.
Is that definitely the biggest difference between your production work and capsule? Yeah, the amount I’m able to experiment is totally different. When I’m producing, it’s not possible for me to go through all this trial and error in the studio and come up empty-handed. Everyone’s making time for me in their schedules — I can’t be like, “I’m not really in the mood today, can we go out to eat?” (laughs)
But on the other hand, is it sometimes easier to create when you have those constraints? Yes, that’s true. There are parts that come more easily than you’d expect under those circumstances.
In that case, do you ever feel lost and not know what to make because you have too much freedom with capsule? Well, all I’m doing is making what I think is cool. So the most important factor in the studio is whether or not I can think “This is sick!” about what I’ve made. For me, capsule is the place where I have to put forth 110% of my best effort. That’s a really difficult thing to do, but it’s also fun. If it’s soundtrack work or whatever, part of me wants to make the director say “This is awesome,” but where capsule is concerned, I want to make myself say that. That’s one of the differences between them.
For you personally, what is the specific moment when you think you’ve made something great? Is it when you’ve written a good melody? No, there isn’t anything that definitive to it. It’s when a sound I think is cool comes out of my speakers. I don’t want to make something that’s only cool in one part and the rest acts as a foil to that; what I want to create is something I can feel is cool all the way through. I’ve been working for over ten years to raise that level of purity in my music already. I don’t know when I’ll accomplish that, but I’m still going. But I do think I’ll retire capsule if I’m ever able to produce an album that makes me think, “Once this is done, I don’t care if I die.” (laughs)
Just as you said, though, you’re continuing to increase that purity of capsule with more than 100% of your energy each time. The moment I feel my range of ability expanding from that effort is the most fun. But it’s hard. It’s like I’m being told to mass produce miracles.