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SIGH Interview With Mirai Kawashima Story online since: 10.01.2010 / 23:37:12 .........................................................................................................................................................  In the past 20 years, Japanese metal band Sigh has consistently pushed boundaries, first gaining the attention of the legendary Euronymous and his DSP label, and then going world-wide with a blend of music that draws all genres into their black-thrash blend, utilizing the band's instrumental skill and frontman/keyboardist/vocalist Mirai Kawashima's impressive skill with synthesizers to create music that accurately reflects its diverse inspiration, from neo-romantic orchestral music to Japanese folk music. With Scenes from Hell, the band's 9th full-length release, due to be released worldwide on January 19th, 2010, Sigh pushes the boundaries even further, recruiting orchestral musicians from their diverse fanbase (including yours truly) to play live strings, brass and woodwinds on the album, mixing everything in to create symphonic metal that is overwhelming both in beauty and in brutality. Mirai was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule of mixing and mastering this potent sonic brew to answer a few questions about the album and the band's history. What has it been like working with collaborators over the course of Sigh's career? On this album you've got big names like David Tibet and Kam Lee helping out, as well as the orchestra, and in the past you've had guest solos by Gunface, Bruce Lamont and Niklas Sundin. Is it easy to communicate to them what you want out of a part, or does it require some direction to get the right take? Do your guest artists ever write their own parts, or is it all determined beforehand? Mirai: It's always easy to work with those guest musicians because we work with people who definitely understand what we're doing. For the orchestra parts, I've written all the scores, however usually we leave it to the players when we ask for the guitar solo. This time Both David Tibet and Kam Lee did a great vocal contributions. Especially David Tibet even wrote an original text for us, which was a big honor as I've been a huge fan of Current 93 for a long time. Critical reaction was quite positive to your use of your vintage keyboard collection on albums like Imaginary Sonicscape and Gallows Gallery, and the horror soundtrack project Enoch. Did you get the chance to utilize any of those instruments on the new record? Mirai: Yes, I used Minimoog, Prophet-5, Clavinet D6 and so on. But the way I used them on Scenes from Hell is not as obvious as that on Imaginary Sonicscape. I also used some ethnic instruments such as Tabla, Sitar, Jaw Harp etc. Sigh was one of many groups tied down by legal issues with the scam-record label Cacophonous, and did not own all the rights to their music. But Sigh has recently announced several re-issues from their back catalogue, including a remaster of Scorn Defeat and extra-special vinyl editions of Infidel Art and Ghastly Funeral Theatre. Does this mean the band is once again in control of all of their catalogue? Mirai: Yes, The Crypt, who is going to release Infidel Art, Ghastly Funeral Theatre and Hail Horror Hail on vinyl, went over our contract with Craphonous and proved that the contract itself was against the international law. So far, many labels tried to get the license from them and failed, but this time finally things are moving forward. You've become increasingly busy as a guest artist, doing session recording for bands like The Meads of Asphodel and The Red Chord, and participating in other bands in the past like Necrophagia and Enoch. Do you find you learn anything that you can use in Sigh's music from helping on other people's projects? Mirai: Yes, working with different musicians is very inspiring and I always learn a lot of thing by that. It's like a Jazz musician, I mean John Coltrane was a side man for Miles Davis band, and then John lead his own band too. And do you have any other side projects lined up? Sigh has been extremely busy in the last few years, but we know you compose and play music for a number of varied projects. Will you be recording any further instrumental, soundtrack-like material? Mirai: At the moment, I'm helping out the project by Jason Walton from Agalloch. It's experimental stuff in the vein of Mr. Bungle and I'm recording some keyboards and vocals. Dr. Mikannibal will record some saxophones too. Also I'm composing and recording the stuff for new Meads of Asphodel album, which is orchestral instrumental stuff, it's pretty much soundtrack-like material. And the legendary thrash / hardcore band from Boston, Post Mortem's new album has been out now. I did the vocals on it along with Seth from A.C. etc. Has the band specifically meant to switch toward lyrics that often have a distinct story, and accomplish a creepy tone through suggestive atmosphere, rather than the