"Even Today, I'm Still Chasing Tomorrow"

An Interview with Suichu Spica

With the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine, I wish to dedicate this forward to the charities helping support those suffering under such painful occupation and oppression. Please consider donating to the UNRWA or WAQFOREVER to help the vital aid for Palestinians to continue.

---

Suichu Spica’s name feels like it’s always been familiar in my mind, as their name has always felt ubiquitous when engaging with Japanese music. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, because it’s always been clear that other people from around the world feel the same way about them and their music. Suichu Spica are synonymous with uniting people who are all drawn to their inimitable, immediately impressionable work, in a manner that reserves them a place in their very own echelon of artistry.

I’m happy to be able to share the words I exchanged with the band last month, in the two weeks that led to the release of their latest album. The interview took place with guitarist and vocalist Miyako, guitarist Noguchi, bassist Jun, and also their manager Shirley, who kindly helped with translation for the interview. This article coincides with the start of their first-ever world tour today, and I’m deeply grateful to be able to contribute to this monumental landmark in this way.

(Note: answers that were given by all members and then paraphrased in translation are listed as being said by Suichi Spica).

An Interview with Suichu Spica

-

1.

Mustafa: “Hello Suichu Spica! I was so excited to hear about your upcoming world tour; what are your current expectations for performing in these countries for the first time?”

Chiaki: “This is our first major challenge as a band, and I hope many people will enjoy our music around the world. We hope for our music to reach out from Japan to listeners everywhere! We’ll face the tour with no fear!”

Noguchi: “I’m so excited about performing around the world, but also worried because this is the first time we’ll be reaching out in person to so many listeners in countries I’ve never been to before!”

Jun: “We know we have fans overseas, but so far they’ve only heard our digitally-released songs. Live performances are a really important part of Suichu Spica, so we hope to convey the live performance experience to everyone to deepen their understanding of Suichu Spica!”

-

2.

Mustafa: “Ever since I first listened to Suchu Spica, that international appreciation for your music has always been very noticeable. Can you recall the first time you realised you had so many international fans?”

Jun: “The first time, I was so surprised. I think it was when we looked at our YouTube comments and saw so many English comments. I think this was after our song ‘Triage’ had been shared on Reddit! I was surprised, but really happy, which is why I’m so happy about the opportunities of this world tour!”

Chiaki: “When I started Suichu Spica, I didn’t consider ever having fans outside of Japan, I only focused on the audience we’d have in our own country, hence I chose a Japanese name for the band.”

Suichu Spica: “On Chinese social media, there’s someone who’s an expert in Math Rock history and developments, and he started a topic about Suichu Spica, analysing the band’s chords, bass techniques, and more and more people joined the discussion and expressed interest in seeing Suichu Spica live. That topic encouraged us to do a China tour last year. Going forward to this year, I know we have fans in Korea but not as many. We hope this tour will bring Suichu Spica’s music to new people unfamiliar with our band, and even people unfamiliar with Math Rock.”

This nuanced thought processing for the decision of their China tour made me appreciate the way they’ve calculated their stages of growth, seeking them out almost as a self-imposed challenge to boldly outshine their selves of yesterday.

-

3.

Mustafa: “From what I’ve seen, Math Rock is the genre that seems to have an incredible amount of reach out from Japan, as seen with Tricot, Paranoid Void, Toe, and Jyocho. There’s something about the genre that draws in so many people. What are all of your perspectives on the genre’s status and power?”

Chiaki: “The instrumental sound of Suichu Spica is definitely math rock, but the singing and melodies are very pop: we fused the math rock instrumental sound with that style of singing, and I think that combination defines Suichu Spica and highlights our individuality really well.”

Mustafa: “And how did you find yourself expressing yourselves through that specific style?”

Chiaki: “When I started Suichu Spica, I didn’t know anything about Math Rock at all, we just considered ourselves a J-Rock band initially. I don’t know what happened for us to eventually become Math Rock *laughs*!”

Noguchi: “It wasn’t a conscious decision at the start, we just did whatever we felt like doing and landed on this style. We realised that Chiaki’s guitar playing style and technique had a flow that sounded like Math Rock, so we looked into the genre and then decided to use Math Rock as a base.”

Mustafa: “Do you find the label of Math Rock useful to you? Given your choice to incorporate other styles into your work, does the label help or do you feel being put into the category can be limiting?”

Suichu Spica: “Almost every band here has a kind of fusion. Since we’ve only been active for 4 years, we want to continue building and incorporate various different styles and elements, so because we can’t anticipate how we’ll develop, we (Chiaki and Noguchi) don’t want to be labelled as *just* a Math Rock band.”

Jun: “I’m pretty satisfied with the Math Rock tag, though!”

Shirley: “Eh, that doesn’t matter. *everyone laughs*”

Jun: “For example: for people who’ve never heard your music, when you introduce yourself to them, it’s easier for them to understand you when you have that tag of Math Rock, in the way that they’ll know to expect that one element. ‘Indie Rock’ as a label encompasses so many genres, and you can’t always expect every listener to spend lots of time exploring your sound to define it exactly, so having that tag makes it easier for new listeners.”

Mustafa: “I definitely agree with you Jun, because in my experience interacting with music fans online, so many people always want to label a band with a genre, and that’s how music is often widely shared and recommended to others. I imagine that when going on your international tour, you’re going to bump into a lot of people who will only be aware of your Math Rock elements, so I think that outlook is very pragmatic and realistic.”

Noguchi: “Definitely. That’s the reason why our artist biography introduces us as a Math Rock band. That’s for now, but in the future we need to change our biography! *everyone laughs*.

A main reason why we want to do the world tour is because lots of our experiences collaborating have mainly been with just Math Rock and Post Rock bands, so by travelling abroad we want to learn from these physical new experiences as well as interactions with other genres. We have plans for future collaborations that will be outside of the current expectations of fans.

Since we’ve always been in Japan, we want these experiences to learn about new cultures and music, and how other musicians think. It’s not just a world tour, but also a culture exchange.”

Mustafa: “Do you think that’s something more bands in Japan should do?”

Suichu Spica: “It depends on the band. Not many bands have that motivation of going overseas. For us, we have that intention, but also enough flexibility to make it happen. Many musicians have their jobs outside of music so it’s not as easy for them.

The kind of music we make, math rock with indie elements, on paper doesn’t seem like something that’d be super popular in Japan as other music, so it’s worthwhile for us to reach out to the origins of Math Rock, like the US, as well as other countries with developing independent scenes, like South-East Asia: Subsonic Eye and SOBS from Singapore, and Galdive from Indonesia.”

Mustafa: “How have your previous learning experiences been? I know you played with Covet last month, as well as last year, who are one of the biggest Math Rock bands currently, and are also really well known in the local scene too. Has there been anything specific you’ve learnt from them? I know Yvette Young has so much experience with all kinds of music!”

Noguchi: “We didn’t actually speak much about music with Covet! When we’d hang out, we’d just talk about food and cute animals, specifically capybaras….”

Chiaki: “We went out for dinner many times, and visited animal shops too!”

Shirley: “You guys are just like kids!”

Noguchi: “We did learn some things from seeing their performances, though! Like how Yvette arranges and uses her pedalboard and specifically her combination of effect pedals, as well as how to make the live sound clearer and load them with more effects.”

We were surprised with how she went about using her effect pedals. Usually, when we used them, we’d use them specifically to put the effect into the sound, but Yvette Young considers more about how to use them, like how they can influence the way riffs are played.”

-

4.

Mustafa: “Following on from what you’ve learned as musicians: which bands have influenced you music taste the most across your time creating music?”

Chiaki: “Dabda, definitiely! They’re the band I love most.... wait, we’re going to be doing a show with them next month!”

Jun: “Dabda for me as well! For me, their influential power lies not only in how their perform and create their music, but also in how their band formation and song arrangements, their basslines specifically too. They’re a very important band to Suichu Spica! For me personally, the band LITE is also important: their bass is what makes them such a distinguished band.”

