AC : Do you have an interest in religion?
KH : Not in religion, though it depends on how you define "interest."
It's something that gives me a greater understanding of myself. I've said this again and
again–I like Christ, but I hate Christianity. I see a painting like that and it gives me
various sudden insights. But it's not like I'm ever going to get involved with any
particular sect. Everything begins from the individual, doesn't it? Some individual did
something, and then people who came after needed to make a living for themselves so they
turned that individual into an organization. What I'm interested in is the individual. To
use the example that I always use, I like Thelonious Monk but I don't like jazz. I like
Syd Barrett, but that doesn't mean that I like all rock 'n' roll. That's always the way
with me.
AC : The first time I saw you play was with Fushitsusha, and what impressed me
most then was the total physical energy that you put into producing each sound. It's
especially apparent in your percussion performances. It's something that you see very
rarely when other musicians play–the sound seems to be coming just from their brains or
from their fingers, whereas with you it's very obviously the whole body. Could you say
something about the relationship between the body and the production of sound?
KH : When I first started thinking about sound, I wanted to make music that
would be totally unique to me. Not something that would fit into any genre. I wanted to
do something new, but because I'm a musician I have to use instruments, right? I would
like to make a distinction with the Dadaists though, people who make no sounds and call
it music. As far as I'm concerned that's just a concept that never gets beyond the brain,
and they aren't musicians. They may be expressing themselves, though. It's like what
Webern said about music only being born from the tree of music, that's close to what I
believe. To repeat, the Dadaists would just meaninglessly hit a typewriter, just because
it was interesting as an act, and they would call that a composition. Instead of using it
to produce a rhythm or as a musical instrument, they were just treating it as an object,
in one sense. I have no interest whatsoever in that kind of "music." I wanted to
come up with a concept that would be as original as possible. So going back again,
musicians must produce sounds–the whole problem of why and how sounds appear is something
that you can think about for yourself. And it is something that you should
think about–in one sense, ordinary musicians just produce sounds and never think about
how or why. So-called contemporary composers work at a slightly deeper level, thinking
about questions like why does music appear and why it exists. But they only think
about these concepts. I believe that it's acceptable to have a period where you think
about questions like that, but that thinking in itself isn't the same as making music.
I believe that if you're going to show something to people then you have to physically
produce actual sounds, not just concepts. So once I'd realized that, I picked up several
instruments and began to think about how you could produce sounds with them. Instruments
that already existed. You can simply hit them, pluck them, blow into them and so
on(11). One thing that I came up with
was indirect ways of making sounds–sound would not be produced immediately but it would
appear after some time had elapsed. Perhaps the easiest example I came up with was the
alpenhorn–it takes a certain amount of time for the sound to appear after you blow into
it. What I thought about was making an alpenhorn so long that it would take about three
years for the sound to emerge. But that was just another type of mental conceit, and so
totally worthless. When I thought about producing sound, what it basically came down to
was me and an instrument. So the only thing left open to me was to discover new bodily
movements and create music that way. Just around that time when I was experimenting
with my body to find these new movements, I had the chance to see some
butoh(12). Using the body has been a
main theme of mine since then. For example, when I strike something I don't just do it
straight, I break down the action or stop just before or just after the actual striking
of the object. No words exist to express or explain those types of action–all I can do is
move my body and show people. It's something that doesn't even come across in audio
recordings, you have to see it to experience it. How about this for an impossible
proposal–instead of a CD, Halana should have a free video, then people can see
what I'm talking about.
AC : As far as I'm concerned, while the actual sounds of your percussion
performances are interesting, the process leading up to the sound is even more
fascinating–the look and sound of you leaping around, the rustle of your clothes,
friction with the air, the sounds of your breathing and your hair whipping around.
You would really need to capture all those sounds as well.
KH : The process which I am conscious of when I perform is slightly different
from everyone else's. Before I make any sounds, first of all I breathe in all the air
in the performing space. Most performers feed off the audience, but I'm conscious of
entering into a relationship with the actual air in the place, even before the audience
has arrived. After breathing in all the air, when I breathe out again I want to engulf
the audience in that air. And then on top of that, I want to return the air to its
original state again. When I breathe in all that air and engulf the audience in it, it
feels like I have become god. That in itself would be blasphemy, which is why I then
return the air to its original state. That's the process that I'm always aware of. This
might sound like a joke, but it's not–it's easy to become god, but difficult to keep
that power. People often say that my sounds are loud, and that can be a negative thing.
