tomad × Yasuhiro Tsuchiya: Part 2 "Club Music Born from Illusion"

Continuing from last time, planner Yasuhiro Tsuchiya interviews tomad, founder of " Maltine Records." We explore fantastical club music and the future of the internet and music...

Making club music before going to clubs

Tsuchiya: I think club music is inherently tied to the dance floor—it's physical, bodily music. When creating tracks, someone who also DJs can play them on the floor and gauge reactions while making them. But someone creating at home and finishing everything online can't see that floor reaction. That might change how you approach making tracks and how they resonate with the floor. Do you feel anything different when actually running events?

tomad: First, I think recent club music is polarizing into two directions: the accessible route like EDM (Electronic Dance Music), and the underground route. The underground direction doesn't prioritize functioning in clubs as much anymore. It focuses on things like sounding great through headphones or prioritizing dancing at home.

Tsuchiya: Dancing at home is the top priority (laughs).

tomad: That feels like the new generation's perspective, or rather, the underground club music viewpoint since around 2010.

Tsuchiya: Back in the early 90s, you had stuff like Aphex Twin or what was called bedroom techno. You could say this is the legitimate evolution from that. Club music specifically designed for headphones definitely makes a lot of sense.

tomad: I think that phenomenon probably arises because people make club music before they even go to clubs. Club music created from fantasies about clubs, without actual club experience, inevitably feels off when heard in a real club, or differs from the traditional club music methodology...

Tsuchiya: Club music created from fantasies about clubs!! That's a really interesting concept! Before, once you made a track, you had to spread it through live shows or DJ sets. But now, with the internet, that fantasy club music can be shared online, and there's even feedback. So it feels like only the physicality is missing...

tomad: But if you push yourself hard enough, physicality can adapt somehow. House or four-on-the-floor beats are easy to dance to, but something like JUKE (※1) is completely hard to dance to, yet if you try hard, you can dance to it (laughs). When DJing, if you transition from dubstep to JUKE, you can actually blend it well, and then the dancing changes too. There's always this movement that rebels against the obvious direction, and I really like DJs who do that.

Tsuchiya: So with JUKE, did that unique beat come first, and then the FOOTWORK dance emerged later?

tomad: It seems they emerged simultaneously in Chicago. But music spreads through the internet, right? So people in other regions, just making tracks in their rooms, would copy the beat. That's like imaginary club music they made imagining Chicago JUKE (laughs). I think that's the internet-like quality—how you lose sight of the original.

Tsuchiya: I see (laughs). So they'd hear this new sound, figure out how to program it to sound similar, and create while imagining the real thing.

tomad: You listen to that stuff in your room, maybe try dancing to it yourself.

Tsuchiya: So the internet connects Chicago and the bedroom, a chemical reaction happens in the bedroom, and then it gets released back out into the internet from the bedroom...

tomad: With the Martinez events, I'm consciously aiming to bring things back together from the room to the club.

Tsuchiya: The people featured in this "One-Click Radius" series seem to share this stance: "If some kind of system is already in place, let's subvert it." Listening to your stories, I got the impression that there's this established, traditional club culture, and you're deliberately shifting away from it.

tomad: Intentional... I think it's more that they were fundamentally off-kilter from the start.

Tsuchiya: Because they create club music before even experiencing the club...

tomad: Exactly (laughs).

Tsuchiya: That phenomenon happens because of the affordability of music production gear, and also legal issues around clubs—strict ID checks mean you can't get in if you're under 20.

tomad: That's a big factor. They want to go but can't, so they make their own music and dance at home. Plus, there's the issue of people overconsuming archives on YouTube and such beforehand. tofubeats ( http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofubeats ) is a perfect example of that. Due to legal restrictions like not being able to go to clubs under 20, and also the physical distance of living in Kobe, he started making club music before he actually went to clubs.

 

Translating what's online into physical form

Tsuchiya: What's next for Multine?

tomad: We'll keep releasing music indefinitely. Also, while we've always been against putting out CDs, lately I've started thinking it might be okay to release them. Beyond that, I want to create more apparel. By translating what exists online into physical form, I want to actually expand that internet-like image.

Also, regarding DJing and events, I'd like to try doing them overseas if the opportunity arises. For example, I'm curious how the dance floor would react if I played Martine tracks abroad.

Tsuchiya: Speaking of CDs, you previously released a compilation called " MP3 Killed The CD star? " right? The packaged item was actually a CD-R, and I was blown away by the concept: you download the tracks from the internet and burn them onto a CD-R yourself to complete it.

tomad: Ultimately, we couldn't get it into CD stores because of distribution issues with just the CD-R. So we ended up including a megamix CD of the tracks for sale. The idea was that you'd download each individual track using the enclosed code and burn it onto your own CD-R.

Tsuchiya: So you really didn't want to do things the straightforward way?

tomad: If we just released a regular CD, it wouldn't be any different from a standard label (laughs).

