cocoquantus Archives - Martin Yam Møller

Takeyuki Hakozaki – Pollypraha

1. Favorite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?

I love the rotary switch that changes between record and playback on the Nagra 4.2.
The beauty of the shape and the feel when turning it, is the best.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

Make Noise Morphagene is an almost perfect module. I love the wide range of sample changes and the very clear interface.

I like how easy it is to maneuver something that would be painstaking in software.

The sound quality of the output is a bit peculiar, so a better preamp or VCA built in would be perfect.

But currently I generally run ‘Shallow Water’ or ‘Analog Heat’ through it, so that’s not a problem.

3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?

I do very few gigs and try not to bring my instruments on holiday.
However, I always use more than one Nagra for my exhibitions. So no matter where I play, I need a car.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

For software that I wish was hardware, this is definitely ’GRM Tools’!
And vice versa, Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus2.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I regret selling ‘Qu-Bit Electronix’s Chance and Prism, so much so that I bought Prism back!

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

The Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water.

I was really impressed when I ran a synth through Shallow Water for the first time.
Even simple, cold digital synth sounds and linear sine waves take on a warm, musical character. I completely fell in love with it.
I’m running two ‘Shallow Waters’ through most of the songs on my album ‘Season of Strangers’ which was released this summer.

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

Novation Peak maybe! It’s my favorite synth these days.
Peak is also used on many of the tracks I have released this year.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Nagra reel to reel recorders. I use Nagras not only in my music, but also in exhibitions and art, and they are inseparable from my current expressive activities.

9.Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I guess I was experimenting with the Intellijel Shifty a lot, and was able to generate a canon.
By purchasing another Shifty, I was able to create complex canons from a single 1V/oct signal.

This is a huge digression, but bear with me (lol.)

As a teenager, I was struck by Steve Reich’s many musical techniques.
I didn’t hear his work in chronological order, but probably the first things I heard were “Eight Lines” and “Music for a Large Ensemble.”
These pieces are characterized by a technique in which a single note is found, and then the number of notes increases and increases until it finally becomes a melody.
I still think that this technique is one of the coolest expressions of music, as it combines beauty and perceptual pleasure.
I can’t use that technique in my own work though, because it would really be a rip-off of Reich’s work….
I was also amazed by his other famous techniques such as “phase shifting process” and “augmentation technique.”
I found it difficult to perceive the Serialism music that was popular in the 1960s, but all of Reich’s techniques are perfect for me, combining musical beauty and enjoyment.

Artist or Band name?

Pollypraha and Takeyuki Hakozaki

Genre?

Ambient, Minimal, Contemporary Classical.

Selfie?

Where are you from?

Born in Kobe, Japan. Now living in Chiba, Japan.

How did you get into music?

I learned to play the trumpet in elementary school. After that, I guess I majored in classical guitar and clarinet. Later, I bought an electric guitar in high school and started composing music.

What still drives you to make music?

Making music has been a habit for over 20 years, just like eating and sleeping, and my body needs it.

How do you most often start a new track?

I often start by coming up with a melody line.

How do you know when a track is finished?

When I think that it’s good enough. I never feel that there is nothing more that could be done with a track, even once it’s been released.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

I don’t think I have ever received advice on composing music in my life.
In the sense that existence itself is advice, these are the artists I was passionate about as a teenager.
For painters, I was influenced by Sam Francis, for visual artists, Stan Brakhage, for designers, Martin Margiela, and so on.
Through these influences, I learned that expression has no boundaries or limitations. I also learned how to intentionally frame the absence of boundaries and restrictions.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

Trope/Pollypraha

https://pollypraha.bandcamp.com/album/trope

It’s a recently released EP.

Urspring – Durch Veraltet Technik

[Editor: If you’re here for the Free Stuff in this post. There’s the Impulse Response samples from the Great British Spring Reverb tank that Urspring recorded]

1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?

The panning dials on the Yamaha MT-120S cassette recorder are just yummy.

I like the pan dials on my Yamaha MT-120 four track cassette recorder. Not as much for what they do, but how they feel and how they enable me to actually play the stereo field simultaneously with 4 fingers. If they were designed as knobs you could only control 2 at a time, in an easy way. But they are designed as dials almost like the 4 encoders on the OP-Z and therefore you can control all four at the same time with one finger at each dial.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

We are always in endless search for a perfect bit of kit, aren’t we? Haha! Well I don’t think there will ever be a perfect kit – especially not a perfect kit for all times. For me an inspirational kit changes over time. 10 years ago it would have been Ableton Live and a Push. Or simply just an acoustic guitar.