It's not the sounds that are loud, it's me. I actually become the sounds. People often
say how opera singers should sing not from the throat but from the diaphragm, or with
their whole bodies. But that just limits the sound to yourself–what I want to do is make
the air itself vibrate. And that's why it's loud. I give my body to the air. That
makes the air vibrate–that's what I'm doing with the percussion. In the past, when I
didn't have that much power, I wasn't able to make people concentrate fully on the sounds.
Now I can do that because, in one sense, I can control the whole space. And everyone then
goes along with what I want to do. That's how I become god. But because that's
blasphemy, I always return the air again to its original state. And by doing that I
will be forgiven.
When I'm doing a percussion performance, I am very conscious of myself as one
part of the universe. In one sense, there's nothing that I'm forbidden to do. That
said, I can't do anything that's going to injure someone in the audience and so far,
luckily I've managed to avoid doing so. I'm always ultra careful when I'm doing a
percussion performance. It's usually in small venues, and if I were to slip, which is
easy to do, with one of the big cymbals and hit someone in the head with it, I'd kill
them. That's the only thing I'm thinking about. I can relive the times when I was at
kindergarten and I would be playing in the sand-pit. I can do whatever I want,
everything is permitted.
AC : Is it possible for you to do the percussion in the studio, or do you
need the energy of an actual audience?
KH : I can do it but it's very boring. Of all the things I do, the percussion
requires the closest relationship with the audience. But really, everything I do is the
same–I need some reaction, whether it's someone telling me to shut up or someone
applauding, and the music moves and changes according to that. I get a good vibration
from the people who come and see me play live now, so I can get through the performance
without any negativity. Before the performance begins and the audience are sitting there
waiting, I believe I can pick up a good vibration from them. In the past, if there were
people who weren't really interested in what I was doing, I would lose their vibration. I
would start putting out negative vibrations, I'd want them to go home. But recently, I
don't know why, there's a good vibration, and in return I feel that I have gradually
become able to make people feel good.
AC : Is the audience vibration more important for the percussion than it is
for the guitar and vocal stuff?
KH : Yeah, definitely. When there's a feeling of rejection or something
happens at a percussion performance, I can only perform within my own expectations.
There's no sense of surprise. If there isn't a good vibration then I can't enjoy the
performance. If I'm not surprised at what I'm doing then there's no way that the
audience will be either. What surprises people is seeing something that they've never
seen before. For me to feel that sense of surprise depends to a large extent on the
atmosphere–it doesn't matter whether it's good or bad, but I need some kind of an
atmosphere to react with.
AC : You are doing something totally new with the percussion, but I think a lot
of people have a tendency to look on it as somehow "primitive."
KH : People look at something they really don't understand, and they label it
"primitive." On the other hand, I think that prayers and curses ultimately
head in that direction. It's easy just to label the percussion as primitive and leave it
at that, but as I see it it's very simple. First, I use very few sounds, it's stripped
down to the essentials–the problem then is why you perceive that as
"primitive."
AC : Primitive in the sense that it's just your body and some very basic
sound producing objects. There's no electricity involved. The object could be as basic
as a rock, and you use it to produce a rhythm. But people are still immensely moved by
something that basic, that primitive.
KH : Why should people be moved only by primitive things? That sounds bogus
and condescending. That type of reaction is just the same as the trap that all those
"world music" people fall into. Japanese are especially susceptible to that line.
AC : The first two or three times I saw you play, your music had an actual
physical effect on my body. After the performance was finished I'd be unable to stand
up, I'd feel really light-headed, sometimes even slightly nauseous. It was almost like
it was taking my body a time to adjust to something totally new–as if I had been eating
nothing but burgers and drinking Coke for years and then suddenly switched to vegetables
and water. It would take my body time to readjust to the new diet, and there would be
some physical "withdrawal" symptoms, if you like. Is that kind of physical
effect on your listeners something that you are conscious of or aim for?
