»manufactures« by irish

e-mail interview with irish (by kengo miyazaki)

‘manufactures’ was released as a self-released cdr in 2003. we thought it was too good to vanish in the dark right after listening to it, so to share this nice piece of work with the public, we had decided to remaster it and re-release it here on -N.

km: what motivated you to make this album and release it as a self-released cdr?

irish: when i made and released this album, i was a member of the rock band, ‘cap-d’ and had opportunities to play with other bands. they were doing music as business as part of the music industry. that made me feel frustrated, and i wanted to show some complex feelings such as anger, sadness and resistance on music and the music industry.

km: your recent tracks, especially the ones from test tube, have totally different atmospheres compared to the ones from ‘manufactures.’ were there any significant changes in your life that might have affected the way you make music after you released this album?

irish: in this album, i focused on the essences of music, and that was my only interest. i took much time, sometimes a few days, to make one piece of sound. that was the process of creating ‘manufactures.’ i guess i just had time to create something like that then. the work for test tube is different from ‘manufactures.’ in my recent work, i intend to show my emotions directly. i am currently in a position where i get to meet many people and want to show, in my songs, my personal feelings i get when i meet them.

km: actually, the tracks here sound quite intense, and it seems like you had tweaked every little detail of the sounds that were available then and got the best out of them. what kind of equipment did you use for this album, and is it different from what you normally use now? has the method of making music changed?

irish: i used a computer that was necessary to create this album, of course, but i wanted to use everything around me to create sounds and used, for example, yamaha dx21, korg electribe em-1 (both 2nd hand), software like jeskola buzz, pure data, ableton live, cubase vst, sounds from my kitchen and my voice. i also created my own vst plug-ins with synthedit. i use faster computers that can instantly and instinctively create or record cleaner sounds now, but i feel like i’ve lost something that i had in ‘manufactures.’

km: the last half of the album has more emotional track titles compared to the first half which has a little more towards conceptual ones. were they made in the same time period? what kind of state of mind were you in when you wrote these tracks?

irish: songs in ‘manufactures’ were created in the same time period. i don’t care much about song titles. in most of the cases, i name my songs after finishing them.

km: what are your plans or goals with regards to making music? please tell us your ongoing or upcoming projects.

irish: i would like to continue making music. that is my only interest. now, i am organizing a compilation album, ‘pse’ that is to resist to the new japanese pse (product safety for electrical appliance & materials) law. in addition to that, i am doing a collaboration album with duff, a japanese hip-hop artist.