Es VOL.12 SUPER LIGHT 迷你album“Now Printing...”Hitoshi Okamotointerview

●○○From music freak Es Vol.12

GARNET CROW guitarist
Hitoshi Okamoto launches a new project
“SUPER LIGHT” in 2010!

Okamoto made his solo debut on November 8, 2000, with the CD single “First fine day.” While continuing to work energetically as a guitarist in live performances and recording, he has also provided works for numerous artists as an arranger and composer. As a solo artist, he has released two singles and two albums to date. His broad talents are on full display: he handles every instrumental part himself, from vocals onward. His sound combines a direct, pop sensibility with an unconventional edge and distinctive vocalization, creating works that drew attention for their uniquely intense individuality as well as their comfort and accessibility.
In the memorable year 2010, when GARNET CROW celebrated its tenth anniversary, he launched a new solo project as “SUPER LIGHT.” The mini-album『Now Printing...』was released on December 8. Its seven varied tracks range from stylish rock with a strong UK flavor to melodic numbers whose sweet vocals sink poignantly into the heart, as well as a Latin-style number sung in faux Spanish. The sound-making, which showcases his music-obsessed use of effects pedals, makes this an innovative release.
We spoke with Hitoshi Okamoto, or SUPER LIGHT, about this stylish work, which we especially want listeners who say, “I do not listen to much Japanese music” to hear at least once.　（INTERVIEWED BY YUKARI MATSUBARA）

『Now Printing...』
GZCA-5232　¥2,000 (tax included)

01. Lose My Breath
02. Tonight
03. Umi Nari★
04. Dime La Verdad
05. with great force★
06. joyride (Re:ASAP)★
07. All Fall Down

Bonus: Free ringtone download of Hitoshi Okamoto's GARNET CROW cover “Mysterious Eyes 〜Reason P.〜.” Includes a QR code!

