NEW MUSIC | PRODUCER KAZUHIRO YAMAGAMI DISCUSSES BRAND NEW ALBUM ‘FORMULA’

By Rishma • On Interviews

After a three-year hiatus fol­low­ing an extraordin­ar­ily suc­cess­ful 2021 with four hit singles, Kazuhiro Yamagami makes a tri­umphant return with ‘For­mula.’ This 9‑track album takes you on a cap­tiv­at­ing jour­ney through the realms of trip hop and down­tempo beats, grabbing your atten­tion from the very first notes. Fea­tur­ing a rich, eclect­ic blend of jazz rhythms, pulsat­ing 808s, and har­mo­ni­ous key­boards and synths, Kazuhiro has truly craf­ted his finest work yet.
We catch up with Kazuhiro to find out more…

Kazuhiro, after a three-year hiatus, you’ve returned with “For­mula.” Can you share what inspired you to cre­ate this album and what this pro­ject means to you personally?

The impetus to cre­ate the album came from Prince’s speech as a presenter at the 2015 Grammy Awards in the Best Album cat­egory, which left a last­ing impres­sion on me, and I wanted to recog­nise ‘the import­ance of cre­at­ing an album’. I then star­ted work­ing on the pro­duc­tion from about Octo­ber 2019, around the same time my daugh­ter was born. I wanted this pro­ject to be an ‘album’ where ‘it is right to make all the decisions your­self’. The pro­ject was based on this mean­ing and idea.

“For­mula” fea­tures a rich blend of jazz rhythms, trip hop, and down­tempo beats. How did you approach blend­ing these genres to cre­ate a cohes­ive sound through­out the album?

I’m very happy that you feel that way, thank you. I think the whole album has a cohes­ive sound as a res­ult of the pro­cess of being as unin­flu­enced as pos­sible dur­ing pro­duc­tion, col­lect­ing what I have accu­mu­lated from my influ­ences and what I feel are good tones, work­ing on mul­tiple songs in par­al­lel and repeat­ing the pro­cess of selec­tion, insight and sub­lim­a­tion of these many times over.

You men­tioned that the com­pos­i­tion pro­cess for “For­mula” took about two and a half years. What were some of the biggest chal­lenges you faced dur­ing this peri­od, and how did you over­come them?

The biggest chal­lenge was bal­an­cing par­ent­ing and pro­duc­tion time. I struggled to make the choice to live my life in the best con­di­tions pos­sible without being biased towards either, and to con­tin­ue to work on the pro­duc­tion of the album.

In over­com­ing this, by align­ing my pro­duc­tion envir­on­ment with my child-rear­ing life­style, I man­aged to con­tin­ue pro­du­cing and com­plete the album.

The album was cre­ated entirely on an iPad from your home. What motiv­ated you to take this approach, and how did it influ­ence the pro­duc­tion and sound of the album?

My approach to the motiv­a­tion for cre­at­ing on the iPad was that after chan­ging sev­er­al pro­duc­tion envir­on­ments, the res­ult was that being able to com­plete the pro­cess to the end on a single gad­get suited me without the stress I now feel.

I had the advant­age of being able to work in dif­fer­ent times and envir­on­ments at the time, and it was easy to rework and revise sev­er­al times in mak­ing mul­tiple songs at the same time. And the impact on album pro­duc­tion and sound was that the sim­pli­city of the pro­duc­tion envir­on­ment meant that I had less con­fu­sion about the choices I had to make with the tones, and I was able to cre­ate songs with good tones that looked good.

Your music­al jour­ney star­ted with rock and punk influ­ences, but has since evolved into a focus on syn­thes­ised instru­ments and exper­i­ment­al sounds. How has your music­al evol­u­tion shaped the sound of “For­mula”?

Hav­ing been exposed to and exper­i­enced a wide range of music, sounds and instru­ments, my pur­suit and sub­lim­a­tion of unique sounds, such as impro­vised bass lines, drums and the pur­suit of pleas­ing hi-hat tones, were reflec­ted and shaped in ‘For­mula’.

You have cited influ­ences from artists like Massive Attack and DJ Shad­ow. In what ways have these artists impacted your music, and can we hear their influ­ence in “For­mula”?

These two artists in par­tic­u­lar have had a long and deep influ­ence on my cur­rent pro­duc­tion. I think the sens­it­iv­ity to choose the beauty of tone, the over­lap and pauses between sounds, drum breaks and hi-hat tones can be felt through­out the album.

Bal­an­cing music pro­duc­tion with every­day life, includ­ing child­care, must be chal­len­ging. How did you man­age your time and main­tain your cre­at­ive energy through­out the pro­cess of mak­ing this album?

Rightly so, and this was the most dif­fi­cult aspect of mak­ing this album. Even though I spent most of my days doing house­work and child­care, I wrote songs to fit in a little free time or in chunks of time, and I improved my adapt­ab­il­ity to work even when my child was nap­ping in the room next to me. I also incor­por­ated ‘being inter­ested’ in child­care as part of my cre­at­ive energy. I see chil­dren’s beha­vi­our­al psy­cho­logy as an inher­ent human habit, and I raise my chil­dren with interest and concern.

I paint with my fam­ily, and… the art­work in my album is actu­ally painted by my daughter.

Your track “Walk on the Water” was fea­tured on Spo­ti­fy’s Mid­night Chill playl­ist. How did this recog­ni­tion impact your career, and did it influ­ence the dir­ec­tion of “For­mula”?

It is nice to have affirm­a­tion of any­thing I have done myself. The music I make is con­sidered good by listen­ers, edit­ors and oth­ers, I think that shar­ing ‘the right decision I made’ and hav­ing it appre­ci­ated gave me ‘the energy to believe in myself’, which later became the energy that shaped the pro­to­type for the dir­ec­tion of the album.

With a back­ground in music ther­apy and expos­ure to vari­ous music genres while work­ing at HMV, how have these exper­i­ences enriched your approach to cre­at­ing music?

Music ther­apy, envir­on­ment­al and exper­i­ment­al music, learn­ing and exper­i­en­cing the ideas and per­spect­ives of ‘sound’ as music and art, I worked at HMV for over 15 years, where I got to know a wide range of music and artists and exper­i­enced the com­mer­cial side of the industry. These exper­i­ences have giv­en me a unique sens­it­iv­ity and per­spect­ive in my approach to music pro­duc­tion, which allows me to reflect the ego of sound in my music and to think objectively.

What do you hope listen­ers will take away from “For­mula,” and what mes­sage or emo­tions are you aim­ing to con­vey through this album?

I want people to feel a simple and pleas­ant tone, a col­lec­tion of good sounds turned into a song, a sound­scape that evokes deep emo­tions from a single album. Also, there are no lyr­ics or words in ‘For­mula’, I want the words and sounds of ‘music’ to con­vey a mes­sage or emo­tion that I hope will move some feel­ing deep inside.

‘FOR­MULA’ IS OUT NOW 

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Rishma

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voiceless.

About Rishma

Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless.