Enfnts Terribles

How’s quarantine life at the moment?

Very good. I’m at home just waiting for my album to drop. It’s kind of been nice because otherwise, I would have gone on tour in a week’s time, which is pretty crazy if you think about it. Now, I’ve got six months until the tour starts so I’m chilling, preparing and posting a lot.

In what way is your debut album SAWAYAMA the continuation of your mini-album RINA and where are the differences?

I think that SAWAYAMA is in a way more experimental because there are so many genres going on. What surprised me of the EP, is that there were a lot of different genres and if you think about it now, there’s rock pop, R&B pop, very Britney pop … I wanted to do that, but after touring, I got way more confident in mixing those genres together even more. To me, it’s definitely a continuation and I also feel like I still love 2000s pop with Britney and stuff like that but my focus wasn’t there this time, I think.

You were born in Japan but moved to the UK as a child. What was the impact of those opposite cultures on SAWAYAMA?

I really looked into my own experiences and the fact that I grew up listening to Japanese music and then switched to Western music. I was in a Japanese school in London for several years, so I guess it comes from there. I feel like especially my lyrics are the intersection between Japan and the western world.

All the songs on the album sound different. How important is the diversity of sounds to you?

I just think that I wanted to try all these genres on this album. The production always reflects what the lyrics or melodies want to say and I really let my collaborators take the road that they thought the song should go in. It was always such a good result and I kind of wanted to trust them because they trusted me with my ideas.

You’re somehow looking for the borders of pop with your new sound. Do you think you’ve found the edge of pop music on your first record?

That’s a good question! I think the internet and social media really have expanded what pop music means because pop music just means popular music and has this special songwriting-structure. If I’m looking at artists like Charli, she’s twisting pop in a really cool way and I think being able to do what you like has been an inspiration for me. I took music that was literally popular when I was young and put it in a pop-writing structure.

What was really important for this record was that all the melodies were good. That’s my thing because I didn’t want it to be this self-serving ‘look I’m going experimental’ sort of thing. I was more thinking about what the lyrics and melodies wanted to say, and kind of go from there.

Speaking of Charli XCX, you’re good friends with her. Can you spill some tea about a possible collaboration?

We haven’t discussed anything recently. We actually did have a song together on her last record but it didn’t make it onto the tracklist. We’ll see maybe on her new record. Collaborations are something Charlie does really well and I can’t wait to collaborate on her record hopefully.

With my debut record, I decided to collaborate with producers instead of artists because that’s also the kind of artist I am. I don’t like doing collaborations unless the song needs it or I really like the artist or they’ve got a top 10-hit (laughs).

You’ve often talked about your love for technology. Does that come forward on the album in your opinion?

I’m not sure if that’s the case on this album. Technology and the internet were my big fascination in 2017 and I was hanging around with people who made art out of it so that’s where it came from. However, this album is more about my fascination of family and identity.

In terms of music, SAWAYAMA isn’t really about technology but besides that, I’m a total nerd. I’ve spent the whole last month updating my studio.