Sounds From The New Universe

Interview with the brilliant Japanese creator AQi Fzono

By Sergio Vilar

To begin, AQi, I would like you to tell us your musical direction and the projects in which you have been involved.
When I was 5 years old I began playing the piano and studying music theory academically. I wanted to become a classical music composer in my youth, but then I got into electronic music and I bought a small secondhand Moog modular synthesizer. Since then my equipment has expanded both in capability and in number as the technology advances, but my style of creating music has always been consistent.
I'm a composer, a synthesizer player and an electronic music soloist. I compose, orchestrate, play and record all the parts by myself. I've always worked in this way. In the past I have also played keyboard and theremin in a couple of trance rave bands, like Aurorae that Asyrah and I started when I was in New York, and Far East Acid House Quartet in Japan. One of the biggest events that turned around my musical style as well as my life was that when I went to London in the Summer of 1988 with the band members and experienced the "Second Summer of Love" movement that symbolized the Acid House and Neo Hippie culture.
In my first album Phosphorescence, I tried to combine acid house and classical music in order to seek out the new sounds. My second album Echoes, released in 1990, was the first one to carry the alternative title Synthesizer Symphony. Since then I have released a series of electronic instrumental albums that carry the same alternative title and developed and pushed forward my own style. In the late 90's I have created a synthesizer suite Cosmology that integrated various musical elements I absorbed all those years.
My new album Chronicle, released in 2003, is very different from any of my previous albums I've ever created. Every album has its own characteristics, but I think Chronicle has highly distinctive sound. Unlike any other "traditional" electronic music, I used orchestra and choir in Chronicle in order to bring it closer to the real classical symphonic poem. In a sense, this album might be comparable to Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd.

How would you describe your music? What style would you position it?  
People have been categorizing my music in various ways such as ambient, electronica, symphonic techno and space music. But, as far as style of music is concerned, there probably are only a handful of people who compose music like me. Jean-Michel Jarre, Mike Oldfield, Vangelis, me and Dom F. Scab are the only ones I can think of. In reviews I have been compared to Vangelis and such, maybe because I compose music from electronica to orchestra all by myself. The thing is that the composers who create symphonic electronic music tend to be wrapped into one because they are rare.
I'm really not hung up on genre and style. Some people start with setting their genre or style first, but not me. Every time when I'm asked what genre my music is, I always answer "my music doesn't have any genre. People who listen to my music can decide it whatever the way they want," and that's really my honest answer.

Artistically speaking, what is your objective that you look for to achieve with your work? What was necessary or needed for you to compose an album of this difficult musical style?  
In some sense I feel I'm directing a film than composing music, and in other sense I feel I'm painting psychedelic art. By directing film I mean that because my albums are created in a lot bigger scale than the regular rock albums, it feels like creating a science fiction film. Also, I use psychedelic art-like approach in the sound design. In a nutshell, one of my goals as a composer is to integrate the physical elements of rock music and the color sense of classical music using synthesizers.
One day a thought came to my mind that I wanted to create totally new music by combining classical music that I learned when I was little and synthesizers that are the products of the cutting-edge science. When I saw one of Stanley Kubrick's films for the first time in my youth, or the same thing would happen when you finish reading Garcia Marquez's full-length novel, you feel that the reality around you suddenly seems to be all fictional, and the visions that the music or the story have shown to you seem rather real. My wish is that the listeners of my music would relive the same experience.

