Illuha - In the Realm of Purity

If there's one act that has managed to stake its claim in the pantheon of atmospheric music in such a short space of time, it's Illuha. The result — in some ways unexpected, and still constantly evolving — of the union between the concrete organicism of Tomoyoshi Date and the rarefied pragmatism of Corey Fuller, engaged on a path toward one of the purest, most uncontaminated expressions of ambient sound art. The whispers of noise and scattered traces of life from the Japanese artist placed on the surface, the quiet, rarefied, immersive flows of the American forming the backdrop, purity raised up as the sole horizon and ultimate goal: these are the components from which the two set out on an adventure that, brief as it's been, has already managed to leave a deep mark on the universe of contemporary ambient music. First the pale watercolor shades of "Shenzou", then the canvas filled with sketches and short strokes of "Interstices", right up to the monumental sculpture of "Akari", an Apollonian work and the formal as much as substantial peak of an entire sonic generation. In Illuha, both the vast universe of Japanese electroacoustic improvisation and the organic ambient school that long ago put down roots at Taylor Deupree's 12k — the first great monument of contemporary electronic music to devote itself entirely to this, abandoning the digital age — coexist and find their fullest realization in the present day. On the occasion of the recent release of "Perpetual", another marvel in which Fuller and Date found themselves in dialogue with two of their mentors (Ryuichi Sakamoto and Deupree himself), we wanted to finally reconstruct the Illuha experience through the words of its very protagonists.

First of all, I'm curious to know how this project came about. Can you tell us something about its genesis?

Corey Fuller: Tomo (Tomoyoshi Date, ed.) and I both admired each other as artists. The first time I met him was when I invited him to play in Tokyo at a show with Opitope. I was still living in the United States at the time. We recorded some things as a trio together with Chihei Hatakeyama, and that's where we discovered how well our styles blended together. We had a great time working together and stayed in touch, exchanging material, until by pure coincidence Tomo came to Seattle. At the time I was recording "Seas Between" in the century-old church in Bellingham: I invited Tomo to visit, and over two weekends we recorded what would later become "Shizuku".

You both come from fairly similar artistic backgrounds, but in a sense divergent in language, both geographically and musically... How did you manage to find such fertile common ground that it generated a genuinely new language?

C.F.: We have a lot in common... Cross-cultural bridges, a love for music that evolves slowly and for detail, a passion for travel and good food, a youthful sense of humor. (laughs) But I think it's less our similarities than our differences that make Illuha interesting. Sonically, for instance, Tomo tends to prefer drier sounds that stay more toward the front of the mix, while I focus more on distant, rarefied elements; Tomo works a lot with textures, while I devote myself more to melody and harmony; I compose almost exclusively in minor keys, Tomo in major... I think it's precisely the tension between these differences that pushes us toward (and against) each other, and that's what makes Illuha such an interesting project for us.

And are there elements that sometimes make this "coexistence" difficult?

C.F.: As I said before, I think everything listeners find interesting about our project stems precisely from those tensions. But nothing of ours is ever born without arguments and disagreements. When we manage to really listen to each other and stay open to one another, that's when we truly start speaking the same language, and that's where our sounds converge and we actually end up with finished tracks. But while working on an album, we argue and disagree very often. There are often ideas one of us brings that we realize just don't suit Illuha, so we rework them for solo projects or other collaborations. So it's an ongoing process in which we build and evolve our language. Our best material, though, has always come when we haven't forced anything, letting ideas flow and evolve naturally, without any kind of censorship between us.

Let's start talking about your project with Taylor Deupree and Sakamoto... How did it come about?

C.F.: Ryuichi was invited as curator and artistic director of the celebratory program for YCAM's tenth anniversary (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, ed.). He then invited Taylor to play with him, and Taylor suggested us to him: it was a great honor to be able to collaborate with them.

You'd already had the chance to collaborate with both of them, though, in an open project called Between... Did you carry anything over from that experience?

C.F.: Yes, absolutely. Between was a project born during a tour of Japan in 2012 and involved several 12k artists like Marcus Fischer and Simon Scott, as well as us and Taylor. The circumstances were fairly similar, since that too was a hundred percent live improvisation. I distinctly remember a conversation before that session in Kyoto, where we talked about the need to listen to each other without adding too much... When there are five of you improvising, you either stay alert or you risk turning everything into a saturated mush of sound, like a conversation among several people where everyone's talking and nobody understands anything. "Between" remains a hugely important work for us, not just for the memories, but for how well it turned out: in the end we pulled it off, and it turned into a great session! We worked by subtraction, sometimes removing sounds rather than adding them, leaving the silence that's necessary when you improvise.

