Thank you so much for this incredibly insightful interview! I'm a massive fan of all of Azusa's work and For Tracy Hyde are one of my favourite bands of all time. It was great to learn more about him as a person, about FTH and his future musical plans.
I don't think that the importance of FTH (and Azusa in particulars) influence on Japanese shoegaze and dreampop can be overstated. Because of him, I've found so much amazing Japanese alternative/indie music and I've become a little bit obsessed. I probably listen to more Japanese music than Western music at the moment!
I was lucky enough to bump into and chat briefly to the man himself when I visited Japan last year at a RAY concert and he was very cool.
Like yourself I was a bit of a latecomer to FTH. I'm gutted I never saw them live before they broke up.
Luckily Azusa's doing great stuff with ponderosa may bloom and AprilBlue and the other members are doing cool things as well - I really like Eureka's band Ferri-Chrome. I am visiting Japan in November and I really hope to see an AprilBlue or PMB show if the timing works out.
P.S. also love Soutaiseiriron - they were another one of my gateway bands into Japanese music (as well as Spangle Call Lilli Line). I hope they release some new music soon as its been so long since their last record!
Hey! Thank you for your comment! It's always really awesome to meet new people after publishing interviews, so I'm really happy to have reached other fans of Azusa's with this piece!
It must've been awesome to see RAY live and speak to Azusa in person! I'm planning on visiting Tokyo in August and I pray I'm able to see even just one show from AprilBlue/RAY/airattic/PMB during the time I'm there! I hope your trip in November goes amazingly!!
I'm really grateful that their last live show is still available on Youtube! Rewatching it now feels like I'm witnessing it all again for the first time, so it never fully feels like For Tracy Hyde ever left!
Also glad to meet other STSR fans! I haven't spoken about them much on my blog so far because I know it'd take a seriously big article to express everything I have to say about them! I know how particular they are about their activities so I'm willing to wait as long as it takes to hear new material from them! SCLL are another band I have really fond memories of listening to over the past few years! My favourite song by them is definitely 'Mio'!
Likewise, its great to see you providing an outlet for all this incredible music. I just noticed you have a Mass of the Fermenting Dregs interview too which is very cool - another band I love. I was lucky to see them when they played in Glasgow recently and it was incredible.
The RAY concert was awesome, it was for their album release party at Total Feedback and they played with a full live band - usually they just sing along to a backing track. My only small gripe was they didn't play any of Azusa's songs that he wrote for them which was slightly disappointing!
Now I'm very excited about your future article on STSR! There's very little written about them online as they are so private so I'm really interested to hear your take on them. SCLL are so good too, my favourite album by them is Purple but I love most of their stuff. For a band with such a huge discography they are remarkably consistent and they are pretty unique - I can't really think of any other bands that sound like them.
Anyway, thanks again. I hope you have a great trip in August and you get to catch some cool live music!
Probably one of the longest interviews I’ve ever read but I throughly enjoyed every bit of it! Been such a fan of all the work Azusa has been involved with over the years so love that your interview tackles such a wide range of stuff that he’s worked on. It was also just fascinating learning more and more about Azusa as a person throughout the interview, looking forward to revising the music he’s worked on with all this added context. Also looking forward to all the things he has planned but especially that upcoming AprilBlue album, loved everything I’ve heard from them so far so this is something I’ll be looking out for when it drops!
Thanks once again for providing such an amazing interview, keep up the amazing work!
Btw, totally with you on soutaiseiriron lol, absolutely love em!
I’m really glad you enjoyed the interview CJ!! I’m definitely a newer fan compared to many others, but I still wanted to make it an article that delved deep into the history of Azusa’s works, so I’m really happy to hear that came across!
Thank you so much for your kind words as always, I always enjoy reading your comments! I’m planning on writing more about STSR in future given how special they are to me, but the article’s definitely going to be a while because of its length!
Thank you so much for this incredibly insightful interview! I'm a massive fan of all of Azusa's work and For Tracy Hyde are one of my favourite bands of all time. It was great to learn more about him as a person, about FTH and his future musical plans.
I don't think that the importance of FTH (and Azusa in particulars) influence on Japanese shoegaze and dreampop can be overstated. Because of him, I've found so much amazing Japanese alternative/indie music and I've become a little bit obsessed. I probably listen to more Japanese music than Western music at the moment!
I was lucky enough to bump into and chat briefly to the man himself when I visited Japan last year at a RAY concert and he was very cool.
Like yourself I was a bit of a latecomer to FTH. I'm gutted I never saw them live before they broke up.
Luckily Azusa's doing great stuff with ponderosa may bloom and AprilBlue and the other members are doing cool things as well - I really like Eureka's band Ferri-Chrome. I am visiting Japan in November and I really hope to see an AprilBlue or PMB show if the timing works out.
P.S. also love Soutaiseiriron - they were another one of my gateway bands into Japanese music (as well as Spangle Call Lilli Line). I hope they release some new music soon as its been so long since their last record!
Hey! Thank you for your comment! It's always really awesome to meet new people after publishing interviews, so I'm really happy to have reached other fans of Azusa's with this piece!
It must've been awesome to see RAY live and speak to Azusa in person! I'm planning on visiting Tokyo in August and I pray I'm able to see even just one show from AprilBlue/RAY/airattic/PMB during the time I'm there! I hope your trip in November goes amazingly!!
I'm really grateful that their last live show is still available on Youtube! Rewatching it now feels like I'm witnessing it all again for the first time, so it never fully feels like For Tracy Hyde ever left!
Also glad to meet other STSR fans! I haven't spoken about them much on my blog so far because I know it'd take a seriously big article to express everything I have to say about them! I know how particular they are about their activities so I'm willing to wait as long as it takes to hear new material from them! SCLL are another band I have really fond memories of listening to over the past few years! My favourite song by them is definitely 'Mio'!
Likewise, its great to see you providing an outlet for all this incredible music. I just noticed you have a Mass of the Fermenting Dregs interview too which is very cool - another band I love. I was lucky to see them when they played in Glasgow recently and it was incredible.
The RAY concert was awesome, it was for their album release party at Total Feedback and they played with a full live band - usually they just sing along to a backing track. My only small gripe was they didn't play any of Azusa's songs that he wrote for them which was slightly disappointing!
Now I'm very excited about your future article on STSR! There's very little written about them online as they are so private so I'm really interested to hear your take on them. SCLL are so good too, my favourite album by them is Purple but I love most of their stuff. For a band with such a huge discography they are remarkably consistent and they are pretty unique - I can't really think of any other bands that sound like them.
Anyway, thanks again. I hope you have a great trip in August and you get to catch some cool live music!
Probably one of the longest interviews I’ve ever read but I throughly enjoyed every bit of it! Been such a fan of all the work Azusa has been involved with over the years so love that your interview tackles such a wide range of stuff that he’s worked on. It was also just fascinating learning more and more about Azusa as a person throughout the interview, looking forward to revising the music he’s worked on with all this added context. Also looking forward to all the things he has planned but especially that upcoming AprilBlue album, loved everything I’ve heard from them so far so this is something I’ll be looking out for when it drops!
Thanks once again for providing such an amazing interview, keep up the amazing work!
Btw, totally with you on soutaiseiriron lol, absolutely love em!
I’m really glad you enjoyed the interview CJ!! I’m definitely a newer fan compared to many others, but I still wanted to make it an article that delved deep into the history of Azusa’s works, so I’m really happy to hear that came across!
Thank you so much for your kind words as always, I always enjoy reading your comments! I’m planning on writing more about STSR in future given how special they are to me, but the article’s definitely going to be a while because of its length!