Let's talk about Chronicle. What is the general idea of the album?  
Including Chronicle, I usually don't decide what the theme of the album should be at all in the beginning stage of creating a new album. Nebulous images and ideas of sound come into my head first, then I find the theme that matches the sound. Theories come later.
The beginning section of Chronicle, that is actually the core idea of the album, came to me when I was finishing recording my previous album Cosmology.
In Cosmology, I sampled various sounds such as heartbeat, clock, someone screaming and groaning, and used them like sound effects of science fiction films in order to express the images of transcending time and space. I especially collected a lot of clock sounds. I created many loops with my Fairlight CMI-2x synthesizer. Ticking sound of a clock was used to create some rhythm tracks.
When the recording sessions for Cosmology finished, I realized there were a lot of sounds that weren't used. I didn't have ideas for a new album back then, but I started creating a tune using one of the ticking sounds vaguely thinking of making a sequel of Cosmology. That tune became the Chronicle Movement 8. In other words, Chronicle was created backward from the end to the beginning. The sound of a clock ticking gave me the theme of Chronicle and the overall direction of this album. The theme was "to create the sounds and the visual images of the time."

What feelings or ideas did you want to express through the music?  
The theme of this album was to portray the stream of "time" from the Creation to the present day and the near future as an epic poem. This idea came from the concept called Akashic Records advocated by Rudolf Steiner. They are the records of everything that might happen in the universe. When I read Steiner's books, an image of a disk-like object like CD or DVD came to me, and I thought it might be interesting to be able to listen to the music of this image like watching a film. We humans living in the three-dimensional physical world can perceive space, but we can't see time. But electronic music could visualize time like a time-machine could.
In my previous albums I mainly used synthesizers and keyboards, and played most of the parts by myself. But this time I assembled a group of musicians and named them as Fzono Unplugged Symphonic Ensemble that played the orchestra and the choir parts as well as Japanese and Chinese traditional instruments. I conducted them by myself, as well as the overdubbing the sounds.

How would you describe each Movement of the album?  
When you listen to this album from the beginning to the end, hopefully you would get the images of a journey through time from the Creation to the "present day" and the near future = eternity.
I drew simple story charts for this album, but this is not a rock opera. There are no particular stories like Tommy by The Who. This is actually one of the advantages of instrumental music. 100,000 listeners can imagine 100,000 different stories in their heads freely. I don't want to limit the images by explaining the stories blow by blow, because I'd like people who listen to my music to enjoy their own images.
That being said, each movement does have a key image, like compositions of pictures. Movement 1 represent the Creation, Movement 2 birth of life, and Movement 3 is when the humanity appears. Movement 4 represents love and family, Movement 5 death, Movement 6 war, Movement 7 the danger of the annihilation of the humanity that's from the 20th century to today. And finally Movement 8 represents the images of the new humanity that resuscitates by overcoming the crisis. In other words, if you are patient enough to sit down for 75 minutes, you can enjoy billions of years of virtual time trip.
This is the first time I'm telling anyone about this, but there is a plan to perform this album live. Ideas of the plot and the stage set are almost ready. Besides music, I've been also creating works of video art for a long time. One day I will hold a big audiovisual concert with synthesizers, orchestra and choir.

What is the compositional method you customarily use?  
I don't use any particular methods customarily. Sometimes I start with writing a musical score like classical composers, and other times I start with creating sounds. Some people think I always write scores before recording music, and I do that sometimes, but I think it's more exciting to create sounds just sitting down in front of synthesizers without planing anything.
Sometimes I create a simple chord progression and a rhythm pattern, play synthesizers and samplers improvisationally by myself and record them onto a multitrack recorder. Then I listen to it again a few days or a few weeks later. If I like it then I keep it, and if not I just throw it away. I used this method for a couple of tracks prior to recording Cosmology.
In other words, my compositional method is a combination of the traditional compositional method of using classical keyboard technique and the pursuit of unique sounds that machines can potentially create. My interest in electronic music like techno and ambient is precisely because of this point, and I would think the surrealistic artists from the 1930's could relate to it.

In some measure, do you see yourself as a continuator of a certain artistic idea?
Maybe in some regards. I know there are people who regard AQi Fzono as a composer/electronic instrumentalist like Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis who composes symphonic suites all alone. From the larger perspective, it might be able to be associated with the 19th century romantic symphonic poems, or psychedelic art of the 1960's and symphonic rock like The Enid.
I myself would prefer to look at my music as the coalescence of arts and cultures that are new, old and not-yet-known.

