interview

04/04/05
brought to you by joe 90

1. Hello Ryota. Please introduce yourself for the people

My name is Ryota Nozaki from Jazztronik and I'm 28 years of age. Jazztronik is my solo project. I do piano, rhodes and various keyboards and I produce and programme all my beats. When I first started Jazztronik I wondered what it would be like if I mixed Brazilian, latin and jazz music together in a contemporary modern style. I've released 7 albums so far on labels like Tokuma, Flower and Counterpoint. This new UK album 'Samurai' for Pantone is actually made of tracks from 3 seperate albums....2 on Tokuma and one on Flower.

2. Please give us a little bit of history about yourself

When I was 16 I began making music and I went to music university for 4 years to study. Initially I studied classical music and then progressed with modern contemporary. After the course I began the Jazztronik project and signed to Flower Recordings.....Gilles Peterson was one of the first international DJs to pick up on the 'Inner Flight' single a few years ago.

3. What do you think it is about the track 'Samurai' that has made it so popular here in Europe?

I'm really happy about the popularity of this track which seems to keep on selling and actually I don't know why it remains so successful. It initially came out on Tokuma as an album track and then licensed to Especial Distribution. Then it came out on Disorient records in the UK, and then got licenced to Chez in the USA. Chez apparently asked Danny Krivit to re-edit the track and he said ''No....its absolutely fine as it is!" This was a big compliment! The tune actually came from a practice phrase I use to warm up my fingers before I begin a practice session. All i did was add some programmed broken beats to the tune. Simple!

4. Has 'Samurai' been a big record in Japan?

Yes! Huge! When I play the tune as part of a live band set or as a DJ, people go crazy!!

5. In a lot of ways the 'future jazz' style seems to work better in Japan than it does in Europe and the USA - why do you think this is?

This is actually what I'm always thinking about. American music sounds very different to European music and there is a definite difference between those two continents and the music coming out of Japan. Japan is between the two continents so Japanese people are split between the two of what they listen to - half listen to European and the other half listen to USA music...future jazz is in my mind in the middle!

6. I think you can tell when music is made in Japan - there is always a certain element in the sound and playing skill that makes it ''Japanese''- would you agree with this? Can you tell difference in a Japanese production and say a USA or UK one?

Yes, I agree with that idea but I make my sound naturally - I'm not conciously trying to make music a certain way. I'm just making music!

7. Tell us a little about the current music 'scene' in Tokyo. What is happening? What is popular?

Japanese pop music isn't so popular now. Jpop artists who used to sell 3-5 million albums are now selling a third of that. Japan is very changeable & people change their tastes extremely fast. One month one thing will be enourmously popular and then people lose interest quickly and move onto the next thing which then explodes. So now people who listen to popular music change their interests really quickly but then you also have people who like the music thats been around a long long time [like jazz / brazilian / rock / funk etc.] and who are not so changeable and don't get bored so easily. There is a distinct difference of these two tribes of people.

8. What else are you working on currently?

I'm currently in the middle of recording two seperate albums - one vocal and one instrumental - and I will be recording in London in the spring.

9. Are you excited about the future?

Yes very much! The last Japanese album did really well and the live shows have had people going crazy - people get really excited! I want to record in Europe and America at some point, as so far I've only ever recorded in Japan.