And in that sense, how did you divide up space and roles on "Perpetual"?

C.F.: On "Perpetual" Ryuichi handled the piano sections, largely prepared or filtered, but also inserting percussion instruments inside the piano itself. Taylor played various modular synthesizers, Tomo worked on various electronic loops, field recordings and noises, as well as playing the harmonium. I, finally, worked with treated guitar, pianet, and various found objects.

What about the title, though? Is there a connection between the "perpetual" and the generative evolution of the sounds in the piece?

C.F.: Quite simply, after deciding to release the recording, we went looking for a title, and "Perpetual" seemed to us to evoke the same intimacy and eternal quality of the music.

I imagine you both consider Taylor and Sakamoto to be sources of inspiration, am I right? What did it feel like working so closely with them?

C.F.: Yes, absolutely. Well, it was a great honor, especially when it comes to Ryuichi. He has enormous and wide-ranging experience, he's an extraordinary professional and a creative genius. Given who he is and his track record, it seemed inevitable that we'd feel some tension or intimidation working with him, also because both Tomo and I have long admired him, but that's not how it turned out. Mutual respect was established right away between us, and toward everything each of us brought to the others' attention, and we were all focused on the music. I think everyone's open-mindedness was the foundation of the project's success. Working with musicians of Ryuichi and Taylor's caliber is also a huge confidence boost — it shows just how much value what you're doing, and have done, has come to hold.

Do you think this collaboration might have a follow-up?

C.F.: We hope "Perpetual" was only the first act of a relationship destined to last and repeat itself, obviously. It would be wonderful to manage to create something else together, of course, but even if this remains, for now, our only work together, it still holds a beauty like that of sakura (Japanese cherry blossom, ed.), which fades in the very instant you're enjoying it.

I'm convinced that some of your works represent true peaks of contemporary ambient music, and I'm referring in particular to "Akari". What did this record mean to you?

C.F.: Our approach to making music is constantly evolving, and each session never goes in the same direction as the next or the previous one: the only fixed element is the fact that everything originates from us, gathered together improvising at the same time in the same room. With "Akari" we did work I'd call "sculptural", compared for instance to "Shizuku", which was more of a "pictorial" work. By sculptural I mean that we improvised and reworked every detail, spending hours polishing the sounds until they took on exactly the shape we were looking for and wanted. Once the shape emerged, it's the piece itself that suggests to us what and where to change. I believe it was Morton Feldman who told Stockhausen, when the latter asked him what his secret was, that he simply "didn't push the sounds around". We do the same: we spend a lot of time listening to the suggestions that sounds "hide" in the echoes and in space, which show us in which direction a piece can naturally evolve, rather than forcing sounds into something they're not... We also often devote ourselves to experimenting, though, searching for new sounds and discovering them. If we ever got to the point of predicting each other's moves, it would mean our dialogue was slipping into routine: that's why we always try to surprise each other as much as possible!

This album is, in my opinion, one of the highest points ambient sound art has ever reached. I was intrigued by the perceptual distance between the titles and the music: on one hand, quiet, apparently natural, spontaneous sounds; on the other, titles that suggest complex formal theories behind every single sound. From your point of view, "what's the truth"?

C.F.: In all honesty, the titles were nothing more than a game to start from. We often get stuck on titles and waste time on them, since it's the last thing we do before sending the masters to Taylor (Deupree, ed.). We spend so much time trying to express ourselves through music that reducing the results to linguistic expressions is somewhat trivializing to the music itself. That's how we felt by the end of "Akari" — we didn't want to reduce the music to a jumble of words. That's why we opted for those ironically clinical and scientific titles, devoid of emotion and tied instead to the physical dimension of sound, in contrast with music that is, in some ways, very emotional and romantic. We thought people might understand this "joke" and catch the irony behind such strange titles, but to be honest you're the first person to ask us anything about it, or to comment on them!

Besides Illuha, Tomoyoshi has also developed two other projects, Opitope and Melodia. Corey, you've released little under your own name, but "Seas Between" is, in my opinion, another beautiful work... Has Illuha become your main project today?

C.F.: After "Seas Between" I became more interested in collaborations, and since then I haven't felt the need to work on solo projects. I'm always busy writing music and developing ideas, but that doesn't necessarily mean I feel the need to release them. What fascinates me about collaborating is the prospect of creating something that no one could achieve alone. Something truly new, unexpected, surprising. Working alone, I often found myself a slave and victim of myself and my inner conflicts, fighting against the self-censorship of certain ideas. So in recent years Illuha has become my main project and my artistic home, and I've focused on developing it further.

Tomoyoshi Date: Like Illuha, Opitope began as an improv project, so in a sense they might be considered related experiences. "Physis" was Opitope's last work in which we used laptops, and "Interstices" was the last one in which I used them with Illuha. As for solo work, like Corey, I'd release at most a tenth of the material I've gathered and piled up over the years. That's really the main reason I devote myself more to collaborations: a solo record is something you can keep evolving as many times and for as long as you want, risking getting stuck in a vicious circle. With collaborations, on the other hand, there's a limit, and you're sure to actually reach a conclusion.

As for Melodia, Tomo, it's a project deeply different from the music you usually work on... What does it represent for you?

T.D.: While I was on tour in Europe with Federico (Durand, the other half of Melodia, ed.), the power supply of the workstation I was touring with broke, forcing me to do without the machine. We quickly realized, though, that we could easily continue the tour using acoustic instruments. We decided to record that set at an outdoor venue, and that's how the album together came about. I'm a doctor specializing in a hybrid approach that blends Eastern and Western medicine, and it was during that very tour that many of my views on the subject were changing, just as my convictions about digital and analog, electronic and acoustic, were changing too... Human technology isn't adequate or sufficient to explain the mysteries of birth, life, and sound! We can intervene in the processes, but we still need some form of "medicine".

A few days ago I was listening again to your work with those two monuments, Toshimaru Nakamura and Ken Ikeda, and I realized two years have already gone by! What do you remember of that experience?

T.D.: I remember being pretty nervous while recording and mixing that piece together with two musicians I have the deepest respect for. I think they're two of the most incredible figures in contemporary music! Now we spend more time drinking and having fun together than actually making music, but our second album is done!

All your albums have come out on 12k. Have you found a kind of home at Taylor Deupree's label?

C.F.: Taylor is amazing. He gives us total freedom, but he also has a critical ear and offers us honest opinions, on top of incredible support. I think his is one of the best labels in the world in terms of aesthetics, passion, integrity and long-term vision. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that he's a musician himself... and as a result, his label is a home for musicians in a way few others are. Look at where he started and where he's got to today! Being part of that journey, even in a small way, is something wonderful. Many of the artists who share the 12k catalogue with us today were fundamental to our own musical formation! 12k is like a family, and yes, it really does feel almost like home.

When it comes to the live dimension, how do you generally structure your sets? Do you prefer pure improvisation, as I understand, or do you also work with loops and samples from your records?

C.F.: We've tried both approaches. We both used laptops and improvised, but after a while we got bored with that detached, cold way of doing things. Around the time we finished "Shizuku", we started taking pieces from our records and reinterpreting them, deconstructing them and performing them live again. This technique turned out to be far more rewarding, both for us — since we could revisit our material from different perspectives — and for the audience, for whom the album tracks were more familiar and allowed them to connect with the performance more closely and directly. This approach let us structure our live shows better, while still leaving room for improvisation. Since then we've adopted a hybrid technique, with one constant: we've completely abandoned laptops and pre-recorded sets, preferring instead to play everything with real instruments.

Will you keep developing Illuha and your solo careers in parallel? What projects are you working on, and what should we expect from you in the near future?

C.F.: Since "Akari" I've gathered quite a few ideas that don't necessarily fit within Illuha, and there are other areas I'd like to explore that I couldn't develop within the context of a collaboration. So right now I'm working on several solo records as well as a couple of new collaborative projects. I can't wait to share these new creations with the audience!

T.D.: Last October I opened my Oriental clinic in Tokyo ("Tsuyukusa Clinic", ed.), based on the philosophy of Japanese tea. Right now I'm planning the releases for my new, eponymous label, and I'm also working on my second solo album, dedicated to my second daughter.

Header photo by Taylor Deupree

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Matteo Meda, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

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