09/11/08
Text: Nik Mercer
Escalator Records—Tokyo, Japan's most consistently exciting, fresh, and vital indie label—has been pumping out some of the best Nipponese sounds since the early 1990s. Now, in a bit of a transitional phase, the company's picked up Avalon, a young quartet that sublimely merges angsty electronic dance music with soothing pop hooks and funky bass lines.
We had the chance to chat with the guys about their music, life, their relationship with Escalator, and plenty of other fun stuff. Check it out below!
Tell me about how you formed. Bands of your variety seem a little rare in Japan—what made you want to make a quartet that is distinctly pop in style?
Our record label runs a record store as well so...we met there very naturally.
The four members had very similar taste in music and we just formed a band.
A quartet distinctly pop in style has a very charming composition at any age... doesn't it?
Your stuff is hard to place, stylistically. You sound sort of modern (glitchy, beat-heavy, energetic), but also totally unusual. I'm curious to know what influences you both in terms of modern music and old music.
Well if there's a need to categorize Avalon we'd say "fantasy"—and at the same time, the newest music.
Influences are mainly from those latest music tho the roots would be 1950s to 2000s pop, film, pious, and ethnic music.
And all the members are ardent record collectors so it may be a bit difficult to explain which music we were influenced by, actually!
Maybe you should come to our rooms to see our collections?
Being from Japan sets you apart and makes your experience different from Western bands'. How has being born and raised in Japan affected your music? Do you strive to be an international group or do you acknowledge yourselves as being distinctly Japanese in aesthetic?
What I can say certainly is that Japan is not at all worthy to do music, and we could never be the majority.
Though Japan is a country where we could get latest records every week and have lots of information, so it's up to you how you choose and utilize [that information].
Basically we're just doing what we think is great. That won't connect us to be conscious of being international or artistic Japanese group.
Well, we're happy if Japan would be accepted internationally, and we feel it has to.
Japan's music scene seems to have been changing rapidly over the past five or ten years. What are the differences you've noted?
It seems it's becoming better, while the basic parts haven't changed at all.
Recently in Japan, electro was the [stuff of] other countries, though it's mood was completely different—we're hoping this will make the Japanese to have good ears...
How does it feel to be a part of the Escalator family? Does it connote prestige or underground talent or anything along those lines to you or are you just happy to be signed to a label?
Escalator is really special in this country. We're just embodying the special.
I really like how you sort of reject the J-Pop sound. Are you purposefully trying to avoid being classified as a J-Pop group or has the Avalon sound come about naturally?
I haven't listened to J-Pop that much (life isn't long enough to listen to J-Pop!) so I really can't say, though I know Japanese electro and Western type bands are "J-pop" in the end. They may never buy records like us, and we're pretty much far from where they settle.
What're your future plans? Are you touring? DJ'ing? Anything exciting on the horizon?
We're hoping for a Europe tour, and to may countries all over the world.
Translation: Haruka @ Escalator