Mustafa: “Is the answer Dabda for you as well, Noguchi?”

Shirley: “It’s probably going to be Never Young Beach…..!”

Noguchi: “*laughs* Hmmmmm, I think I’d have to say Petrolz, because their approach to music is that too many sounds won’t sound good, they believe in simplifying sounding better. Their guitarist, Ryosuke, is a particularly important inspiration to me because no matter what he plays, he always creates feelings of peace and comfort.”

Chiaki: “There’s a guitarist called Ichika Nito, whose style of playing is very similar to mine. He has such amazing techniques and is very well known for his style, and my personal goal is to develop techniques as good as his!”

-

5.

Mustafa: “You’ve been a band for about 7 years, but have you thought much about the impression that you’ve left upon other bands, including newer artists? You’ve built a strong reputation and audience in those 7 years already, and this international tour is only going to spread your name to even more people and musicians. Have you thought about the example that you’re setting for other musicians?”

Chiaki: “I hope the impression we’ve left on others, above all else, is that we’re an independent band, with worldwide connections and roots. I want to say to other musicians that even if a label or management don’t support you, please don’t give up! Those are my feelings!”

Noguchi: “We consider ourselves to be a DIY band. We don’t want to be signed to any of the major record labels. We don’t want to be making money, rather we want to be contributing to the culture. We hope that, when introduced to more people, the impression we leave isn’t “oh, they’re a math rock band”, rather, we want to be our own kind of symbol.”

Chiaki: “It’s like with Sunny Day Service. When we speak about the band, it’s very hard to specify what genre they are. They represent that essence of Shimokitazawa, and I think Suichi Spica are aiming to be a band like that.”

Noguchi: “I want to be like Susumu Hirasawa, he’s a notable figure I aspire to be like: Susumu Hirasawa *is* Susumu Hirasawa, there’s no other way to define him.”

Jun: “At the same time, at the very least, we need to earn money to support the band! But even if the funds aren’t sufficient and the situation is tough, I believe that bands can continue their activities through their friendship, and maintaining a good relationship with all the members is important for that: doing everything in a ‘happy mode’! Whether it’s going for barbeque or ramen after performing together, everyone needs to be sharing that positivity.”

Mustafa: “I really appreciate hearing your answers because they resonate very strongly with my own belief in how music shouldn’t be about trying to make the most money, or trying to be the most popular. Establishing an identity and culture can be one of the most meaningful things about sharing art with others, as well as connecting with them through that act, and it’s clear you do that so well with how you reach so many people.

From my personal perspective, you’re already creating that culture and identity of ‘only this is Suichi Spica’ and using that as a name in itself.”

Their honest intentions have stuck with me over the past month as I’m reminded of them whenever I listen to their music, because I wholeheartedly believe that’s what the world needs more of.

-

6.

Mustafa: “The opinions that you have are very much shaped by your perceptions of the music industry. Can you remember the first time you realised that the music industry is not completely pure when it comes to creating art?”

Noguchi: “Whilst we formed in 2018, we started official activities in 2021, so it was from 2021 onwards that we started to be in touch with the industry. We’ve seen good things and bad things, but so far the biggest struggle has been buying instruments, effect pedals, and finding the money to buy all the equipment! Scheduling is also not very flexible when you’re working a job and also playing in a band.”

Mustafa: “Since forming, what has been the single moment that’s stood out to you the most?”

Chiaki: “…Fuji Rock?”

Noguchi: “Fuji Rock?”

Jun: “It’s definitely Fuji Rock.”

Noguchi: “I guess it’s Fuji Rock!”

*everyone laughs*

Mustafa: “I watched your Fuji Rock performance yesterday!”

Noguchi: “When I got the call confirming that we’ll be playing at Fuji Rock, I thought to myself ‘NOW my life’s started properly!’!”

-

7.

Mustafa: “You very recently got a new drummer when Shio joined. What was that process like?”

Chiaki: “When our ex-drummer left the band, we were left feeling really confused and concerned about our future when we realised we had to seek a new drummer.

