home • discography • equipment • press • links • other
Here is a brief but interesting email interview I got to do with Ventla from Japan. He is an eccentric audiophile/Magazine collecting musical prodigy.
When do you think you will finish your 100 albums?
Not sure... It basically all depends on my shuuchuuryoku* (concentration) towards recording. I think I’d like to release a new album every two weeks if possible though. Ventla is not a "melody first" nor "lyrics first" but "sleeve-artwork first" project and nearly 50 of 100 are already completed.
What is your favorite instrument?
60s cult German musical instrument called Guitaret. I believe I’m the one of the very few people who own/play it in Japan. You can hear its sound on "guitaret 01" "sandalwood" "wild dagga" and so on.
I also love my Suzuki Omnichord and 60s spring reverb called Fisher Spacexpander.
Do you feel like you have a strong relationship with your instruments?
Yes. One of the most important/inspirational things for me is to get and play some fresh (sometimes unusual) musical instruments. It gives me an incentive to make new songs.
I got Polish 26-stringed lyre harp and have been self-learning it lately.
And above all I can't make music without 8-track cassette recorders.
What is your fondest memory of childhood?
Playing with my girlfriend Miyuki : We played one-on-one volleyball on the pavement and then we would go to her house and enjoy playing the Tama and Friends board game in the kotatsu room. She soon got bored with it and started hiding/appearing under kotatsu blanket (like Whac-A-Mole) playfully.
Sadly soon after that she transferred to Yokohama. This is my memory like Built to Spill's song Twin Falls.
Have you ever made a song in your dreams?
Sometimes I compose some epoch-melodies while sleeping and after i wake up I record it on MTR (like la, la, la…) in a hurry before I forget it but sometime later, when I listen again to it calmly, I always notice it's not completely epoch but kind of a mediocre one.
I've never used dream-inspired melody/lyrics for my music. I think there exists some very dream-poppy elements on ventla's sound though.
Listening to your music and looking at your last.fm, it seems like you have a wide array of influences. What are some of your all time influences and what are some of your current influences?
All time influences:
# Early They Might Be Giants (Two-Johns era, from Pink album to Apollo 18)
# Penguin Cafe Orchestra
# Tot Taylor
# Andre Popp
# Chris Knox
# Sonic Boom
# whole kayokyoku/new music/proto-jpop thingy
# so-called world/roots stuff. no matter what country it came from
# 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s
# marsupials
# amphibians
# aquatic insects
# hallucinogens
Current influences:
# Buono!
# コピンク
# Last.fm
# eBay
# MediaFire
# mineral
# confectionery ingredients
# naturalized plants
You mention how the artwork is a definite priority for your albums. How do you find an image? You seem to choose very retro and interesting pieces of pop culture and Japanese culture for you artwork. What does it mean to you?
I've been collecting various 50s-90s magazines since I was a kid and am using the phisical/photoshopped collages of them for the artwork. According to the each artwork I decide the direction/atomosphere of sound.
I always dare to lay down some kind of "themes/restrictions/prohibited rules" before start recordings. They stimulate creativity and imagination a lot.
What is your family name? How did music become a part of your life?
Suzuki, one of the most common surnames in Japan.
Music has been close to me since my mother is a classical percussionist. She mainly plays Marimba and Vibraphone. I myself, don’t have any academic knowledge or technical skill and am not able to play any musical instruments well though.
When I was a child, If anything, I was interested in sound itself more than music.
I have sound--->color/geometrical-shape synesthesia and idiopathic auditory sense erethism (sorry I don’t know how to say those in English). I suppose they’ve influenced my music a lot, not sure though.
What does it mean to you to have the dream of completing 100 albums? Not just albums but albums of quality music?
I simply thought it would be fun. There's already a lot of plans in my head. I love prolific/sketchbook/variety/condensed miniature/too much/jumble thingy. "100" is another one of the "themes" I mentioned above.
If you had to go to Aogashima (maybe one of Japan's loneliest places) with only one instrument, which would you choose?
