On February 9th, eight months since the release of their last album S.F. sound furniture, capsule released their new album NEXUS-2060. Inspired by the concept of “the year 2060,” there’s a sense of totality to the album when taken as a whole, yet the individuality of each track still comes across loud and clear. In this interview, the duo of Nakata Yasutaka and Koshijima Toshiko talked to us about the concept of their new album, their vision for the world in the near-future year 2060 and much more.

―― You released your new album NEXUS-2060 on February 9th, eight months after its predecessor S.F. sound furniture, but while this could be called "soon" for other artists, it seems to be the normal pace for capsule. Nakata: Yes. We made it at our own pace.

―― The theme of “2060” is laid out plainly in the album this time. Nakata: That’s right. It’s not really the concept of the sound, but in terms of the world the album is set in, I made it with the idea of what it’d be like to do ordinary things in that time period. Both now and in the past, we’ve had the same actions, right? Like cooking food, for one example. However, the things we use to do them change subtly. Whether they’re evolving or simply becoming more convenient, though, I can’t say. Maybe they’re only changing in the sense of design trends. But it’s interesting to imagine those changes. For instance, Zojirushi [a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer] used to make a bunch of rice cookers with flower patterns on them, but now you couldn’t find floral print items even if you wanted them, right? When it comes to design, whatever you picture will never come to life. Although you can imagine the functions it’d have. Design is fundamentally influenced by the preferences of those doing the designing, so it’s fun to imagine what things might be like in the future with your own tastes in mind.

―― In that sense, you can envision your own image of the near future freely. Nakata: That’s true. It’s fun to think about.

―― Your previous album sound furniture was abbreviated to SF [science fiction], but the near-future concept of your latest involves sci-fi to some degree as well. Nakata: Yes. In a way, though, maybe it’s no longer sci-fi (laughs).

―― It’s different from what people consider to be typical science fiction like Star Wars. Nakata: While it is set in the near future, nobody’s at war or anything like that — it’s more about living life normally. The world in this album has little to do with iron or mechas. You don’t have to make it so mechanical just because it’s 2060 either. Most of the people who like sci-fi probably also like technology, so technology becomes the main focus of their stories. However, technology isn’t what I want to bring out as the main idea in my own work; what I like is that feeling of something being “not as it is right now.” I want to see a town with a design that's different from what we have in the present. Not stuff like robots and all those other things taken individually, but the full picture of a futuristic city. I’d like to see what Tokyo would look like a thousand years from now.

―― I wonder what it’d be like then. Nakata: Is there no way we could see it? (laughs) Koshijima: I really want to see that. Nakata: I think it’s really difficult to imagine. We don’t have a lot left from a thousand years ago, do we? Anything that does remain is kept as an important cultural property. I feel like the majority of the buildings we have now wouldn’t measure up to that standard.

―― I don’t imagine Tokyo Tower will still be standing a thousand years from now either. Nakata: Even if they could keep it around so as not to waste it. Koshijima: It’s possible that it might become valuable as a kind of monument. Nakata: Yeah, since there could be an increase in even taller buildings by that time. Like, when we come into an era where we can easily build 200-storey buildings, how much value will Sunshine City in Ikebukuro really have? All of that could be a possibility, and because it’s so impossible to imagine, you want to see it for yourself all the more. It seems like they’d get rid of everything and start fresh, but maybe there’ll be more left over than we expect.

―― Now you’ve got me wanting to know what new things might be created and what might be left behind (laughs). Nakata: I think the atmosphere of the cities and other places would change. A hundred years ago, Asakusa was like Harajuku is now, full of young people all dressed up back in those days, I think. Will Harajuku end up like Sugamo a hundred years into the future? Koshijima: There are less children among the population and more elderly, so maybe the number of towns like that would increase. Nakata: The capital city might change, or the concept of a country itself might not even exist anymore. Kyoto was even the capital of Japan a thousand years ago.

―― There’s quite a variety of possible outcomes. 2060 will be 55 years from now, but perhaps it might not have changed very much at all, or on the other hand, there may also be areas that have evolved a great deal. Nakata: Fifty years ago would be around thirty years into the Showa period. A lot of things didn’t exist compared to now. I think I probably couldn’t have been a musician in that era (laughs). Koshijima: But you would’ve made something, right? Nakata: I’d be a furniture craftsman or something like that.

