Glasswerk on Cornelius

• 23rd Jul 2007

Interviews are impersonal affairs. Funny things. The briefest time spent with someone. The aim is to find the sweet spot, allow the artist/artiste to open up and show you their personality. The situation is like this, you know them but they don’t know you, yet you are supposed to be knowledgeable.

Despite the pretense of a friendship and an intimate time to share these are truly, like I say, impersonal meetings between two people that will never, in my case at least, get to know each other. My work is fleeting, somewhat like a lingering one night stand. I write about you, I immerse myself fully in the piece then I move on.

Sometimes we have a short interview. Maybe twenty minutes in a dressing room, tour bus or booth by a window in a dimly lit bar, to find out everything we want to. It is more than a case of getting the answers to the questions that may give you ‘the scoop’ but more importantly than the answers to the questions, is the chance to meet the person behind the music, as VH1 says, a window to the soul and find out what the person is really like.

Not everyday does the opportunity to interview a great musician of the modern age come along. Especially one as subversive and largely unrecognized outside of Asia and the underground music community as Cornelius is. You look for Japanese musicians and even the 5,6,7,8’s are more recognized than Cornelius, the man who has recorded countless albums and is likely to go on to be the nations next Damo Suzuki. Famed for his breathtaking visual performances and abstract freedom of musical expression more than any singles or hits from his three records as a solo artist.

I am in Liverpool. The last time Cornelius was here it was to support Air at the Summer Pops 2005 and by all accounts the French duo had trouble competing with their predecessor on the night for visual spectacle, which is something to consider. Although the bands do not compete as such, they are both comparable to mere specks of shadow on the looming stage, dwarfed by their video backdrops. The kind of psychedelic experience, organically created, you wish you could purchase on the back of a stamp.

Today, in the middle of swinging day ruptured with calls from the phone company I am distracted with a call from a London hotel. This is Massa [sic], manager and sublime English speaker for Cornelius. I imagine they are holed up in South London. Due to play a show at Royal Festival Hall two nights from now, having recently played at Barcelona’s Sonar festival and with Beastie Boys in Paris, it shows the variety of culture and the circles Keigo Oyamada aka Cornelius moves in.

I quickly make a little palatial haven of my desk. Bring up a picture of Cornelius on my desktop. Arrange my papers, notes and prospective questions, sit back and sip the coffee. This isn’t too bad. I have adequately prepared myself for the frustration that lies ahead.

Telephones interviews are hard enough. Speaking through an interpreter is a barrier of protection only a foreign speaker can request. Keigo Oyamada prefers to do his interviews in Japanese. His English is good, better than my Japanese but Massa is adept in his job as translator.

Keigo is a curious creature, there is no denying that. This is the man whose music has been featured in various commercials, the strangest of these being a Japanese Tampax advertisement. I am curious about his apparent obsession with nekos (or cats) as his myspace page isn’t full of his favourite bands and peers but pictures of felines. Cornelius lieks cats, he has two cats of his own and this is as much as I am able to ascertain on the subject.

We move on to the topic of myspace, a phenomenon surprisingly late to catch on in Asia. It’s a western trend; myspace is American, Bebo is English. Until myspace reached Japan there was only Miki, a paid social network service or SNS which existed without music.

With music in is background, his father playing Hawaiian music in a band and a mother who played guitar and piano it is also a little surprising it took Keigo until his early elementary years, around eleven or twelve years old, before picking up his first instrument, this instrument being Taiko or ‘drums’. A childlike simplistic instrument, fundamentally a traditional Japanese instrument. With a wide skinned barrel beat with two beaters rather than sticks a Taiko makes a vast and higher pitched sound than their size would suggest but this is due to the high tension in the skins.

I ask about the equipment he uses currently and if there is a preference leaning toward hi-tech samplers, digital processors or traditional native Japanese instruments but it seems Cornelius is happy with anything that makes a good sound, his most recent acquisition being an Allan Holdsworth model delay effector. A well used and fitting Holdsworth quote is “Gear is important, but its purpose is to fine-tune your sound, not to make your sound. That comes from the hands.” A philosophy upheld by Cornelius and one others would do well to remember.

Keigo’s first owned record was a cartoon superhero theme tune from TV called ‘Flash’ but I am curious how punk rock influenced his attitude and music over the years as he cites such punk influences of G.I.S.M. and Napalm Death in a list of hundreds, that seems to grow with each interview. I suspect his policy is never to repeat the same influences twice in an interview. It seems that in spite of the varied sonic depths of sound Cornelius explores in his one man scuba there is no bottom to his abyss of influence.

Born at the beginning of 1969, the year man first landed on the Moon, The Beatles released their last album and the Woodstock Festival happened on a farm in New York. It was the year the 60's died in more ways than one. It seems fitting that Keigo is born at this moment on the crest of this receding wave and has gone on to become one of the leaders of the musical advance in the 21st century. Cornelius is more than a pop musician, more than a novelty. A reclusive pop star who may secretly aspire to be Prince or Michael Jackson but remains just too damn subversive and cool to slow down and wait for everyone else to catch up.

When your one ambition is to die in peace what is left for you other than to keep on living in search of peace?

Cornelius offers the below websites of his musical peers. One can only assume to make up for all his myspace friends being cats.

Very, very strange. We like it.

David Sylvian link
Hifana: link
Takagi Masakatsu: link

photos by Dennis Kleiman