"Polygon Wave EP" created by the change in the production system and the relationship with Yasutaka Nakata who came closer to Perfume (Natalie Interview Sep 2021)
Page 1 - about live show
Page 2
Which was the most memorable performance of this concert for you?
Kashiyuka: The first performance of "Polygon Wave (Original Mix)". Originally, we were going to perform the version that was released earlier, but when we were deciding which song to include on the EP, Yasutaka Nakata said, "This is the one!" About two weeks before the concert, I asked MIKIKO-sensei, "I'd like to change the song to this one, can you do the choreography in time? "I'll do my best at ......! (laughs).
I'll do my best." (laughs) That's pretty sudden.
"Polygon Wave" is also the title of the show, and this song was the concept that ran through the entire show.
Nocchi: But I didn't just say, "Let's record a song that will be important for the live performance. When I had a chance to talk with Mr. Nakata last December, he said, "Let's just record a song without thinking about what it's for. If it's good enough, you can use it for something else." He suggested that we go to the studio and record the song after it was written, and the first song we wrote was "Polygon Wave. The first song that came out of that process was "Polygon Wave." I think that kind of rough, uncomplicated feeling is easier for you now. All the songs we recorded this time have a different and new atmosphere. Among them, it seems that "Polygon Wave" was the first song that Nakata felt was appropriate for everyone to hear, and from that point on, we started talking about various things.
Kashiyuka: The songs "∞ Loop" and "Android &" that will be included in the EP were also recorded at that time. When we were recording, we hadn't talked about an EP yet, but since "Polygon Wave" was chosen as the theme song for "The Masked Singer," we decided to release a single. He said, "I want to put a lot of 'Polygon Wave'! I thought, "That's new" (laughs).
Nakata-san also likes this song a lot, doesn't he ?
Nocchi: I think Nakata-san had a clear idea of the world he wanted to show us. We also thought it was a great song, so we thought, "If that's the case, why don't we just release this one song first?" Then Mr. Nakata said, "If we make an EP, we'll make another version. We said, "If you're going to make another version, we'll do it live."
Kashiyuka: We've never had so many different mixes of the same song before, so we'd talk about things like, "Which 'Polygon Wave' should be the first song? We talked about it. I thought it was unusual for you to have such an opinion on the song order. It's always easy to decide, but we had many discussions.
"A closer relationship than that between "producers" and "singers.
Kashiyuka: In the past, we'd record songs after we'd decided on a release or a tie-up, but this time we were free to write and record without thinking about whether we'd use them or not, so the pace was faster than usual. When we were recording, people would say things like, "We might not use this song," but since we've already sung it, we've grown to love it (laughs). (laughs) So I sang it, thinking, "I hope it doesn't disappear. (laughs) So I sang the songs while thinking "I hope they don't disappear". In fact, I recorded songs that were not on the EP.
A~chan: Mr. Nakata's mode was different. He's always been a fast songwriter, but what happened to him? It was so fast. I think he had a clear idea of what he wanted.
Nocchi: You and Nakata-san talked a lot before and after the recording, didn't you? We talked about our old music, our stance when being interviewed, what we hope Perfume will be like in the future, and what we want to do.
In the last interview, you said that there were only two songs that you made demos for and rejected (see Perfume "Perfume The Best "Cubed"" interview). That's a big difference.
What was the recording process like?
A~chan: we talked for hours.
Your relationship with Nakata-san is completely different from what I've heard from everyone.
Nocchi: Yes. Before, we used to talk about such things only in the occasional discussions. Nakata-san used to only reveal a little bit of what he was thinking, but this time, he was overflowing with it on .......
Kashiyuka: This time, I was happy to feel that we were working together at a closer distance than the previous relationship of "producer" and "singers". "I thought, "Oh, it was easier for Mr. Nakata to work this way. I'm not sure why I didn't realize that until now (laughs).
I'm curious to know what songs you recorded but didn't include in the EP.
Kashiyuka: The song we played at the end of the live the other night is also not on the EP, but we recorded it at that time. We don't even know if that song is finished (laughs). (laughs) But I liked that song so much from the moment we recorded it that I told MIKIKO that I wanted it to be included in the live set list.
It's rare to play a song in its current state in a live performance. In rock bands, they sometimes show off songs that they are still working on.
Kashiyuka: That's true (laughs).
Nocchi: But we wanted to sing that song at this live, because it expresses the message that Perfume wants to convey to the fans now. It might not be released for a long time, or it might not be released at all, but we were aware that this live performance would remain as a video for a long time.
Page 3
`A desert world where all organic matter is made up of digital bits.`
So, I felt that both "∞ Loop" and "Android &" selected for this song are similar to the world view of "Polygon Wave".
Nocchi: I like both of them very much. The music is stylish and light without being mechanical, but "∞ Loop" is about the scary feeling of living in a world where time loops, and "Android &" is about falling in love with an android.
