Discussions: Iu Takahashi

Yokohama-based iu takahashi is a sound artist and composer who incorporates vocals and field recordings in her work. Her sixth release is Sense / Margin, out now on laaps. She and I traded emails earlier this month.

When did you start singing?

I was about 18 years old, so I think it has been 16 years. I used to be a vocalist in bands and a singer-songwriter. I started making ambient music and Kankyo Ongaku [environmental music] around 2018, so that was six years ago now.

What caused you to change course?

When I was active as a singer-songwriter, I preferred to write songs with few notes or with only two chords, and with a plain melody line. The more songs I wrote, the more I agonized over what kind of music I wanted to make. At that time, I had the opportunity to get to know people who created ambient music. The owner of the live music club where I often performed introduced me to some ambient works that he thought I might like. As I listened to ambient music, I thought, this is the music I want to make! I decided to stop my previous activities as a singer, bought all the equipment from scratch, and started making the music I am making now.

Does ambient music give you a greater sense of compositional freedom? I’ve never thought about it in those terms before.

Yes, I am happy to have found music that allows me to compose music based on my own feelings and sensibilities. My recently released album Sense / Margin was created to remember and cherish my senses of comfort, imagination and beauty that I felt in my daily life. However, I have noticed that even though I want to value my senses, they become less vivid when I don’t have enough time or when I am in a hurry to get through my days.

If there is no margin in my mind, I cannot expand my sensibilities. On the other hand, when I feel comforted by the sound of rain, or when I think of how beautiful the sunlight is reflecting on the walls of my room, I feel like I have a space in my heart. I think that this is similar to creating and listening to ambient music for me.

It takes real effort to create that time and space in our lives. How do you deal with distractions?

Well, in my case, I often do things with my head down, such as looking at my phone or creating music on my laptop. The same goes for train travel. I also open the windows and listen carefully during rain and thunder.

It used to be that when I went for a walk around town, the sound of cars and construction was just noise and stressful. Lately I’ve started to feel that the metallic sound echoing during construction is a good sound. I enjoy discovering things in the noise.

When I don’t have room in my heart, my perspective becomes really narrow. I become preoccupied with myself, so I try to focus on the outside world as much as possible. If I still get distracted, I spend time away from my daily routine by climbing mountains or going camping. I struggle with sound that I cannot concentrate on. For example, I make music at home and my previous place was along the road. The sound of cars made it difficult and stressful for me to concentrate. Noise is perceived differently by different people. For me, noise is any sound that disturbs my concentration.

I was influenced by reading two books on noise: Oto sagashi no hon Little Sound Education [The Sound Search Book Little Sound Education] by R. Murray Schafer and Tadahiko Imada, and Machi no naka de mitsuketa oto [The Sound Found in the City] by Hiroshi Yoshimura. 

Machi no naka de mitsuketa oto was written for children and includes this excerpt: “The world today is always very noisy. Some sounds hurt our ears very much. … What sounds do you think are hurting your ears?” Other questions: “What sound do you think is beautiful?” and “What was the first sound you heard when you woke up in the morning?” These questions greatly influenced my thinking about sound.

I try to look at the outside world as much as possible. Take a walk, reread a favorite book, watch a favorite movie. I do things that stir my senses by experiencing great works of art I love. On the other hand, when I don’t have the energy to do anything, I make a day of doing nothing. I put aside the things I have to do, like email and production, and just lay down with the windows open and close my eyes. I think it’s okay to have days like that.