We were then reminded of Shio, someone we’ve collaborated with in the past, who is a very technical and passionate drummer, so we contacted her by mail.

Shio was really happy to join, because Suichi Spica were already a band she looked up to, so we booked an appointment in a studio to play together, and everything fell into place!”

Shirley: “Shio’s pretty young compared to the rest of the band, and her passionate for music shines through her appreciation for Math Rock, and other genres too like Midwest Emo. It’s clear she gives her all when practising!”

Noguchi: “In Japan, there aren’t many drummers that specialise in playing Math Rock or Post Rock, since those genres don’t have much business compared to other genres in the country. Because of this, we consider her to be our treasure! *everyone laughs*. She’s shared so many videos on SNS of her playing music from Toe and Mouse on The Keys, so many bands in those genres, and it’s all so beautiful! She has such love for these genres that she’s actually listened to even more music than we have, so when making music she contributes such fresh and brand-new ideas to the process.

Suichi Spica was formed between Chiaki and Ohashi, our ex-drummer, so he is a ‘departing point’ of Suichi Spica. He’s really different from Shio, in the way that his drums have lots of power and volume, whilst Shio’s drums are more technical and capricious.”

I’ve always wondered about the process of changing members, as it’s impossible to not be aware of how bands change over time, but the way the band speaks so fondly about Shio is so heartwarming as it affirms my faith in the new opportunities to connect and create that come about from change. Whilst there aren’t any UK performances for this first world tour, the day Suichu Spica eventually tour nearby will be when I can witness their own faith in their bonds forged through music, right there on stage.

-

8.

Mustafa: “I’m incredibly excited to see how people react to the new album Lux! With it being your third album, whilst listening to it I felt that its atmosphere is distinct from the previous two albums. What led to you wanting to make this album different, in this way?”

Chiaki: “On this album, it reaches higher emotional and powerful heights. In order to express those feelings, we used more effect pedals to create other styles of melodies. On ‘Both Dinosaurs and Humans Drink Water’, we tried to challenge ourselves to express a new kind of song. The singing leans more into shouting, like at the part where I even do a dinosaur roar *mimics the roar*!”

Mustafa: “Yes! I specifically love that moment the most on that song!”

Chiaki: “I challenged myself to try it out! In the past I was obsessed with Math Rock, and that obsession led to our music becoming more complicated and, I think, sometimes difficult to listen to, so on this album I want to make the listening experience easier, I didn’t want to make things difficult for listeners, both old and new. This is why I composed simpler music, like ‘Dinosaurs’ and ‘Pulsation’!”

Shirley: “From my perspective, the album was conceptualised naturally through discussions and rehearsals!”

Noguchi: “The songs were made spontaneously, they weren’t planned or discussed too much in advance. It was largely played by ear, with us trying out different things until we all agreed ‘oh, it sounds good!’”.

Mustafa: “I really love ‘Dinosaurs’ in particular, and another thing it prompted me to think about was the style of lyrics it has. Chiaki, you’re often credited as the songwriter for Suichu Spica songs, and I really love the storytelling that you write, it feels really poetic, and especially on the new album with ‘Spica’, it feels very classical, so I’m interested in what ideas you wanted to write into this particular album.”

Chiaki: “It’s not that complicated. When I was really little, I was really inspired by short poems, and I wanted to write them myself.

However when I began writing lyrics when I got older, I didn’t consciously decide on a style, it’s more my childhood writing habits that surface which I developed from writing short poems. The lyrics themselves don’t usually have a specific inspiration, they just come out naturally.”

Mustafa: “I think it’s incredible how that leads to the music you make now, because so many of the lyrics from Suichu Spica have a level of detail I rarely find even with English music, and I think they’re one of the highlights of Suichu Spica’s music as well.”

-

9.

Mustafa: “The sound of the new album feels so strongly rooted in nature, which I felt even more strongly when I saw the video for ‘Beyond Me’. ‘Spica’ as well evokes so much natural imagery in my mind, and all of your album covers tie in to nature in different ways. Is that an association that you all feel with your music; where does this natural feeling come from?”

