Part 2
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
I worked very closely with the Japanese National Living Treasure, Kabuki actor Bando Tamasaburo. He once said that, as an artist, two versions of him are always fighting internally.
The technician needs to make sure the form, rhythm, marks, and execution are flawless. The artist in him wants to express freely with raw, unadulterated emotion. He articulated this with two hands gripping an imaginary rod, wrestling for control over each other. Too technical and the performance is emotionally flat; too emotional and the performance becomes masturbation. I feel like this is how I would describe being in a creative state.
As for the spiritual aspect, being in the creative space is more about how my breath interacts with the bamboo, how my muscles engage with the wood and skin of my drums, and how these instruments play a large part in how I engage with my ancestors.
Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you/re satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?
In this case, having a hands-on producer really changed my evaluation process.
Often I bring a piece to an ensemble, and because of limited resources and other factors, the piece is what it is at that point. In this case, we were able to work on
How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
All the music was created during a very intense year of my life, and I feel the album reflects the extreme highs and lows of that year, often within a single composition. The pieces are all over the place stylistically, reflecting who I am as a musician, but I feel they complement each other to tell the fuller story.
The first song starts slow, sparse, and meditative, and gradually blooms into a lush soundscape. The second song on the album is almost pop-like, with an upbeat synth bass line and bouncy, angular melody.
I wrote that tune in one sitting, the day after visiting my mom, who had an increasingly severe case of dementia. There's a strange tension in the music, despite its surface-level joy, and many people have said that without knowing the backstory, they sensed a subtle melancholy when listening.
William, as producer, was very good at looking at the bigger picture of the album while I pulled in all sorts of pieces throughout the process. He rejected a good number of compositions that I felt were strong candidates for this album, arguing either that they were too similar to others or too far out of the realm of the others and that we should “save them for the next one”
What’s your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally?
Because of my training, first in Western Classical Music, then jazz, and then playing traditional Japanese instruments, where all musicians take a huge sense of pride in their sound and tone, I tended to approach producing as trying to most faithfully support acoustic instruments in my music.
This time around, I wanted to fully embrace electronics and sound design, and asked William, executive producer Shahzad Ismaily, and recording engineer Michael Hammond to bring all of their expertise and artistry to the table.
I also saw how so much of what they do can be applied to recording acoustic instruments.
What is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?
The composition is the speech, and the arrangement is the delivery.
For my music, improvisation is another element that needs to be balanced with composition and arrangement.
Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for The Arch and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?
I worked closely with the designer Ximena Bedoya on the artwork, sending her an image of the St. Louis Arch from the mid 1960s before it was completed. She played with the image and sent back a few design ideas with the arch surrounded by evocative colorful patterns.
It wasn’t until we were midway through the process that she revealed the patterns were made up of Japanese woodblock prints of fireworks from the Edo period. I had no idea!
Ximena had no way of knowing my parents used to take me to see fireworks down on the banks of the Mississippi River on the 4th of July to see the fireworks exploding all around the arch, and that fireworks in Japan are closely tied to all the festivals that were such a huge part of my life while living there for ten years.
The album cover is one of my favorite pieces of art now!
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
I finished tracking the album at the end of 2025 and finished mixing in January. From there, I’ve waited nine months for the release date. I’ve been very busy with different projects, tours, concerts, and family life …
I have been listening to the album for various reasons- planning live performances of the music, creating a music video, etc so it’s still living deep within my heart, but the album itself already feels like a document from a long time ago.
Ultimately, the album is about me turning fifty while saying goodbye to my beloved mother, and that’s all in the past already.
I would love to know a little about the feedback you’ve received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”
This is more about my career as a whole than this particular album, but I have a complicated relationship with how I present the my work in terms of culture and heritage.
While I don’t play traditional Japanese music, I leave that up to bearers of tradition, almost everything I do is somehow drawing from Japanese performing arts and culture. On the other hand, I have long since distanced myself from the more performative, superficial and tokenistic aspects of performance that so many people have embraced without having an understanding of the significance of what they are doing.
Perhaps I’ve taken it a bit too far with the result being people begin to disassociate my music with Japanese music more broadly. Recently, I read a review of a performance of mine where the writer said that at one point I played a bass-drum solo. I was shocked that he didn’t realize I was playing a centuries-old style of drumming and thought instead I was revolutionizing the way a bass drum could be played.
Perhaps I’m reading into things too deeply but I do want to honor all my teachers and the instrument makers in Japan that I have a special relationship with.
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing 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?
I was chatting with someone in their early twenties recently who, without any background, training or understanding of what it takes, told friends and family she wants to be “an artist.” When I asked about her art, she spoke about how she occasionally draws pictures, dyes her hair, and builds elaborate worlds in Minecraft.
I was trying to explain that yes, while anyone who does anything creative is literally “an artist,” when an adult publicly announces that they are “AN ARTIST,” it doesn’t simply mean they are a free and expressive person, but there needs to be a sense of responsibility for the art they're making. That they have a responsibility to the creative process, to the instruments, to the body …
There needs to be a devotion to the work, a subservience to the act of creation.