―― Koshijima-san, how do you think you’d like for the year 2060 to be? Nakata: Even if makeup became completely automatic, Koshijima-san seems like the type who’d still do it manually. Koshijima: It’d be much easier if it could all be done for me automatically, though, so that’d be nice (laughs). But I have to admit that it’s fun to do your makeup while you’re thinking about someone. If Nakata-kun had the option of doing different things automatically, he would definitely be in the “automatic” crowd. Nakata: Yeah. Still, although it’d be automatic, I like to change around my preferences a little, so I think I’d adjust the settings to fit my needs. I never even use appliances with the exact settings they’re initialized with, so I like being able to change different things around to suit me. Koshijima: I don’t have that much of an attachment to technology, so I’m not very interested in configuring it. I guess I don’t quite trust it. Nakata: You’re the sort of person who wants to live in a log cabin on top of a mountain, aren’t you? Koshijima: Even in 2060? (laughs) Nakata: That’s good in its own right, though. I don’t like appliances as anything more than tools I can use to do stuff with either, so it’s not like I’m so in love with the technology itself or anything. People think of me as the kind of person who reads magazines about DVD recorders and plasma TVs and the latest cell phones, but I’m not like that. I only really fuss over the design when I pick something out, so if it can do what I want it to do, that’s good enough for me.

―― Well, let’s move on to the topic of your new album NEXUS-2060. Your last album was based around the idea of a trip and ended with “Retro Memory” as if to give the sense of returning home, but this one also opens suddenly with the voice of Koshijima-san announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying with Contemode Air System today!” It seems you’ve carried over the travel concept from last time. Koshijima: Yes. I feel like we had the idea to include that announcement from the beginning. We gathered a lot of things together as reference material. Nakata: That’s right. I gave all the stuff I’d collected to Koshijima-san like, “We’re going to be doing something like this, so practice it ahead of time.”

―― Announcing really suits you. Koshijima: I admire women announcers. I still want to be an elevator operator (laughs). If I could be an elevator girl for a day, I’d want to try it. Nakata: Well, then, how about I put something like “Uchuu Elevator Girl” on the next album. Koshijima: I feel like we have a song like that already (laughs). Nakata: For Koshijima-san, capsule and announcing are the same. When she talks about her position in capsule, it comes across like “I work as the female announcer in capsule,” but capsule itself is actually the same thing, in the sense of doing something while playing an established part.

―― I think Koshijima-san in the context of capsule doesn’t necessarily always have to sing. I did feel that having both vocals and the narration you described may be more capsule-ish, though. Koshijima: Uh-huh, that’s true. Maybe I’m not really conscious of myself as a singer.

―― There are many common features between this album and the last, but I did get the feeling that your sound has undergone some changes. Were there any areas you altered deliberately? Nakata: There are several differences between this album and the last one. Lately, whatever I do has started to be called “cute music,” so I think I’ve gotten to where I can do a variety of different things as well.

―― Each song has its own personality despite the overarching theme of “2060,” so I think all of the tracks could stand on their own even listened to separately. Nakata: I think so, too. Other than the transition between the first and second tracks, I feel like each of the songs would sound totally natural if you listened to them independently. Since the iPod Shuffle came out, it’s gotten harder to make songs that only sound cool if you listen to them in the proper order, so I’ve changed the way I construct the intros. Not that the whole song is complete on its own, but more that each one has a meaning. You can’t use the previous track’s ending as the next one’s intro anymore.

―― Perhaps you create like this precisely because of the generation we’re in right now. Nakata: Yes. I’m personally against the use of the shuffle function and things like that, though (laughs). I want my albums to be listened to all the way through. But everyone’s free to listen the way they choose, since the more tools there are available, the more ways there are to hear music. Maybe there are many people who’d listen to the songs in order if the shuffle option wasn’t available, but there are also more and more people choosing to use it if it is. Still, I do find it fun to think about the track order from a listener’s perspective.

―― Koshijima-san, has anything changed in the way you sing compared to before? Koshijima: It's gotten easier with each album we've released — or rather, I've come to understand my role as capsule's Koshijima Toshiko — so the work itself has also grown to progress more smoothly. Besides, I usually don’t have any room to think about altering how I sing or anything else (laughs). Nakata: There’s really no need to think about it either. Koshijima: I attended to it rather vacantly. Nakata: Even as you’re singing the material yourself, you must start to feel like you don’t know who did it, right? Like you have no memory of singing it. Koshijima: That’s true. Not remembering the titles and whatnot (laughs). I listen to them later and they start to come back to me.

―― More than recording after concentrating your thoughts, it feels like going straight into the production at a steady pace would result in more capsule-like music. Koshijima: Yeah, maybe so. Nakata: It’s not the type of thing that’s like, “Where did you have trouble when you made this?” If we struggled with it, it wouldn’t be capsule. It feels like I leave any particular fixations I have in my brain and that’s it. Koshijima: We go about it almost unconsciously.

―― It’s a question of intuition rather than technique. Koshijima: That’s right. Instead of practicing, it’s more about producing the image in my mind as-is through the vocals and sound.