A-chan: Nakata-san told me the meaning of the lyrics. The main character of "Android &" is actually an android who thinks he's completely human. That's why the title of the song ends with "&", but it's supposed to be like "Android & Human". It's interesting, isn't it?
Kashiyuka: But we didn't know the titles of either "∞ Loop" or "Android &" until the songs were announced (laughs). (laughs) When we were recording, we said "loop" and "android", so we thought that was the name of the song, but when the information was released and we read the news article, it said something different. "But when I read the news article after the information was released, it said something different. "Is this "&" a typo? I thought, "Is this okay? I contacted them just to make sure. I asked him if it was okay, and he said, "Nakata-san told me it's "Android &". The other song is called "Mugen Loop" (laughs).
Nocchi: The lyrics of "Android &" are kind of harsh, looking at the world from a bird's eye view (laughs). It's a song with a clear story, so I hope you'll write a story based on it.
A~chan: It looks like it's going to be hard to draw the CG (laughs).
Kashiyuka: But we can probably cover the motion with the data we've collected so far (laughs). I feel that Nakata-san had envisioned a total world in this EP. He wanted to express the whole thing like a movie.
That's right. I thought it was a very conceptual composition that "∞ Loop" depicts a world that keeps rebooting at the end of the day, and the song "System Reboot", which means "reboot", is included at the end of the same work.
Kashiyuka: Nakata-san's image for this EP is "a beautiful & broad desert, but all the trees and organic matter growing there are made of digital bits. It's a world with a sense of discomfort," he said.
Director Yusuke Tanaka's signature "Wow, I'm so scared"
You made a dance practice video for "Polygon Wave", didn't you? It was the first time for Perfume to make a video focusing on the choreography, but it seems that there was a demand for a video where you can see every detail of the body movements, and the response was great.
Nocchi: I'm so happy (laughs). It's not often that I get to dance in sneakers, so it was fun to film.
A~chan: Whenever I appear on a music program, I always take a short video of myself dancing and submit it to the TV station. I can't show that kind of footage to the public, but the atmosphere of the dance practice video is similar to that. It's hard to dance in heels, so just wearing sneakers made it really easy.
I heard that you're working on a music video for this song, will there be a lot of dance scenes in the music video?
Nocchi: Basically, it's like a dance video.
Kashiyuka: But we just shot it, so I haven't watched it yet (laughs).
A~chan: It's a video with a clear world view, so I'm sure you'll understand how to listen to this song by watching it. Is this real? Is this real or is this virtual? In the music video, the three of us are driving together, and in the middle of the road, we're like, "What? It ends with Yusuke Tanaka's signature "Wow, this is so scary! (laughs). During the shooting, I was dancing so hard that my legs became sticks.
The choreography is quite complicated, isn't it? It's a collage of past songs, updated with the skills of the three of us, and it's the culmination of Perfume's dancing to date.
A~chan: What! Is that so? I thought you were doing it consciously, but it's not like that?
Nocchi: I wasn't conscious of it at all. To be honest, I just thought, "I've never done all these moves before" (laughs).(laughs)
Kashiyuka: When I was being choreographed, I took it as "new movements for a new song", so I didn't feel anything special. But we didn't talk about such messages.
A~chan: I thought that the arrangement of the song had various old tastes. I thought, "That sound in the background is the one they used in 'Polyrhythm'! It brings back memories! I'm nostalgic!
─ Speaking of which, the newly recorded "Polygon Wave (Remix)" is a very interesting remix, with a series of tones and phrases that remind me of various Perfume songs.
A~chan: I think Nakata-san has that planned out! I mean, he said something like that, didn't he?
Oh, so that's what he said. I was listening to the song thinking that it was like a concept live "Reframe" that reconstructed Perfume with the most advanced production, and that it was like your own "Reframe" that reconstructed Perfume's history in one song.
A~chan: Yes, yes. When you've been doing this for a long time, you get to make this kind of music.In many cases, remixes are done in a way that is different from the artist's usual style, as if to say, "This could be interpreted in this way," but this remix has more of a Perfume feel to it.
Nocchi: Yeah, I was expecting it to be weirder, but when I listened to it, it sounded so much like Perfume (laughs).
AM: Your new album sounds great and is upbeat even by your own standards. Was this a fun record to make?
AC: It was as lot of fun! I enjoyed recording different types of songs. Different types of rhythms and atmosphere.
K: I enjoy recording our albums more than standalone singles because we get more songs! The diversity of the songs makes me excited, like I’m one of the listeners.
AM: This seems like a particularly dancefloor-focussed record. How do you think ‘Level 3’ compares to your previous albums, and what do you think your fans will think of it?