KH : I think it's slightly different. Because I'm trying to do something that
hasn't existed before, there are certain effects that come along with it. I think the
main problem is my consciousness. Sometimes I feel like playing percussion, or guitar,
or ethnic instruments, or singing–so I do. But I don't do it in order to produce some
specific effect on someone.
NM : Is that the same as you were saying earlier about prayers and curses?
KH : For me, everything is the same.
NM : Like you're just doing something, without any intentions. Your heart is
always calm. That's how I perceive you.
KH : In one sense, things like that happen by accident. But they do happen all
the time. On the other hand, when I go home after playing and my body is aching, I always
think, "why do I do this?" Actually I went to
shiatsu(13) this morning–it really hurts. I wonder how long I can keep on doing this. The worse the state your body is in, the more painful it is. If you press on your hand like this, there shouldn't be any resistance to your finger. But when there's something wrong, and circulation isn't correct, your body actually resists and won't let the fingers penetrate into the flesh. And because the body is resisting, shiatsu feels really painful. Because I use my body in performance it gets really tense. So I still think, "why am I doing this?" I can't explain why my music has that kind of effect on the body. If I became unable to move my hand I couldn't play guitar anymore–that's the only way I can explain it. For me, the whole body of a great singer resonates to produce the sounds. I feel that I'm very close to accomplishing this, but if I'm just slightly off in my technique then it hurts. Breathing out hurts sometimes. The idea isn't to project your voice using your whole body, but to make your body resonate. You understand? Not a massive explosion of energy, but a buildup of concentration within the body and then you sing. The problem isn't the volume or tone that you're able to produce but your consciousness.
AC : Do you need that kind of pain to verify to yourself that you're putting
your all into the music? Or is it more like if you were playing properly you wouldn't
feel any pain whatsoever?
KH : The latter is possibly true. But I don't like that kind of method. To be
more precise, I'm using a religious image again–Christ was nailed to the cross and if his
pain was his testimony, then I feel that my pain is unavoidable. To put it a better way, I'm
offering up my body as a sacrifice. In terms of the relationship between me and the
universe, in order to make myself feel better I have to offer myself up to the universe.
I started thinking this way when I was about seventeen or eighteen. I believe in the
therapeutic properties of music, this is something I've talked about before–how some music
makes you feel good, how it physically relaxes your body. Then there's all this so-called
"healing music" recently–that's just a joke. What I can't understand is how the
people who make that kind of music believe they can heal people without they themselves
experiencing any pain. Of course, from their point of view I'm just a fool–putting myself
through agony in order that my listeners can experience happiness. They think it's a
pointless waste of effort. I have thought the same thing myself, but still I wonder
how someone who hasn't experienced pain can hope to heal other people.
AC : Is this healing effect different from the idea that certain tones react
with certain parts of the brain, all those Indian ideas of modes and so on?
KH : This idea of there being certain sounds for morning or afternoon etc.,
as far as I understand it, is a Northern Indian idea. Southern Indian music doesn't
seem to have quite the same concept of ragas for morning, or ragas for evening. When I
first started listening to Indian music I thought that that concept applied to all of it.
But recently I've been listening to Indian music again and revising my initial opinion of
it. If you look at it in terms of the relationship between the self and the universe,
then the time of day doesn't matter. I think that was how Indian music must have been
originally, though I don't like that word, been. This idea of music for... for example,
say it's afternoon in India, then it's a different time in other countries, so the music
has no universality. The whole idea of morning or afternoon just acts as a limit. You can
save people who are experiencing afternoon at that time, but not those who happen to be
experiencing evening. That's why I always concentrate on the relationship between the
self and the universe–I want to show proof that time is irrelevant. If you start thinking
about time, about morning or afternoon, then you become limited by that. If you talk about
time and position then things like age also come into play–but what I talk about is if
someone's consciousness begins to long for something, then that person can exist in the
one-on-everything relationship that I mentioned earlier. Just from talking like this, we
can gradually move closer to a reply to your earlier question. There's no way I can
explain the relationship between the individual and the universe just off the bat. But
this is all stuff that I've talked about again and again. Ask me something different.
part 3