Make Believe Mailer 11: Cuushe

An interview with the electronic artist, about her stunning new album

Image via Flau Records

The music Tokyo-based artist Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi creates under the name Cuushe has long pulled inward. On releases such as 2009’s Red Rocket Telepathy and 2013’s Butterfly Case, she let her voice drift under layers of synthesizer, beats nudging songs forward rather than accelerating. Her approach to dream pop celebrated its escapist and private utilities — Hitotsuyanagi carved out spaces one could huddle in, turning over whatever thoughts were on their mind.

Reality, though, disrupted all that. Starting from the middle of 2017, Hitotsuyanagi was stalked and harassed by another Japanese electronic artist for over a year. She detailed the incident in a Facebook post in 2018, which doubled as a spotlight on the ever-present threat of online abuse women face in modern Japan. There wasn’t instant catharsis, however.

“I had lost my confidence in making music and in myself,” Hitotsuyanagi tells me about the period following this incident. “When I got into the case, most people were supportive, but there were people who didn't want to get involved. People who acted like fake judges, saying they had to hear the perpetrator’s side to understand. I felt worthless, like I was empty.”

“But after being empowered by the #MeToo movement, studying feminism and participating in the protest called ‘flower demo,’ I gradually realized that my introspection was a strange thing. I didn’t't have to lose my self-confidence.”

WAKEN, Cuushe’s first release since 2015’s Night Lines EP, faces the world without flinching. While her dream pop past colors the edges of these eight songs, a newfound immediacy cuts through the haze. Hitotsuyanagi’s voice comes through clearly, wrestling with the injustices of society (“Not To Blame”) to finding hope, albeit with some bumps in the road (“Magic”). Throughout, she embraces dance music — especially the skittering tempo of U.K. garage — as a way to stay focused, and keep the urgency up. WAKEN finds Hitotsuyanagi re-orienting herself to face the world, and find a light to move forward. It’s one of the year’s best.

I caught up with Hitotsuyanagi over email to talk about WAKEN, and how she’s navigated through the last few years. Answers have been edited for grammatical clarity.

I wanted to start by asking about your last five years. How did you spend your time during this period? How did you work towards creating music again?

Hitotsuyanagi: I used to go overseas every year to play gigs before the incident, and I used to play in Japan as well, but the incident happened while I was on tour, so I was afraid to play live. It caused a lot of emotional damage, and I was desperate to get my life back together more than the music, more than anything else. All my clothes were stolen, so I had to deal with that — that sounds like a joke, but it’s serious — and I've been moving all over again. I'm still dragging that out, to be honest. While I was resting, I got a job to create music for the artist Yoko Kuno's videos, like Toshima City’s “Cultural City of East Asia 2019” ad movie with Nobuhiro Yamashita, which turned out to be a lot of fun and worked out well. I was very happy to know that my music was needed and I was able to start making music gradually from there.

What music were you listening to personally during this time?

MorMor, AceMo, India Jordan, Julianna Barwick…not enough time to listen these days.

When did the songs on WAKEN start taking shape?

It was all done this summer; some was based on music I made for videos, like “Spread” and Kuno's video work. I started working on the album last year and had most of the demos done by last winter.

What changed in your songwriting and recording process from your previous albums to WAKEN?

Up to WAKEN, I hadn't thought about what kind of music I was going to make when I was making it, I was just trying to make music that I thought was good and comfortable, but this time I had a strong image of the blue hour and the beat from the beginning. This was the first time I thought about it from the concept before making it. In the past, I've developed the song more, but this time I made a conscious effort to keep it short, about three minutes.

The most immediate sonic change on WAKEN for me was how club-friendly some of the songs get..."Emergence," "Not To Blame" and "Drip" draw from U.K. dance music. Why did you decide to play around with those styles?

Because of the incident, I was home a lot and hospitalized frequently, and I think the fact that I couldn't go out helped to reverse the active atmosphere. The rest of it is vague and ephemeral, which I like, of course, but now I want to be more of a person with a will, so I made music with a contour. Musically, I can take that kind of club music, like drum & bass for example, and still feel like it's my music.

For example, the song "Drip" was inspired by an IV drip when I was sick and in the hospital. The light from the night drip machine reflected off the ceiling, and since it was a big room, the light from other people's drips flickered alternately, making it look like a disco ball, and there was a dance floor even in the darkness of just one person. Dance music for me is an affirmation of that kind of single person's imagination. I'm still not sure about dance music as music myself, but there is a possibility to explore it.

What was your approach to lyrics this time out?

