[Riyu's Paper] vol.11
RIYU KONAKA INTERVIEW (1) :
about album 'Mommy is President'
"what kind of society is the fairest society?"

interview by Good Humor

Good Humor: Happy New Year's. I hope everybody in the world is enjoying their cool holidays. Speaking of cool, have you listened to Riyu's live album 'Mommy is President'? It was released from Zipangu Records in 2010, but we're promoting it on a long term. If you haven't checked it out yet, I hope you'll drop by at Amazon at the link below for a listen to the CD. The album is a live session performed by Riyu on vocals, with a contemporary classical music pianist, recorded at a Jazz club in Tokyo. Themusic of the 12 songs was written by Riyu, except for a cover track of the classical song 'Song of Nenna' (written by Fumio Yasuda); lyrics written by Riyu, with assistance from the master of poetry & lyrics, Bun Onoe.The album cover (shown on our web), is designed in pink and gold in a book-style form. Inside, you find the music disc on the right side, and a booklet of lyrics on the left. On the back, you see the song titles. Right now, I am sittting inside a small tea salon, beside the Todaiji Temple in Nara. Riyu is sitting across the table from me, sipping on a cup of tea. Today, she is wearing a pink & orange blouse and a half-jacket from her favorite designer, Marni. Now, I'd like to start asking questions about the new sound on her disc as well as views and thoughts on making this album!

Good Humor: Hi, Riyu. So how're you feeling today? Feeling okay?
Riyu: Yes. I feel great to be here in this ancient atmosphere.
GH: Silent. These houses were built around the year 5 c. so that's approximately 1500 years ago.
R: Every time I come to Nara, I always feel as if time has stopped. It's probably because this city is protecting the ancient capital of our country, and also trying to revive the ancient into the present. You always hear about all sorts of things coming out from the layers underneath, and there are so many tombs of ancient kings in this area.
GH: You're from Nara. How many years did you spend time in this area? You were in the U.S. when you were a child, right?
R: Right.
GH: That's ...
R: New York City in the Bronx, and before that, Chicago, in Evanston.
GH: Right. Well, there must have been some kind of gap between the atmosphere in a city like New York, and then coming to this ancient city of Nara.
R: Yes, like I told you, I felt as if time had stopped.
GH: Is time one of your favorite interests?
R: Isn't it to everyone?
GH: Well yes, of course. But if we start thinking about things of that sort, we'll end up just thinking about that, for the rest of our lives, and...
R: What.
GH: You will never get an answer. You're just going to sit there, thinking why you're here, and then one day, you realize that you've become as old as hell, and notice you haven't done anything in your life except thinking why you're here and who you are, and why you're going away.
R: But what else is there to think about. You come here, you thinnk, why? You see yourself, you think, who is this? I think we're all here to think about that. Us.
GH: When did you start thinking about making this album?
R: Right after my last album at Polystar Records came out. So it was in the Summer of the year 2000, I think. I wanted to make something different froom the same "America, America, please come back to me" blues, and looking into my past. I wanted to do something different on just one album.
GH: Right.
R: It was supposed to be only two years or so, but since it took so long to be officially released, it appears to look like I've been doing it for a really long time.
GH: Wasn't an album planned to be released from Midi Records?
R: Yes. I received a budget from the president to make an album in 2004. But there was this mean director there, and he told the president not to release my album. He was a full-time director at this company, but was a lso releasing CDs as an artist, and he keeps making me listen to his CD during lunch and dinner saying, "I'm really not a director. I'm an artist. I'm only doing this for money." When I arrive at the studio, he's always squatting down in the kitchen chatting on the phone with a friend who constantly calls him during recording. When I finish singing and come out of the recording booth, he is reading magazines, instead of judging my vocal tracks. Other times, he would get out his flute from his case, and suddenly start playing it, walking around the studio, looking at me. He wanted me to use his flute on one the track's overdubs.
GH: What does this director have to do with you not being able to release your record?
R: I had to go to his home studio a lot because he was miximg my CD. But since he sin't a professional engineer, the tracks sounded like icecubes. The sound was hard as ice, and everytime I listened to the songs, I thought we were making an insect. But he didn't want to change the mixes, and he said he will report this to the president. A few weeks later, the president told me that he will have to fire him, or cut me down, and he said that he cannot fire his director, and that's how my record release disappeared.
GH: That's a terrible story. Didn't anyone help you?
R: Unfortunately, no. I've really experienced a lot of things these past ten years. I grew up in a protected environment, but these ten years of life experience really changed me, and I really learned a lot.
GH: Let's talk about your album, then.
R: Okay. It's a live album which was edited from the two live performances I did with a pianist at a jazz club in Tokyo. It was the first time I had played in a session with a classical music pianist, so it was a new experience for me. We did a rehearsal a couple of days before the actual show. Our concept for this album was, to be neutral, and to stand individually to each other. Sessions with musicians are very precious moments for me. Normally, you use Japanese or English as a means of communiatng. But sessions are a quick, deep, interesting way to communicate with someone. It's a beautiful and progressive means of communication. So even if you have a really quick session, you find out that you've learned a lot of things in a really short time. And that might be the difference between reading and listening. I am very shy, but since I am a vocal performer, I am always working with people, and I like playing music with all different kids of people with different kinds of ideas and thinking and originalities. So I think being a musician is also exploring people.

(continued to next issue)



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goodhumor@samba.ocn.ne.jp