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Interviews
Sigh - Mirai Kawashima (Part 1)
02/11/12 || Sokaris
If you’ve followed the daily updates at Global Domination you’ve no doubt seen my ongoing Sigh coverage. I’ve detailed basically every release I imagine you, the reader, has the patience to read. The thousands and thousands of words I’ve typed, the hours I’ve spent poring over the band’s collection of works, all of the research… it’s all been to share my single greatest artistic love; the music of Sigh. To me this band is like some kind of hidden, obscured treasure that I am ever thankful to have stumbled upon. The band’s fans might not number in the legions but I know there are others that herald the band as highly as I do. The best part about it is that it really feels like this band was just engineered for me. I couldn’t have ASKED for this band if they didn’t exist and I’d have no idea what I was missing.
Call me a fanboy if you want (though I’m completely capable of being critical of any band) but Sigh just have a way to just strike the core of me. The dizzying highs across their various releases make me recall what it felt like to first listen to music on my own, a whole world of musical possibilities being revealed to my widening eyes. I recall this feeling, not as a memory, but as a fresh experience over and over.
I hope you have a band that does that to you.
To me all of this Sigh coverage has been a celebration of that feeling, whether you think I’m out of my mind or raise a fist alongside me. It seems appropriate to tie things to a close with, not my words, but those of Sigh vocalist, keyboardist, once-bassist and forever-mastermind Mirai Kawashima.
Global
Domination: I’ve dedicated the preface of these questions to the
impossible task of trying to sum up what Sigh, as a band, means to me.
I’m curious, how would you describe Sigh’s significance to you,
personally?
Mirai Kawashima: I don’t know. Sigh is an avatar of myself, so I cannot tell what is significant about Sigh objectively. I prefer to leave it to fans to define who we are.
What was the initial intention of forming this band? Do you still consider the same goals important?
To be honest, we never had a goal or were very ambitious. We just started as a cover band. We used to play Whiplash, Death, Deathrow etc. at the very beginning and then started writing original songs. But back then, there was no Japanese extreme metal band who had an international recognition, so we never thought we’d be able to release an album or tour abroad. We just thought it’d have been great to do a 7“EP or something. I never thought Sigh would be alive such long either.
Satoshi and yourself have both been around since the very beginning. How did the two of you originally come together?
We went to the same university and belonged to the same music club. So did Shinichi.
Did either of you have any significant pre-Sigh musical projects?
No, for Satoshi, Shinichi and me, Sigh was the first serious band. We were just copying heavy / thrash metal songs for fun before that.
What
do you remember about the recording sessions for “Desolation” and
“Tragedies”? Were you satisfied at the time with the results?
“Desolation” was rather a rehearsal tape than an actual demo. We recorded a rehearsal and I added keyboard parts later on a cassette MTR if my memory serves correct. Well, I thought “Desolation” wasn’t bad at all back then. On the other hand, I didn’t like “Tragedies” at all. It was recorded with an 8-track recorder, so the equipment was better than that for “Desolation”, but I totally hated the sound. I still hate a lot about this demo. The artwork was horrible. So was the logo. (This cassette had a different logo than usual one.)
Sigh’s had a remarkably stable lineup, it seems you only add members rather than replace anyone. However your first drummer Kazuki Odeki was only involved on the “Desolation” demo. What happened with him?
He was a good drummer, but simply his musical taste was quite different from ours. He preferred more melodic stuff like Helloween, Blind Guardian etc., I liked those stuff too but I didn’t want that direction in Sigh. But at least he designed Sigh’s logo, which is still a trademark of the band.
What was the Japanese metal scene like at the time? If I did my research correctly it seems at the time you guys formed only Sabbat and Bellzlleb were playing any remotely dark metal at the time Sigh was formed.
Yes, that’s true. At that time almost everybody was enthusiastic about death metal and grindcore, and there were few people who cared about dark stuff.
Abigail came shortly after and both bands have had ties together for many years, correct?
Yes, Abigail was the only band who shared the same vision with us back then. Sabbat lived quite far from Tokyo, so it took some years to see them personally.
Describe what a typical Sigh performance in the early days was like.
It’s not far from what we’re doing today. We used fire, blood, skull etc., but it was much more in the primitive way. And we were three-piece and we never play to the back track or anything, so musically it was very primitive too. Sometimes we played only Venom covers, which upset some fans. I never understood them as I thought I’d be more than glad to see all-Venom-covers gig!