Chiaki: “It’s really hard to make videos for our kind of music, so we rely a lot on our video director for this. We ourselves don’t even know where that connection to nature in our videos specifically comes from *laughs*.

It’s after our director has read our lyrics and heard the song that he develops the image in his head, and his decisions lead to how the particular visuals are pursued.”

Noguchi: “In our previous music videos for ‘Oshiroi’ and ‘Reverb’, that was when we started to appreciate the value of music videos. Back then the music video ideas came from us, but since we’re not professionals when it comes to making videos, for this album we asked for others for help with creating them, and our director took the lead with deciding upon the imagery they featured.”

Mustafa: “I still feel that the earlier music videos were really really well done, the video for ‘Reverb’ is a favourite of mine, particularly with how many different cars are featured.”

Chiaki: “’Reverb’ is a story about memories I have of my father, and we borrowed all those cars from my dad!”

Noguchi: “Maybe it’s a little hard to understand that connection from the video that focuses so much on cars *laughs*”

Chiaki: “In the video, I wanted to compare the past and the future, using old and new cars as symbolism of that comparison.”

Mustafa: “When I listen to that song and watch its video, the focus on cars makes me think much more on machination and engineering, and it gave it a very unique feeling to me compared to your other songs. Given how much I love that video, I think future videos where the band takes the lead with composing the visuals would still be so good!”

Noguchi: “Ah, thank you!!”

-

10.

Mustafa: “The moment I pressed play on the album, I was hit by that really, really powerful guitar at the start of ‘Iki’, and I feel like the song transitions into ‘Pulsation’ really naturally. How did you choose to put the songs’ arrangements together?”

Chiaki: “When we did the arrangement for the album, we’d discussed a general outline all of the song structures. When we did the arrangement for ‘Pulsation’, we wanted the song to be really simple and easy to understand. However for ‘Spica’, we wanted to do a more complex arrangement; after the discussion of the general outline, everyone contributed their own ideas on the individual instrumental components”

Mustafa: “’Fathom’ is a particular song I’m interested in, because it’s a lot shorter than the other songs and it’s purely instrumental. It’s the third song on the album so I’m interested in why it was decided to be placed there.”

Chiaki: “Fathom” was inspired by an effect pedal I have from Walrus Audio, which itself is called ‘Fathom’. I made a small song built around that pedal.

‘Fathom’ is a break between ‘Pulsation’ and ‘Spica’, bridging their two stories to become one, because those two songs were released in advance as singles last year, and there isn’t a noticeable connection between the two singles, so I made ‘Fathom’ as a bridge to reframe ‘Pulsation’ and ‘Spica’ into different contexts and forms in the album.

Like with Post-Rock albums, which are released to have a story told through their song order, we wanted to make an album as a whole, complete story in itself, instead of being comprised of just different singles.”

Shirley: “In the current age, a lot of people seem to have forgotten the concept of what an album is meant to be. Oftentimes they just put singles together, which isn’t really an album, that’s more of a compilation. The album is meant to tell a complete story from start to finish, right?”

Chiaki: “If you check the song titles of the song, you’ll see that the meaning of ‘Fathom’ iiiiis……”

Noguchi: “’Fathom’ refers to the deep sea, it’s a unit of measuring water depth.”

Chiaki: “….. and the next song is ‘Spica’, then ‘Beyond Me’, ‘Baton’, ‘Miyako’, and ‘Dinosaurs’, everything is connected to that water.

As part of the album concept, we wanted to say that even when under deep water, in a dark situation, you can still see the light shining from above.”

Mustafa: “I find that so interesting, especially because water comes up in my mind so often when I listen to your music. So many of the guitar melodies sound like flowing streams, or Chiaki’s tapping sounding like rain. Obviously it’s even present in the band’s name (‘Underwater Spica’), so where did the water theme originate from when the band was started? How far back does the water theme go?”