Do you think that you have established your own sound?
To some extent, yes. Creating unmistakable and truly unique sounds is one of my goals as an artist.
I can give you examples. In Chronicle, classical symphonic poem-like materials are transformed into completely different music by the technology and the modern compositional methods, and in Cathedral, church music and trance techno are combined. Echoes that I released in 1990 combines the compositional method of classical symphonic poem and the ambient sounds to create Symphobient style. I created this word - Symphobient. I like the challenge of creating new sounds and styles that no one on the Earth has not yet come up with.

Is there a plan for a new album in the immediate future? If there is, what stage is it in?
The new album is already in production, but I can't say much about it yet. All I can say is that it will be very different from Chronicle and should be released sometime in 2005 if everything goes as scheduled.
Also, ownership of my previous 4 albums Echoes, Ruins, Cathedral and Cosmology that were released in the 1990's from Nerve Nets Records, are now bought by Lavalamp Records that I myself is part of, and we are planning to reissue them. I've been re-mastering them at my studio with help from my friend and long time artistic partner Asyrah. The sounds of these previously released albums are not quite satisfying in today's standard, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to polish it. I can't say which album yet, but I think I can at least release one this year (2005).

Changing topic, what vision do you have of the music that is made in Japan today, in the field of progressive rock, ambient and experimental music ?  
I'm not actually so up on the musical trend in Japan and I can only speak with my limited knowledge, but I think Magical Power Mako is very interesting. He's into many different type of music, but he plays the closest to what I think of rock music in Japan. A psychedelic band called Mandog is also interesting. I think Keiichi Miyashita is a talented guy.
Among the Japanese artists outside of Japan, I like Acid Mothers Temple. I think theirs is the real "psychedelic music." Also, recent solo projects by Damo Suzuki, who's known as a vocalist of the 70's German band Can. He lives in Germany now and I actually keep contact with him over the internet.
I think in Japan there are more excellent artists in ambient music and electronica than in rock music. Tokyo Tekno Tribe and Ubartmar.com are also doing very interesting stuff. They might be the progressive music of the 21st century.

What music do you listen these days? Who are your favorite artists?
These days I spend more time watching films or reading books at home, and I don't listen to music so much. Maybe because I like creating music than listening to it.
Personally, I like the music that conjures up visual images by just listening to it. Genre doesn't matter. I like delusional music like Pink Floyd and early Popol Vuh. I regularly listen to trance techno and ambient, too.
I like classical music also, needless to say, and I've been listening to it since I was young. Particularly Wagner, Beethoven and J.S. Bach are my favorites. Matthew's passion and organ chorals by Bach are in some sense the origin of my composition.

Is there any new music that you would recommend us to listen to?  
I feel an affinity towards Future Sound of London because they are trying to create new sounds by combining various musical elements. By the same token, I'm interested in Enigma and Deep Forest. In electronic music, I'm into DJ Spooky these days. His Illbient music has the most interesting sounds among all the music I've listened recently.
In rock music, an American band called Bigelf sounds excellent. Also, I was very impressed by an album released in the late 1970's by a composer from Tuscany named Sangiuliano. He is a "forgotten master." There is only one keyboard oriented solo album called Take Off ever released. The music is high-caliber that can bear comparison with post-romantic symphonic poems.

Thank you AQi Fzono, do you have any message for our readers?  
 I have personal interests in Central and South American countries such as Argentina, Mexico and Chile, and particularly in their music, literature and old native cultures. Actually, when I was younger I traveled through those countries. One day I hope to hold a concert under the Latin American Sun.
Thank you, too, Sergio. I look forward to talking to you again.

(Photographs by Rui Asakawa, Asyrah, David Carin, Elisa Tajima)

     


AQi Fzono Official Site - FZONO.COM: http://www.fzono.com/
AQi Fzono Fan Site In Japan - KODAMA (Echoes): http://www.fzono.info/
Lavalamp Records: http://www.lavalamp-records.com  

Nucleus interview: 07/01/05