more detailed horror and occult lyrics like we hear on Scorn Defeat and Ghastly Funeral Theatre? Mirai: To be honest, I really do not think I'll deal with the occult theme again. I covered lots of Japanese occultism on the early albums (from Scorn Defeat to Hail Horror Hail) and there aren't many subjects untouched. Also at first, there was nobody than ourselves that deals with the Japanese stuff that directly in the lyrics or as a cover artwork, however gradually some younger bands started to appear and copy what we were doing, so we stopped that before it got something generic. On tour last year, you utilized audio backing tracks of the more complex orchestration found on Hangman's Hymn in order to play tracks from those albums live. Do you plan on playing songs from Scenes from Hell live, and if so, how do you plan to approach the complex orchestration? You've also re-arranged older tunes to fit the group's new five-person lineup - is this an approach you'll use again? Mirai: Definitely we'll use the audio backing tracks for Scenes from Hell songs live. That's the only way to reproduce those songs live. Even if we could use the real orchestra live, things wouldn't work as the balance between the instruments wouldn't be adjusted easily. You wrote in the MTV Headbanger's Blog trying to illustrate to metal fans how completely "metal" most late-romantic Classical music is, from the grim lives of the composers to the expanding details of harmony and rhythm. And the band has utilized techniques from 20th century classical music before, like collage, studio manipulation and bitonality, miles away from Mozart. Have you ever considered writing long-form compositions, either for Sigh or for conventional orchestra instruments? Or do you more enjoy blending metal and classical with Sigh songs? Mirai: I really do not think there's a point in my writing the pure classical/orchestral works because there are plenty of great music in that genre, and unfortunately I am 100% sure that I can't top the great classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Wagner, Schubert etc! Also it may sound strange but I'm not a big fan of long-form music. Well, I love lots of classical music, but still most of them are too long for my taste. It's natural because classical music was basically meant to be heard live at concert (obviously they did not have CD player or radio in their era) so the music had to be long and repetitive so that the audience can learn it by a listen or a few. Now we live in 21st century where everything moves so fast. You can listen to any song you want on you iPod as many times as possible, if you know what I mean. Would you recommend to readers your top five classical works, for any instrumentation, that creep you out? Mirai: I've been looking for the scary classical music for a long time, but actually there aren't many. Well, there are some dark or eerie ones, but they're pretty much far from scary. Anyway, I believe most of you are familiar with Requiem by Mozart and Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, so I'll give you some rather obscure ones. -Funeral Music for Strings by [Witold] Lutoslawski -Later piano works by Franz Liszt (I recommend the one by Maurizio Pollini, it contains Liszt's piano sonata along with several later obscure piano works. Pollini plays them very slowly and they almost sound like a film score to horror movies!) -Schubert - Last 3 piano sonatas (I strictly recommend the one by Valery Afanassiev. He plays everything so slowly. As a result, beautiful Schubert works sound like the funeral music.) What are your plans for Sigh after Scenes from Hell is released? A whole slew of re-releases and special editions are either out or coming soon, and the new decade will begin with the release of the new album. Have you thought that far ahead yet? Mirai: We hope to go on a tour and play at several festivals once Scenes from Hell is out in 2010, but other than that, I'm not sure what we'll do in the future. We've just finished up the new album, that means I've just used everything in me for Scenes from Hell and I'm almost empty at the moment. I need to take some time to come up with new ideas for the future releases. Sigh has been known for some of their re-interpretations, whether the Venom tunes that made up last year's "Tribute to Venom" EP, the Hawkwind cover that appeared on "Daze of the Underground" release, and a yet-unreleased John Coltrane cover. Does the band have any other plans or ambitions to pay tribute to distinct artists, whether in the metal scene or beyond, in the coming years? Mirai: We don't have any plan at the moment. But if there's some interesting offer for a compilation, we're always up for it. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. Is there anything else you'd like to say to our readers about Sigh or the new album? Thank you very much for the interview. For further information, visit our website: http://www.myspace.com/sighjapan http://www.sighjapan.com Adam Matlock |