Chiaki: “When I started composing songs for the band, many years ago before even the band’s name had been decided, I wanted to create music that can support others, giving them hope and clarity. That’s the music I want to make, and it prompted me to think of an underwater world.

Underwater, there can be darkness and distortion, but ‘Spica’ is one of the brightest stars in the night sky: I wanted to convey that even when underwater surrounded by darkness, our music can still support and guide others as a bright light, just like Spica.”

Mustafa: “I’ve definitely felt that through the bright hope in the music, so I definitively believe you’ve succeeded in achieving that!”

-

11.

Mustafa: “What is everyone’s favourite song from the album, the song you enjoyed creating the most?”

Noguchi, Chiaki, and Jun: “Noooooooooooo!!”

Noguchi: “That’s too difficult! Ahh, wait a minute!”

*the band recites all of the album’s songs*

Chiaki: “We’ll say it at the same time……”

*simultaneously*

Chiaki: “Miyako!”

Jun: “Miyako!”

Noguchi: “SPICA!”

Chiaki: “’Miayko’ is very important for me because I moved from Kyoto to Tokyo one year ago, and after this I began to feel very worried about whether I’d be able to get used to the big city feeling of Tokyo. When I wrote ‘Miyako’ as I would reminisce on Kyoto, hence why it’s so important for me!”

Jun: “I became most emotional when playing the bass for ‘Miayko’; it’s so good to perform as part of shows, because it’s a more aggressive song with a more emotional sound, and that emotional expression comes very easily to me.”

Noguchi: “I love instrumental Post-Rock songs, like Caspian, and film soundtracks too. ‘Spica’, in my mind, is like a movie in how its story is told, and I love performing its soundtrack.”

Mustafa: “I think Chiaki has a very natural talent for writing songs and telling stories, and there’s a strong wonderful innocence all throughout, which I deeply appreciate about the new album, hence why I love ‘Dinosaurs’ so much, it just feels so carefree, so I’d say it’s my favourite from the album, alongside ‘Iki’ because…… that intro is just staggeringly impactful!”

-

12.

Mustafa: “How have your feelings about performing your music changed since your first live show?”

Chiaki: “In the past, I only thought about playing correctly, but now my enthusiasm is solely to just play the guitar, and the emotion is more important, so mistakes aren’t really a concern for me anymore, it’s more about the feelings and enjoyment of being on stage.”

Noguchi: “I feel the same; for our first ever show, I was so worried about my playing, but now the most important thing for me is how my emotions are expressed.”

Jun: “Our focus now is on expressing our emotions to be understood by our listeners: we want to unify our hearts with our audiences, but in Japan that can be so difficult because Japanese people are so shy!”

Mustafa: “Because you share that vision now, do you feel like you’ve been able to unify yourself as a band through performing as well?”

Chiaki: “Yeah, we’re close friends!”

Jun: “Yeah, friends!”

Noguchi: “Nono, we’re family!”

Chiaki: “Ahh yeah, a whole family!”

Noguchi: “And she (Shirley) is our mum!”

Shirley: “Noo, no no no!”

Chiaki: “Yes, Shirley is our mum!!!”

*we couldn’t stop laughing for a full minute after this*

-

13.

Mustafa: “Since we’re now at the end: what last words would you like to share with everyone reading?”

Chiaki: “We want to convey to everyone reading and listening that we hope our music becomes a source of relief, transparency, and beauty! We hope that those feelings from the music can interest you in attending our shows! And of course, we promise we’ll come to play in the UK and Europe, so we hope everyone will join us when we visit, both on this world tour and in the future!

The whole essence of Suichi Spica is presented from our stage, so we want everyone to feel that one day!”

-

This interview is a fruit borne directly from the new connections I was blessed to make during my visit to Tokyo last year. Thank you to Chiaki, Noguchi, Jun, and Shirley for this opportunity and their continued efforts in shining the light of Suichu Spica.

-Mustafa

Suichu Spica’s new album, ‘Lux’ is out now on all streaming platforms, and Bandcamp

Today marks the start of Suichu Spica’s world tour. The performance dates are as follows: