Artist Interviews - Part 17　SONOKO's Talk Tape(3ページ目)

-- Though you eventually made your debut with Crammed, what was the reaction from each label?

After sending the demo, Cherry Red contacted me immediately.　It was a rather personal letter, in a way a quasi-fan letter, telling me that they really liked it, they listened to it repeatedly and they asked me to drop by Cherry Red if I visited London.

There was no reaction from Crammed initially.　When Honeymoon Killers visited Japan, I approached them again. Though Marc Hollander had listened to my demo, it seems that he didn't really get interested until I actually met him.

There was no contact from my favorite, that was Crepuscule.

I personally think that just getting reactions from two of the three labels is a success story. In the end I've been very fortunate.　It turned out to be Crammed that did my record, and it's all turned out for the best.

-- What attracted you to these three labels?

Just an intuition or instinct, all three labels had the kind of esprit (soul) which I liked, and expressed it in the music they were putting out then.

A lot of people say that "La Debutante" is a "jewel box" which has an uncanny unification though various genres are condensed in it.　I wanted to make a spiritual (soul) world after what I feel as beautiful, things so pure as to be beyond shame, sublimated to beautiful music.　Since it was so personal, I felt that it might be hard to be understood.　But at the same time, I thought that some people who felt the same way (those who remember their child's heart even as an adult) would absolutely understand it.

Although what I created has taken the form of music, it does not consist of only music.　Colin Newman said "it's highly post-modern and one art rather than eclecticism". According to Liberation, the best paper of musical criticism in France at that time, "Destined to become an underground classic from the late '80s." If I got such compliments, I suppose that is the reason.

People in Crammed Discs accepted my feeling with sincerity, and made it into a beautiful album.　I'm truly thankful.

-- Once the project to make a record crystallized, how long did it take till the actual release?

After I was actually contacted by Cherry Red, it took about four years to complete the album.

-- An album that was first manufactured in Japan was never released and you did a completely new recording in Belgium.　How did the contents change?　It seems like there were many complications to get there.

The initial plan was a record released on Cherry Red with Mr. Kaoru Sato as producer. We recorded in studios in Kyoto and Tokyo.　I played together with Morgan Fischer on stage in Kyoto, and we recorded after that in the studio in Tokyo.

About the time we started to realize that Cherry Red's ideas and what we (Mr. Sato and I) were doing here were a bit different, Honeymoon Killers visited Japan.　I transferred to Crammed because when we met there seemed to be total agreement about what direction the album should take.

Though Crammed's initial idea was to release what Mr. Sato and I had recorded in Japan, Marc was not totally satisfied with the result and things stalled there for a long time.　 When I went to Paris to take a summer course at the Sorbonne about a year later, I went to Crammed with the master tape from Tokyo to negotiate directly. Marc said "it is not enough, and you need to record it again here”.　I started again from scratch. It was like a never-ending story.