Expanding within sound, how nothing completely stops moving
In June of 2021, Keiko Higuchi and Louis Inage sat down to discuss the creation of her new album Vertical Language , the idiosyncrasies of Higuchi's artistic practice and the intersection between tub boats, Noh theater and the Black Lodge.
K: I was wondering what you thought of the work we did for our new album (“Vertical Language”), and your general take on my approach to music…
L: For me, touring together was huge. [1] I knew a few things about you before we played together, but I think listening to your “Love Hotel” CD was the first real exposure I had to your music. I thought it was great.
L: It felt like music made from a rootless perspective. A rootless music that came from outside Japan, almost like the blues. It was really something.
K: I was thinking about Noh recently [2] and was reminded of what you’d said, about how you’d described me as rootless.
L: Yeah, I think it’s an accurate description. That was my first impression of “Love Hotel.” You know how big jazz fans, people who actually play it, express themselves through their renditions of standards or what not? I didn’t get that kind of feeling from your album at all.
K: Right, ‘cause it’s not jazz.
L: I know you like jazz, too, but what you do is totally different from the typical jazz musician playing a solo, or improvising or trying to introduce some kind of musical change, like, who cares about that, right? Like they’re saying, “Here’s where I’m coming from.” Don’t you feel like there are a lot of people like that?
K: I don’t know…
L: Well, I’m not sure, but when I first heard your music I felt like it had nothing to do with any of that. It felt like an isolated music, with obscure roots. Something truly original, where “Keiko Higuchi” is the only image that rises to the surface. And many of your tunes were covers! So I felt like I hadn’t heard anything quite like that before. And on top of that, you improvise. I don’t think your music can be discussed in typical critic-speak, you know, referencing genres like bop or free music or whatever.
K: Well, my stuff has changed. Or, I should say, I’ve changed it.
L: And then there’s your sense of rhythm and speed. It’s different from a typical interpretation. It’s not quite jazz, either.
K: Well, “Love Hotel” especially…
L: It was very unique. And it still is, even today. I don’t want to make a misleading statement here, but it’s [reminiscent of] Mike Bloomfield’s guitar work back in the days of great racial discrimination in America. His guitar style had a real sense of non-belonging, born of a very particular environment. When I first heard your stuff, I thought it was so interesting and unique, totally unlike anything I’d heard before. And I hadn’t seen any of your improvised performances at that point, either. It really left an impression. And then we played a few times together, right? I could be wrong, but I felt like your solo song-based work contained the true essence of experiencing your music.
K: I felt like improvising let me work my way back to singing songs again.
L: I heard your song-based material first, and I was really taken with it. I’ve never asked you to improvise with me, right? I’m just not that interested in it. I’m not an improviser, and I’m not that interested in collaborating with you in your improviser mode, only ‘cause I was so taken with the other work you do.
K: Very interesting. Incidentally, is working with me different from the other work you usually do?
L: It’s completely different!
K: Interesting! Well, that’s not something I could have known.
L: The first thing you taught me was really important, and I still remember it vividly. You taught me how to use the body and the breath.
K: That’s right!
L: That sense of expansion, of concentrating all the way down to the tips of your toes. How to feel “ma” [Japanese word] or “negative space”, and feel connected to your limbs. To feel things like your breath and your pulse, not “the rhythm.”
K: That’s always where I go…
L: Right, ‘cause that’s where it comes from. Take a song with words, for example. The words are just an extension of the whole concept of the song. The lyrics are one particular outward flow.
K: That’s why I called the album “Vertical Language.” At first, I thought people might misunderstand the title. But I really feel like contemporary music flows in a horizontal way, like a waveform. I feel like my perception of music is somehow different from this contemporary approach. And when the music flows like this [waves her hands from right to left in the shape of a waveform], it’s not that I always let things fall vertically, but more that I react with a kind of “zukin, zukin”[3], depending on the moment…
L: I know what you mean. I think the concept of verticality is crucial. It expands space and slices it vertically at the same time.
K: Yeah. I’d really like to do something more multi-dimensional next, like with a diagonal or forward-facing slant. That’s how I landed on Noh [4].
L: Those sorts of interests lead many to Noh.
K: Perhaps. And in terms of not having any roots…I’m not interested in ghosts, but sometimes you meet spirits from the past suddenly, you know?
L: Yeah. So time’s been vertically extended. And if we imagine cutting through time like slicing a cake, we might find vertical chords or a vertical system [of sounds]. With a piano, that could be a chord or a cluster of sounds.