All songs written & arranged
Hitoshi Okamoto

Except for a few lyrics
→★ AZUKI Nana

SUPER LIGHT
NEW ALBUM『Now Printing...』2010.12.8 Release

●This is the long-awaited announcement of your solo work.
Hitoshi Okamoto (hereafter Okamoto): Yes. It has been six years, which is unbelievable (laughs).
●Were you working on it throughout those six years?
Okamoto: I worked on it for about six months after finishing the previous album.
●So was it already finished at that point?
Okamoto: Track 6 is a rearrangement, and as for the others, the basic versions of tracks 2, 3, 5, and 7 already existed at the time. After that came a long break, and I brought everything together over the past few months.
●What is the main thing listeners should look out for?
Okamoto: I still cannot listen to it objectively, but at a certain point in the production I thought “a sense of being all over the place” might become one of the keywords. Now that it is almost completely finished, though, I have started wondering in the opposite direction: “Did it really become an album with such a strong sense of being all over the place?”
●Rather than being all over the place, it is certainly rich in variety.
Okamoto: Oh, is that so? Then I am safe! I will use the six-year production period as an excuse and call it “relentlessly all over the place”!
●Since it took six years, if I may be greedy, I wish you had made a full album rather than a mini-album (laughs)!
Okamoto: (Bursts out laughing.) No, you are absolutely right.
●(Laughs.) But honestly, even though it is a mini-album, it is packed with songs featuring many different flavors, so I found it more than satisfying. You also wrote Japanese lyrics yourself this time, and I think the finished work brings out your own color more strongly. What do you think “Hitoshi Okamoto-ness” is in the first place?
Okamoto: That is a difficult question... I think it may be that it is hard to categorize me roughly as a musician. “A guitarist? Hmm, not only a guitarist.” “A composer? A composer? But he also writes lyrics?” Something like that. To put it negatively, I am kind of halfway between things.
●Is your stance to enjoy making music, do what you want to do, and create what you want to create?
Okamoto: Yes. I have things I am good at and things I am not good at, but I enjoy doing it. Of course there are difficult times, but I want to do everything I can greedily, so I suppose I want to show my face in all kinds of places (laughs).
●People who make music have many reasons: “I want to cheer someone up,” “I want to let out my inner feelings,” and so on. Why do you think you make songs, write lyrics, and sing?
Okamoto: It is not that I do it because there is something I desperately want to convey. But between the two reasons you mentioned, I am closer to the latter. I want to express something about myself through music...
●When you listen to Western music, you might be moved and think, “That is great” or “That is cool.” Do you create music out of the urge to make something like that yourself?
Okamoto: Yes! That is exactly it. It sounds very amateurish, but I think that is still true. I want to produce sounds that make me listen and think, “Ah, that feels good.” It is a very simple and easy-to-understand reason.
●Listening to you, it seems that you are not putting on airs, or that you are simply being yourself (laughs). I feel that you approach music from the very simple lyrics as well. The name “SUPER LIGHT” seems absolutely perfect.
You are releasing this work under the name “SUPER LIGHT,” but is that “SUPER LIGHT” feeling the unadorned you, or is it a part of you that you aspire to?
Okamoto: Hmm, I think the closest nuance is that I can become my unadorned self in a place separated from my everyday self. Even the name Hitoshi Okamoto originally had no “志”; I worked under my real name, 仁士. But before releasing my solo album, I thought there was no way my real name could appear on the spine of a CD, so I added the one character “志” and told myself, “It is a different me, so it is fine!” A similar feeling came over me again ten years later, so it was that sort of mood (laughs). I had no particular desire to do something novel.
●I see. You have written English lyrics before, but this is the first time you have written Japanese lyrics yourself, correct?
Okamoto: Yes. The reason is very simple too. On the first track, for example, I wanted to pack in so many words that breathing would be realistically impossible. I wrote the lyrics while writing the melody, recorded the vocals, and proceeded while checking them, so I felt it would be absolutely impossible unless I handled all of those things simultaneously myself. If I commissioned AZUKI to write the lyrics, it would be impossible to keep exchanging messages such as, “That part does not have enough words crammed in; please make it denser.” So I thought I had to write it myself. On the second track, the English phrase at the beginning is a rather niche lyric, and I use an effect called a talk box there. It is a device that produces what used to be called a robot voice. At first I intended to use it throughout the whole song, although in the end it was limited to the English part at the beginning. That meant there was a good chance the lyrics would be difficult to hear clearly, so I thought it would be better to take responsibility myself. If I wrote them myself, I could accept them being a little hard to hear. I wrote that one myself too. The lyrics for track 4 are made-up, pseudo-Latin, but that was simply for fun (laughs).
●You use the talk box quite a lot this time, don't you?
Okamoto: The talk box and Auto-Tune are mixed in. For example, I use Auto-Tune on track 7; the part that sounds like a modern robot voice is Auto-Tune.
●Did all those ideas come from you?
Okamoto: Yes (laughs). I do not really like my voice, so I want to change it somehow.
●Really? You do not like it?
Okamoto: I want to change it somehow. Once it is changed, I can listen to it objectively, which makes me feel much more at ease. Among the songs this time, “Umi Nari,” track 3, took an extremely long time to record the vocals because I did not process the voice at all.
●I think your voice is very appealing. What do you dislike about it? Are you embarrassed by it?
Okamoto: It is much better than it used to be, but I simply do not like it. And yes, I am simply embarrassed by it. Even now.
●I see. Earlier you said that you wrote Latin lyrics for track 4, and it is certainly a unique song full of style. What made you decide to include a Latin song?
Okamoto: I learned that the lyrics to eRa's song “ameno” are coined words in the style of Classical Latin, and that made me realize how incredible the sound of words can be. Mine is fake Spanish, though. The title alone is proper Spanish: “Dime La Verdad” (“Tell me the truth!”). I also wanted to try staging what I call “bug vocals”—making the vocal data feel as if it glitches partway through.
●As before, you also asked AZUKI Nana to write some lyrics. How did you find the lyrics this time?
Okamoto: I always sing them with genuine admiration. It feels as though they have been given life. When the temporary English lyrics become the finished Japanese lyrics, the melody suddenly gains so much strength that I feel like saying, “Thank you!”
●AZUKI Nana wrote lyrics for two new songs, tracks 3 and 5, and she also wrote “joyride” on track 6, which was originally the B-side of your first single. Why did you choose to include a rearrangement this time?
Okamoto: Even before the B-side, its original form was something like this arrangement. I wanted to shape it once as if I were making myself young again.
●I see. Finally, since you like soccer, if you compared this album to a soccer player, who would it be?
Okamoto: It feels presumptuous, but “Chilavert.” Is being unlike oneself what makes one characteristic? Of course, I am nowhere near him, but I think the direction is right.

※Chilavert: José Luis Chilavert González, commonly known as José Luis Chilavert. Former goalkeeper for Paraguay. He played in the 1998 FIFA World Cup France and the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, and retired in 2004. He possessed exceptional judgment and decision-making skills, as well as extraordinary reflexes. He also served as the team's emotional anchor and remains one of the great players remembered by many soccer fans.

■SUPER LIGHT　Tokyo and Osaka LIVE dates confirmed!
◇January 29, 2011 (Sat.)　Osaka／hills PANGENKOJO
◇February 5, 2011 (Sat.)　Tokyo／Harajuku Astro Hall
For the latest detailed information, see the OFFICIAL WEBSITE
→http://www.giza.co.jp/superlight/