On the first album, I used to improvise and write mostly in Japanese, but after Butterfly Case, I started singing mainly in English, and I was prioritizing the sound over the meaning. But this time I wanted the songs to have more meaning. I wanted to make the songs more meaningful, in English and in very simple words. Just really simple words, like “I am good as I am, you are good as you are.”

That touches on something I wanted to ask about language, as the last song here, “Spread,” is done in Japanese. Why was that?

I've been struggling with the idea of including this song for a long time, but I've always included a song in Japanese at the end of my previous albums, so I put it on this one too. I can't create English songs in a vague way, partly because my English is not very good. With Japanese songs, it's easier to wrap them in an ode because I know what they mean the most, and I'm allowed to be vague. On this album, I stopped being vague and insured.

There are two songs in particular I want to talk about...and really just hear how they came together. The first is "Magic," which you have said is about a "love affair of my friend." What about that experience connected with you, and how did you turn it into this song?

A friend of mine was struggling in a relationship, and it was like the friend was being controlled by their partner, like a kind of gaslighting. So I was losing confidence in him. That person was important and treasured to me as it was, and I felt that it wasn't right for me to suffer for it. I've always had a hard time putting into words how I felt "different" about myself, or my anger, but I realized through my friend's experience that it was a necessary process. We all have things that hold us back, and in the case of my friend, it was about the relationship, but the same thing could be at work, or where we live, or conventions, and it's not just about love. In "Magic," I sing about “hope” that by raising my voice I can escape those trappings and break the situation.

The other is "Not To Blame," which has some of the most direct lyrics here ("I don't give a fuck / whatever they say" being one example!). What inspired that song?

This song was inspired by the monthly protest called Flower Demo for the eradication of sexual violence, which have been held since March 2019. The song was inspired by a series of acquittals in the courts for sexual assault since last year — when sexual assault occurs in relationships, speaking out is a surefire way to get blamed from the outside. In Japan, there have been accusations from lawyers about the protests themselves. I think that's very strange.

How did you come across Flower Demo? Do you remember what going to your first installment of it was like?

Like I mentioned, I was really pained to read the news about the acquittals of sexual assault victims in court, and I just found out online that there was such a protest, so I joined it. When we think of a protest, we might think that everyone is shouting at each other, but at that protest, everybody is there to talk to each other. It's a really quiet protest. It's heartbreaking to hear the voices of people who have actually been sexually assaulted, and it really made me think about what I can do to change an unreasonable society. And to my delight, I found out when I went to that protect that a friend of mine was one of the organizers. I was very surprised, but it was very reassuring to know that there were other people near me who thought the same way I did.

How did you learn more about feminism?

I got into feminism from the #MeToo movement. First I leaned from social media, by checking people, but mainly through books. I have read many books, all published in recent years, especially Tamaka Ogawa’s “Hotonodo Nai” Koto Ni Sarete Iru Soba Kara Mita Shakai No Hanashi Wo, and Lee Min-gyeong’s Watashitachi Ni Wa Kotoba Ga Hitsuyooda Feminist Wa Damaranai. Both of those are very nice. Recently I’ve been reading Feminism For The 99%.

You've become more outspoken about societal issues. What role do you think artists have in speaking up about societal issues, especially in Japan?

I'm still not able to use my power as an artist to approach social issues, and it's very difficult, so I feel encouraged and respectful of artists who use their power to commit to issues and speak out about the government. But I also don't have anything against artists who don't speak out. It's frustrating, but I was told by the police to refrain from speaking out on social media except for publicity, and I think the more famous an artist becomes, the more true that becomes. I posted in English at the time of the incident with the #MeToo tag in English, because I was afraid. Julia Holter was making a statement about the harassment after that incident, and that gave me courage. She went through such a difficult experience and shared it with us. I was very encouraged by that, and maybe I could be encouraged in some small ways too. I hope that will be one of my roles. It was an opportunity for me to look at reality, not only my dreams, musically speaking, but also in real life, and it's one of the things that I want to express creatively.

What's the biggest lesson you've learned from making WAKEN?

I can make music in bed even if it's all taken away from me. But I prefer to record with proper equipment if possible.

What are your plans moving forward?

A collection of WAKEN remixes is coming out next year, and I'm also collaborating with an artist friend of mine. I can't do live shows. I'm afraid. I don't think I'll do it even if COVID-19 ends. I'll be happy if I can work at my own pace.

Get WAKEN from Flau’s Bandcamp (especially on the last Bandcamp Friday!)

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)

Twitter — @mbmelodies