Lullatone (Interview)
Today we’re listening to Lullatone, an American electronic musician based in Nagoya. He grew up in Louisville, and then moved with his future wife Yoshimi to Japan and stayed ever since. He played in post-rock bands in high school but always liked making ambient music on his own. He started putting out music as Lullatone in the mid 2000s. His latest record, Music for My Friend’s Flower Shop, came out in April. It’s a “cozy collection of botanical background sounds,” as he described it, and could attract labels like “petalcore” or “kankyō ongaku.” We’re also playing Music for Museum Gift Shops from 2019, which is over two hours of solo piano versions of tracks from across his discography. A conversation with Lullatone follows the streaming links.
Music for My Friend’s Flower Shop - Lullatone (42m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Music for Museum Gift Shops - Lullatone (135m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
What's your earliest memory of music?
When we were little my friend found an old acoustic guitar in his dad’s closet. It didn’t have any strings on it and there weren’t any stores around to go buy any. But, we found some long thin plastic rope (like what you use to string a “weed-eater” for cutting grass) and figured out how to get it to work as a single-stringed instrument. It sounded terrible, but I think it might have been my first experience ever playing an instrument in my life!
Where'd you grow up, and how'd you make your way to Japan?
I grew up in a town called Louisville in the U.S. In university I met Yoshimi (my wife now) in an intercultural communications class. When her exchange program ended and she had to move back to Japan, I came with her. Everything suddenly clicked for me when I came here. I didn’t know anything about it before the move but I was young and naive. Luckily it all worked out!
How'd you start making your own music, and what were your first recordings like?
I was in lots of post-rock and noisy indie bands in high school. But, I always loved experimenting with quieter stuff on my own at home with some old tape machines. There was a thrift store that always had old casiotones for like $3. I started collecting those and running them through guitar pedals into tapes machines like 25 years ago. Basically what I do now is still a version of the same thing : )
What artists/albums most influenced your sound?
It’s always changing but I really loved Brian Eno’s book A Year with Swollen Appendices. It showed me how much other stuff artists have to do to keep everything afloat. Now when I’m juggling a ton of projects (soundtrack stuff, concert stuff, and working on albums), I just remember that I’m still not as busy as Brian Eno was in 1995.
I also really love Hiroshi Yoshimura. He is another guy who made these really beautiful albums but also did a lot of soundtracking work on the side to keep everything going.
What's your studio setup like? What instruments/gear did you use to make Music for My Friend's Flower Shop?
Oh man… lately my studio is so full of stuff. I still have two Casio SK-1s I bought in the thrift store 25 years ago.
I use an op-1 a lot too. Lately I got a tenori-on which is this interesting grid based synth Yamaha made in the early 200s. It is one of the rare synths where the built-in sounds are super good. I use a lot of guitar pedals on keyboards too. My very favorite of all time is the Chase Bliss Blooper. It is the perfect looper for everything I want to do. For this new album I used a Korg Minilogue a ton. I switched all of the knobs on it to make it look better and after that it became so much more fun to use. I get real influenced by how instruments look. I’m always trying to curate the studio to look good to get in the right mood for making tracks.
Tell us about the flower shop to which the title of this record alludes.
TUMBLEWEED is a really interesting spot. It is run by my friend Kotaro who is also a graphic designer. The approach to flowers and presentation has a strong graphic design sense but with a total Japan reverence to flowers as living things. Lately we do concerts there a couple of time a year. I think they are probably the best smelling ambient shows on the planet right now! Nothing beats the smell of a flower shop.
How do you discover music these days? Any notable finds recently?
The best is always from friends, right? My wife Yoshimi is always letting me know about Japanese indie stuff. But, also peaking around the blogs and substacks to see what pops out. And going to record shops and getting pulled in by nice looking covers!
Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.
It is so different from what I make but I love this Pete Dello record:
What are you working on next?
The new album came out on April 25th. Following that, it’s lots of shows around Japan.
Shawn and Yoshimi are the best. Sheer joy and playfulness.
I have loved Lullatone since a travelling Japanese musician who was working as a barista turned me on to them. And Hiroshi Yoshimura! When he was working in my favourite coffee shop in London. He was playing it on the cafe sound system and it really grabbed my ears. Later I was involved in a small one off pop-up photography exhibition. I suggested playing Music for Museum Gift Shops on my tiny Bluetooth stereo speakers (it was a small room). It created the perfect ambience for the 2 hour exhibition!