N: Yasutaka Nakata, our producer, writes all our songs and I think ‘dance album’ was what he had in mind for where Perfume stands right now. This is the result of him thinking what kind of music makes Perfume cool in 2013.
AC: We see each album as being like a concept album. So Perfume right now is at a dance music stage [more than straight pop]. This doesn’t mean we’re going in this direction from here but this is just one of our aspects. Please don’t see this like “so Perfume is going into dance music direction, so I don’t have to follow them anymore…” If you don’t like this type of music, just let it go and come back to us when we release our next album.
AM: I read in another interview that Yasutaka Nakata doesn’t let you hear the songs he’s written for you until the day before you go into the studio. Do you ever worry you won’t like them? And do you like working in this way?
K: I never worry that we won’t like the songs. It’s so much fun to get new material, and getting it on the day of the recording ensures a good tension. We prefer not to practice too much in advance. If we listen too much, or practice too much, before the recording, our habits tend to overcome the freshness. I like how we get the songs at the last minute and go straight into recording. I think this style is good.
N: But when we got the rap song, that freaked me out a bit! [Laughs]
AM: Given the way in which you hear your music, would you class yourselves fans of Perfume? What music do you tend to listen to in your daily lives?
N: Yes, we’re our biggest fans! We are huge fans of Yasutaka Nakata songs, so we are proud to deliver them to our fans, and we proudly perform them at our shows. Though in my daily life, I listen to different kinds of music. Before I go to sleep, I have a playlist for that. If I want to get hyped up, I listen to dance music. I listen to whatever suits my feelings at the time. I listen to rock too.
K: I don’t listen to much Japanese music to be honest. I listen more of international music. When I listen to Japanese music, I tend to pay too much attention to the lyrics, so to listen to music as background music, non-Japanese music is better for me.
AM: ‘Level 3’ has your first fully English language song on it, ‘Spending All My Time’. Was it strange to sing in another language? Was it unexpected when the song was presented to you?
N: Yes, it was unexpected and I was surprised. We generally prefer to sing in Japanese, so when [‘Spending All My Time’] was first presented to us, it was difficult at first. But when we played abroad, everyone sang along with that song, and seeing that made me feel so glad that we recorded this track!
AM: You recently played your first European shows. What was that like?
AC: It seemed like fans in Europe really enjoyed our show. Japanese audiences tend to send us messages like “we’re having fun”, but in Europe, they were just enjoying in their own ways.
AM: It’s quite unusual for big J-pop acts to come over to Europe, but Kyary Pamyu Pamyu also made the journey over the London earlier this year. Do you think we’ll see more J-pop acts over here in the future? And will we see you again?
AC: I don’t know if more J-pop acts will go to Europe in the future, but it makes us happy that a lot of Japanese artists are going abroad to promote Japan. We’re just simply happy that we got to go play at the home of techno music and we hope that there will be more demand for us in Europe.
K: We definitely want to go back to Europe and do shows!
AM: Your performances often feature very high-tech elements. What has your favourite innovation been? Is there anything you don’t use in performances anymore that you’d like to bring back?
AC: I liked the projection mapping performance we did at [the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity, where the group won a design award for their website] and on the European tour. It’s a high-tech performance where projection moves with our dances and it’s only projected on our body and dresses, nowhere else. It’s so high-tech that I really don’t know how to explain it!
K: We have been playing at smaller venues recently so we haven’t been able to use a lifting platform. But when we play big venues again, I want to bring that back. I want to get on the lifter and perform from high up! This allows people in the back to see us in big venues.
AM: As well as the technical side, your dancing is always extremely precise and tightly synchronised. How long do you rehearse before each show?
N: Probably about a month, including choreography.
K: For big shows, we spend about a month but smaller shows like the recent European tour, we only rehearsed for about a week.
AM: What happens if something goes wrong on stage?
AC: If something happens on stage, we continue like nothing happened. If our shoe falls off, we immediately put it back on. If I forget the dance, I look to other members. If the lights went out, I try to speak to the audience and let our voices be heard. Anything can happen in live shows and we try to enjoy that moment.
AM: How involved with the choreography and design of your shows are you?
K: We let [long-time collaborator] Mikiko take charge in terms of choreography, though for live arrangements we do tell her our ideas.
N: We put together the setlist, and we tell our stage director brief ideas like “we want to get close to audience”.
AC: We tell them our dreams like we want to fly or we want this kind of stage.
K: And then we leave it to the technical team to tell us if that’s possible or not.
AM: You’ve been together since 2000. Do you still get the same excitement from being in Perfume? What are you favourite parts of the job?
K: Yes, we’re still excited because we’re tackling new things all the time, including the latest technology.
N: The best part of being an artist is that we can share our happiness and experiences with so many people. There are a lot of fans out there who like what we like. I think that’s the best part.
source : https://completemusicupdate.com/article/qa-perfume/
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 8 October 2013
