Name: Atsuko Hatano aka Triola
Nationality: Japanese
Occupation: String player, composer
Current release: The new Triola album Scapegoat is out via Constructive on October 20th 2023.
Recommendations: ‘Yoshiwara-Enjyo’ by Shinichi Saito; ‘Kamui-den’ by Sanpei Shirato (both are books)

If you enjoyed this Triola interview and would like to stay up to date with Atsuko Hatano and her projects, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Soundcloud, and twitter.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects, and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

Without focusing, you are often looking at a single point in the space between the speakers, in a concentrated way.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

My first concrete encounter with music was when I started learning the violin at the age of three and fell in love with Bach.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

At that time, I had no place at home or at school, and music was the only thing I could rely on.

I would stay in my room and listen to music, go to live music venues and nightclubs and dance around to punk and ska. I started playing the drums myself and being in a band was part of that.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

When I hear music that encourages me or gives me energy, I want to make music that helps others in the same way, that's my primary motivation.

Or you could say that the indecipherable power that builds up inside of you is the motivation to create music.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

Duffie believes that the experience of, and exposure to, the music and artwork of previous generations encourages him to find the source of the idea in his own life history. I also believe that I cannot discover ideas on my own.

But I define an idea as the realisation of an idea, so in that part of my life I can say I made it myself.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

How do you define your own sound? I think each piece has its own answer to that question in its finished form, so there is no need to verbalise it.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Those are experiences that can happen on a daily basis in everyday life, and even more so when they feel 'musical' and can be collected as recordings on handheld equipment.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Sounds that feel uncomfortable to some people may feel pleasant to someone else, just as sounds that are pleasant to some people may feel uncomfortable to someone else, depending on their experience. Sounds often affect people in different ways than one might imagine.

For me, listening to music with a series of minor chord progressions can be an experience like magma rising up from the bottom of my body.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?
 
The ‘Cells Music’ series is particularly dear to me, both as a work of art and as a live performance, and I am still working on a sequel. We started with the goal of a series of seven albums, and we are currently working on the third instalment.

From a very early age, I was hypersensitive to random, small aggregations of grains. This was a reaction in a positive sense, as when I saw a group of ants or barnacles, for example, I simply felt uplifted and energised.

It continued throughout my adult life, and one day I began to wonder if I could make use of this reaction in my music making, which is when I started to create 'Cells Music'. The main instruments (double bass, cello, viola, violin) are all used to form a string orchestra in a unique way.

The series so far includes the albums ‘Cells#2’ and ‘Cells#5’ (self-released on CD and reissued on cassette tape by Important Records in the USA) as well as live performances.



The performance video ‘Cloudy Cells’ was filmed at a shrine in Japan. In this film, I performed live using a five-string viola and effects.

Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I do it all the time. Scientific insights, especially numbers and familiar physical phenomena, are important material when making music, alongside my own past experiences.

For me I think making music is a fusion of literary and scientific thought processes.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

There have been many experiences of sharing life lessons from understanding music. But most of the lessons about life are probably learned from real relationships.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Making or performing music, in a nutshell, involves many processes. Sketching the original piece, jotting down words, putting together ideas, actually creating sounds, looking for harmonies, making recordings, editing … any of the acts within those many processes can apply to, for example, making a cup of coffee.

I believe that the production of music is a repetition of 'ordinary' tasks one by one, but as they build up through many layers, they give birth to 'extraordinary' music.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

One piece of music that had a huge impact on me the moment I heard it was Conlon Nancarrow's automatic piano pieces [or ‘Studies for Player Piano’].



I still have a vivid memory of the impact it had on me and the energy that welled up in my heart at that moment.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

A time when only musical concepts are bought and sold, with listeners free to construct their own compositions.