Tsuchiya: You mentioned you might release CDs in the future. Is there a specific idea behind that?

tomad: That's purely because I want to sell CDs as a fashion statement. For example, doing limited editions or things like that. So, releasing tracks for free while also selling CDs. If we only release online, it gets lost in the flood of information. By releasing on CD or vinyl, it leaves a tangible memory of the release. So, it's totally fine if people never listen to it or don't even import the audio to their PC.

Tsuchiya: Recently, this group Delaware released a project where they melted vinyl records with heat to create sculptures. They attached USB drives containing the same audio as the records, so the records themselves become decorative objects. That really resonated with me personally. It feels like there's this growing desire lately to physically possess sound, and I wonder if it's a backlash against the shift to digital data.

tomad: Record production numbers seem to be rising in the UK and US. I think there's this sense of buying them as fashion or interior decor, like "I don't have a turntable, but I'll buy one as a keepsake." But if people find value in that and are willing to pay for it, I think that's perfectly fine.

 

Connecting the City and the Internet

Tsuchiya: Could there be a move towards creating hardware with Martine?

tomad: We are gradually considering it... For example, combining iBeacon (※2) with Martine to create a music app-like thing could be interesting.

Tsuchiya: Like, you can only download it if you're physically there.

tomad: Exactly. iBeacon bridges the real and online worlds. Say you release a new song. Place an iBeacon somewhere in Shibuya, and people walking by would get a notification on their app to download it. If word spreads, people start gathering at that unremarkable spot with the iBeacon. I think that kind of thing is possible.

Tsuchiya: That kind of approach is called O2O in the advertising industry, and it's an area where various trials are happening. But when someone like tomad thinks about slightly misguided uses—or uses outside the advertising context—it seems like interesting things could happen.

tomad: Exactly, I think you can use it in unexpected ways. Scattering them around the city could be really interesting.

Tsuchiya: Not clubs, but the streets—the city itself is interesting.

tomad: I think it would be interesting if we could connect the city with the internet.

Tsuchiya: We talked about this in the very first installment of this series, when we interviewed Mr. Kurita from CBCNET. In the opening of the internet culture feature in the magazine "MASSAGE" ( http://www.themassage.jp/ ), there's a line that says, "The internet has become our street." I found that discussion about the connection between the street and the internet very thought-provoking.

It's fascinating how it started with music, then took on an image, became fashion, gained more and more physicality, and then moved toward places and cities.

 

Music itself is becoming free

Tsuchiya: What do you think the internet will become from here?

tomad: To put it simply, I think it will "gather together." Gathering together, I wonder if it could form a country. There's a plan, backed by the PayPal founder, to create an artificial island for IT ventures. If that were later recognized as a country, that would be amazing. I think there's an inevitable flow, through the internet, where people ultimately want to gather in the same place. Just like an event.

Tsuchiya: I see. So, using current internet technology, you could create an urban plan, and that place might become an internet paradise.

tomad: Yeah. But if an internet paradise actually came into being, I feel like it wouldn't be an internet paradise anymore. What do you think?

Tsuchiya: It might become something different the moment it's created. You crave it, but the instant you get it, it's already something else. It's tricky, huh? (laughs) What about music? Right now, there's definitely the problem that CDs just aren't selling.

tomad: CDs might become like fashion, acquiring a different kind of value. Music is definitely moving toward streaming, right? Platforms like SoundCloud, where listening and sharing for free becomes the norm.

Tsuchiya: Subscription music services have been growing lately, and I tried a few. At first, I thought, "Wow! They have this song too!" and enjoyed it for a while, but I stopped listening pretty quickly. If I'm just listening to music as naturally as breathing, SoundCloud or YouTube is way easier. Plus, the SoundCloud mobile app is incredibly well-made, right?

tomad: Yeah, totally. That thing is amazing.

Tsuchiya: So I've gotten to the point where I don't even need to put songs on iTunes anymore—just having the SoundCloud app is enough. Plus, if you follow your favorite artists or genre groups, an overwhelming amount of music from all over the world just keeps pouring in... It really makes you realize music is becoming free.

tomad: So the question is how to monetize that, right? How do you recoup after giving it all away for free?

Tsuchiya: Is that where live shows and events come in?

tomad: Or merchandise. I think there are tons of other methods that haven't even emerged yet.

Tsuchiya: It'd be great if we could offer that through Multine too. Actually, I really feel like something like that is about to emerge.

One thing I heard today that I found really interesting was the idea of "fantasy dance music." People love club music but can't go to clubs, so they figure out ways to make it themselves. Because fantasy and misunderstanding get involved, it creates something stylistically similar yet slightly different, and eventually that gets positioned as something new within the club music context...

 Like with iBeacon, I personally believe that when technology finds unexpected uses beyond its original purpose, that's when truly novel things emerge through mutation. I heard so many fascinating stories today. Thank you very much.

Location: Maltine Records Dogenzaka Office

(※1) JUKE / FOOTWORK: A music genre that spread from Chicago's ghettos. Characterized by high speed and heavy bass, it emerged simultaneously with FOOTWORK, a dance style involving intense footwork.

(※2) iBeacon: A technology that uses smart device users' location data to push coupons. It utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and is standard on iOS 7.