K: Exactly. So if I make a sound like this [makes ringing chord sound], it’s about what expands within that sound. I feel like everything’s become so clean, and music’s no exception. But I’m looking for the noisy remnants. Not just noise as in “noise music,” but things that get in the way, or that are typically considered unnecessary or unwanted. I tend to find those things the most precious. You saw the video I made recently, right? [5] For the most part, I kept that video completely “untouched.” I didn’t fix any sounds or anything else in the mix. From my perspective, many of the images were “in the way” or unwanted. But I felt it was important to leave it all in, and I feel the same way about music.
L: Yeah, and in that sense, I felt like that video was really “you.” I was moved by it and I totally got what you were going for. When you slowly stood up at one point I was reminded of Noh’s horizontal and vertical movements and compositions.
K: Yeah. I read somewhere that, even in Kabuki, when an actor enters the stage via the hanamichi, or the bridge running from the audience to the stage [6], the actor’s movement is really important…
L: Definitely.
K: That if you’re only viewed from one perspective, it’ll end up the same as Western theater. I felt like that explained many things for me, too. And I think I probably shouldn’t have played the upright piano so much in the video.
L: Maybe.
K: But there aren’t that many available, so I wanted to use one!
L: Right.
K: When I use my voice, I’m very much aware of the space behind me. Because the voice doesn’t just project from the front…
L: Yeah, and I think this brings us back to our earlier conversation about the solitary nature of your work, in terms of the obscurity of its roots, and its lack of a clear home base. I haven’t followed your career closely, so I don’t know if you’ve studied Butoh or done any kind of movement training. I don’t know what you’ve been influenced by. But as far as your physicality, it seems to me that you’ve developed your own thing. You might use some other other [traditions’] methods, but I think the world you create speaks to all you’ve experienced as a human, and to what you’ve been through. And in the end, I think “Love Hotel” leaves the listener with that kind of impression, that it’s a world unto itself.
K: I think, in the end, I might just be circling back to “Love Hotel.”
L: Well, I don’t know about that.
K: That project was about the human form, and about a projection of people passing through my body. So, my body was just a framework, and in a way it related to all the photos I’d taken over the years using fixed point observation. Like, “I stand here, and people continually pass me by.”
L: You told me about that concept before, but at that point I’d already heard the “Love Hotel” CD, so it didn’t quite line up with my initial impression.
K: And then there’s Noh…
L: Right.
K: And the Black Lodge. [7]
L: There’s a writer named Kenji Nakagami. He’s a construction worker. And in the middle of his physical labor, he turns into a sort of hollow log. I really like that sensation. Where your physical self turns into a sort of shell, and you feel a sensation like wind blowing right through you.
K: Yeah, yeah. Voice is like that, too. Like, without [manifesting that state], you can’t penetrate.
L: I think it’s the same for voice and piano, where your body can achieve a sort of hollow state via deep concentration. Almost like shedding skin. So I know what you mean, or at least I can relate based on my understanding of Nakagami’s work. The human form hollows out and acts as a medium. And when the wind blows, it shakes, or resonates. You mentioned resonating at one point, right?
K: Someone watched the video I made recently and afterward told me he felt like I’d “sung with my entire body.”
L: Coconut. [8]
K: Yeah.
L: Yeah, Coconut’s like that. I get it. I love Keiko Higuchi’s “Coconut.”
K: Well, I change it each time…
L: The way that husk floats, and it’s not even a fruit. Something lost has run ashore. We don’t know if there was any intention behind the action, but as a phenomenon, it resonates.
K: The body is like that, too. A long time ago I used to meditate, and it was the same thing. Nothing completely stops moving.
L: Some things do.
K: I disagree. At least as far as physical sensations go. No pain or itch remains unchanged forever. Those sensations are always changing and moving around, and I think it’s probably the same with the voice.
L: You mean the way you personally experience it?
K: Yeah, yeah. Like an instrument. Instruments change every day. Koto and shamisen, too. They’re sensitive to humidity and so on.
L: I think you’re probably just as integrated with the piano. I’ve never heard you play koto or shamisen, so…
K: I just play them for fun, as a sort of ear training.
L: But yeah, that feeling is always…well, it was hard at first. Your stuff was different from the music and rhythms I usually play. When we’re not touring together, we might go a few months or even a year without playing together. But when we tour we have to play in just a few days time, so it was helpful to get something in advance. A tour like that is probably typical for you though. Never playing the same set twice is normal for an improviser, right? It was fun for me.
K: But when I’m in a new country, I want to play their music, you know?
L: Like that Italian song in Italy!
K: Oh yeah, I remember that! But I don’t think anyone picked up on it. (They performed an Italian song titled “Amarilli.” An excerpt from that night can be found below)