These days I’m tripping over the Digitakt/Digitone combo after watching a Patreon video by Jogging House. I think these two in combination simply allows me to translate melody and sonic texture ideas very easily to tracks that I can then record straight to my 2-track Revox B77.

The Digitakt/Digitone also lets me sit down and make music without sitting in front of a laptop screen. I have a non-music related daytime job where I’m in front of a screen all the time. And music making with hardware has almost become a kind of meditative activity away from the screen. Where the perfect combo is the Digitakt/Digitone … At least it is for me.

I also really dig the Ciat Lonbarde Cocoquantus and Deerhorn in combo with the Digitone.

There are instruments that when you master them, they almost become an extension of yourself. They let the feelings you are expressing flow without friction. Like the piano or the acoustic guitar.

Then there is gear the keeps surprising you. Like a good band mate. It’s gear that you always have an interesting conversation with. The Cocoquantus is like that.

3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?

These days I’m bringing the Digitakt/Digitone combo. But sometimes just the OP-1. It’s sometimes really hard for me to get into the creative flow and mood when only having small islands of time, like 20 minutes, between family time. But now I’m better at telling myself “you’re not suppose to make an album now. You’re just having fun!” That inner voice is my friend.
So I often bring my OP-1 to the summer house.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

I almost never use compressors in my composing these days, but I like the Vulf Compressor VST for it’s distinct lo-fi squeezed Madlib sound. I could definitely see a use for this as a hardware pedal in my setup. But then again I might just throw a Boss SP-303 into my setup. The Vulf Compressor is heavily inspired by the ’Vinyl Sim’ effect on the SP-303, which is a radically weird compression algorithm.
These days I’m mostly into a DAWless approach, so I don’t have any hardware that I wished was software.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I’m really not that much of a gear flipper. I try to have a minimal setup with only a limited set of handpicked pieces. I tend to stick with a piece of gear for way too long before letting it go. I still have a Push 1 laying around, haha. However I see this changing quickly because somehow the amount of gear on my desk has multiplied lately!
Anyways, I don’t really regret buying or selling anything, but one thing I regret NOT buying was a secondhand Juno 6 about ten years ago. The price was around 400-500 euros at that time, and at the last minute I decided that I didn’t have the space for it. Well, now the prices have rocketed out of the atmosphere, and I’m still looking at Junos. Poor me.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

No doubt it would be the 4 track cassette recorder. When I was around 13 my dad had a 4 track Fostex, that lived in my room. Back then in the nineties I made hip-hop parodies, sad core indie and I recorded my grunge band with that piece of gear.

When listening back today I must admit that most of the music was kind of crap. But I still remember the excitement and feeling of loosing myself 100% in music making for tens of hours and the feeling of listening back and thinking “this track rocks”.
Fast forward 30 years and I was still using a Fostex 4 track (another device though) as a core device in an electronic duo Klingerhult with Martin – yes the editor of this blog.

[Editor: Hello everyone 🙂 … if you’re curios about us? Then check out Klingerhult here]

I’m also still using the 4 track cassette recorder now as a simple mixer, with tape loops, for pitch and reverse effects, resampling and for crunchy overdrive.
I just like the texture and sound of tape recorders.

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

An Op-1. Then I would sit down for tens of hours and just go with the flow.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

At the moment it’s mildly annoying to tune the Ciat Lonbarde Deerhorn to a chromatic scale. It’s like Petter Blasser (who invented it) intentionally made it almost impossible, like a big “screw you” statement. But when it is in tune it is so liberating and relaxing to play the notes with the hands on top of an ambient bed. And here’s the thing: Tuning has become a way of clearing my mind, like an inlet for getting into the zone.
But the Deerhorn is not the easiest beast to tame.

9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I like the sound of flaws and almost broken things. Whenever I use a bit of gear that supports that, I think I’m more inspired and make more music. For example, when using tape loops or just using tape machines I often find myself deliberately exaggerate the flutter and wobble effect by holding a finger on the tape reels or shaking the dictaphone or walkman. In that way it’s possible to control the pitch flaws almost like playing an instrument. The tape machines are probably not that
happy about it. But it’s fun!