How did Wild Rags come to distribute your early material? (“Tragedies” and “Requiem for fools”)
I think Wild Rags was distributing “Desolation”, too. I sent 50 copies of “Desolation” cassette to them. Back then, Wild Rags was one of the most active underground label in the world. Well, at least they looked like that. Now everybody knows that WRR was ripping off a lot of bands, though. Anyway, when we recorded “Tragedies”, WRR offered us a cassette release with full color cover. Then after that they wanted to do a 7“EP with us, so we recorded “Requiem for fools”. As I said above, releasing a 7“EP was kind of an ultimate goal to us in the beginning, we were so glad at the offer.
The “Requiem for fools” EP is probably your darkest sounding recording, it seems appropriate it ended up making an impression on Euronymous.
Yes, I think this EP is the first decent stuff by Sigh. I really can’t stand listening to first two demos right now, but I still think this EP is quite good.
What was your reaction to landing on Deathlike Silence?
I was sending out a copy of “Requiem for Fools” to as many labels as possible, however, nobody except Deathlike Silence Productions was interested in what we were doing. Of course I was extremely happy to have got an LP offer as I had never thought such a thing could be done. But at the same time, I was a bit cautious because DSP was a very small label and had had only Merciless LP out and didn’t look very active. So we never boasted that we got an offer to anybody.
How did you initially come across Shinichi?
Sigh had been having only two members, namely Satoshi and I, for a while. One day, a guy two-years younger than me joined the music club we belonged to, and I heard a rumor that he was a huge Venom fan. It was Shinichi. So I approached him and asked him to go into the studio together to play some Venom songs first.
Did you feel any pressure while in the studio recording “Scorn defeat” or was the experience similar to the demo sessions?
I believe Shinichi was feeling some pressure. He had been in Sigh for a few months and even played several gigs, when I told him that we’d record a first album, he asked me to count him out. Probably he thought it was too much to him. I didn’t feel any pressure. It was our first kind-of professional recording, and none of us had experienced that before. So to be precise, there was no room to feel pressured. We just had to do what we had to do.
What was the general reaction to your debut album? Were you and are you still satisfied with the results?
The reaction was rather good, I think. It was pre-Internet days, so basically you saw only good reactions as there rarely were fans who bothered writing to us to tell us that they hated the album. Yes, I still like this album a lot. Definitely now we have much higher composition technique and knowledge about the recording, but even if we re-recorded the album, it’d just end up losing its magical atmosphere.
When I inducted “Scorn defeat” into our covered Class6(66) section I chose to do a quick evaluation of each of the many covers on the albums’ various editions. I know you were extremely unhappy with the original art so I’d like to see how you’d rate each cover from 1-10 and what you consider the definitive artwork for the album.
I didn’t like the first one because it was almost a rip-off of the artwork I sent to the label for a reference. They asked me to send some image of Japanese hell, so I faxed them some references. Then the artist just copied it probably with a tracing paper or something. So I told them to change it but they didn’t want any more of release delay. However, after the album was released, they heard a lot of bad reputation about the artwork, so they finally agreed to change it to the Shinichi photo one. I like that one the best. I took the photo of him at the place called Chiarai-no-ike, which means blood-washing pond. It is said that they washed down the blood on the sword in this pond after they hacked off prisoners’ head.
Upper left to upper right, 6/10 9/10 7/10
Lower left to lower right, 7/10 8/10 8/10
Your first release for Cacophonous was a split with Greek black metallers Kawir. How did this come about? Were you in touch were the scene in Greece or was this the label’s idea?
I don’t remember exactly but I think it was label’s idea. I was in touch with lots of Greek bands such as Rotting Christ, Varathron, Necromantia etc., so I might have had a contact with Kawir, but I think it was Cacophonous’ coordination.
It seems the general idea on your next full length “Infidel art” was to go bigger, more bombastic. Were there any specific influences that inspired this move?
The reason is obvious, I just bought quite an expensive synthesizer which could generate bombastic sounds, and I wanted to abuse it. Classical music is one of the biggest musical background to me, so I always wanted to create a big sound like that, but before Infidel Art, I didn’t have a gear to make it happen. I even didn’t know the synthesizer technology had been evolved to such a high level at that point.
How did you approach layering the symphonic elements? Obviously nowadays computer and audio software make things easier, but how was it done in 1995?
I just played everything myself and overdubbed them in the studio. No computer was used on that album.
How did you feel about other keyboard-heavy bands like Emperor, Enslaved, Satyricon and the like?
I really liked Emperor / Enslaved split album and Satyricon’s Shadowthrone.
Why was “Desolation” re-worked so many times? Are there any other songs you’d consider revisiting?
I don’t remember why we didn’t record that song for Desolation.
Probably I thought the song quality wasn’t good enough. But with the new
synthesizer, the song was completely re-arranged with the symphonic
elements.
I always want to re-record “Shingontachikawa” and “Shikigami” from GFT
with today’s line-up. We’ve been playing these songs live for a while,
and I’m 100% confident they’ll sound by far better with Dr.
Mikannibal’s real saxophone.
Was “Ghastly funeral theatre” ever intended to be a longer piece of music or was the plan to follow up “Infidel art” always an EP?
At first it was going to be a split CD with Abigail, however Abigail’s label back then didn’t give them a green light. That’s why, GFT is very Japanese from the artwork to song titles.
“Ghastly” was obviously very focused on Japanese occultism. How do you think Western fans used to typically hearing about Satanic and Antichristian themes reacted to a different brand of darkness?
Yes, all the songs are about Japanese occultism on that disc. But I don’t know, I never saw the review or comments on the lyrics. Musically it was quite a drastic change from that of “Infidel art”, so it seemed that so many fans didn’t know how to react to the songs, though.
Later in that year Sigh unfurled “Hail horror hail” upon the music scene. What was the initial reaction to some of the more unorthodox moments on the album? Were you ever considered with critical response of the “soundtrack” nature of the music?
I seriously thought nobody would like that album and I was looking forward to getting flooded with negative reviews. So I was completely surprised at the great reviews like Terrorizer picking up this in 1997’s top ten albums etc. Of course some fans didn’t understand or like this, but I was expecting much more people would hate this.
Did you play many shows to support the album? If so, were the songs arranged differently to facilitate a more basic lineup?
No, we didn’t play many shows. Back then we had no way to reproduce those songs live without spoiling its quality. I don’t remember exactly, but we just played only one or two shows a year, and we just played the basic parts of the songs and we chose the simpler tracks for live.
I’m also curious how the recording and mixing sessions for “Hail” went. I imagine it was a bit of a headache to get all of the various elements in place.
The biggest headache was that we had to bring every gear to the studio, from desk top computer to several heavy keyboards. Now you can record everything on your home PC and you just have to bring a small USB memory or something to the studio, but back then, we had to record everything in the studio. Synchronizing MIDI in the studio was pain in the ass too. It often got errors. It wasn’t easy at all to record and album like that before ProTools days.
I have to raise a point of contention with the general opinion on Sigh. It seems “Scenario IV: Dread dreams” is regarded as the weakest of Sigh’s albums. Personally I absolutely love it and I feel that the album contains some of your catchiest material. I’m curious what your take is.
I understand some people call this our weakest album. To be honest, we ran out of the budget during the recording, so we had to compromise a lot. Also the song quality is really bad. To edit the songs, the studio guy put them on his own cheap hard disc recorder, which obviously made the sound worse. And I doubt if Cacophonous even mastered it. At that time, the A&R guy had already left the label, and Cacophonous was almost dead.
I know in interviews promoting this album you had already written off Cacophonous Records as detrimental to the band’s growth. When exactly did they stop giving a shit?
They’re still giving a shit. They still claim that they have the right to the albums forever although they do not exist any more. They went out of business after they released Dread Dreams, and our contract was 3 albums long, so we signed to Century Media Records.
In my Sigh coverage I’ve mentioned The Crypt and their vinyl reissues many times. It seems a ton of effort and love was put into these, how do you feel about the work they’ve done?
Yes, I love all the stuff The Crypt did. They definitely respect the bands and their music. And they release what they love. Packages are great with great posters, artworks, heavy vinyls etc. We’re truly honored.
I know Cacophonous still has the rights to “Infidel art”, “Ghastly funeral theatre”, “Hail horror hail” and “Scenario IV: Dread dreams” and that the band has attempted to find a way to make these albums available again. What’s the current status in getting these albums back in print?
The situation is still the same. They claim that they hold the right to the album “forever”. So I don’t know if we can do anything about this.
Finally free of the clutches of Cacophonous Records, what was your mindset in the time between “Scenario IV: Dread dreams” and “Imaginary sonicscape”? Was the band very active onstage or engaging in songwriting for new material?
Yes, we were quite active especially in writing songs. I bought some vintage keyboards and finally I got a hard disk recorder with which I could record keyboards parts beforehand at my house. It was a complete revolution in the recordeing process. Before that, we had to do everything in a limited time and budget under a big pressure, but finally we were partly released from that.
If you could go back to the early days and tell your younger self anything, what would it be?
Nothing. I am satisfied with who I am now. If I told something to my younger self, my history could change for the worse.
