Hibushibire live. From left to right: Tetsuji Toyoda, Kohei Katsuma, Aoi Hama and changchang.

Hibushibire is a quintet from Osaka directed by changchang (whose real name is Kohei Takakura) and featuring the other components: Tetsuji Toyoda (bass), Aoi Hama (drums), Kohei Katsuma (conga) and Asami Katsuma (marimba). The debut album is Freak Out Orgasm! (released in 2017 for Riot Season, similarly to every following full-length work), where figured SarryHani Hori as bassist (aka 821 – who works especially in drone music on the projects Sarry and Wamei), and Ryu Matsumoto as drummer, and it was really hyped in the worldwide underground scene for its instinctive and dilated guitar riffs and the vital rhythmic component. In the last period their musical policy – in addition of their band formation – changed toward an enlarged idea of psychedelia, with a renewed creativity that taps into alt-rock, post-punk and avantgarde.

Let’s talk about the most recent developments by the band with the same main author Kohei “changchang” Takakura, with the following interview.

Hibushibire is a project that mixes psych garage with something that should be defined as “freakout-ness”, which is an archetype very familiar in Japan. This character is undoubtedly pivotal, where the technical dynamics increase the related eccentricity, with a relation to European progressive rock and Rock In Opposition. This approach in Freak Out Orgasm! And the following record Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out!, brings further contributions in the associated family of sounds, thanks also to the support of Makoto Kawabata as producer in both cited works. How did this creative approach happen, and can you describe explicitly the specific efforts by the noted author of all the projects tagged “Acid Mothers Temple”?

“When I was around 18, even before forming Hibushibire, I was constantly listening to Acid Mothers Temple, Mainliner, and High Rise. I was obsessed with that style – playing one riff endlessly, performing rock ’n’ roll in an excessive, almost over-the-top way. I just loved that approach. I always thought that someday I wanted to make music like that myself. So rather than feeling like I was doing something new, I feel much more that I was influenced by the musicians who came before me. I simply wanted to make insanely cool rock music. That was all. For me, “freak out” means something ridiculously stupid – in a good way. Extremely positive, high-tension, not intellectual but purely instinctive. It’s not about technique; it’s about impulse. It’s hard to explain in words, but that’s the image I have. I’ve been influenced by progressive rock from all over the world, including Europe and the UK. From Rock In Opposition, I learned a sense of rebellion, experimental spirit, and a fundamentally free attitude toward music. As for dynamics in performance, I love inserting gimmicks that surprise the listener. I’m conscious of that while composing. But at the same time, I value accidents that happen during recording. Not everything is intentional – the unexpected moments are just as important. The ideal is a mixture of both.

“Working with Makoto Kawabata as a producer changed my awareness of how to “package” our music. Before that, I wanted to show everything. But that often made the focus unclear. Kawabata kept asking me, “What is the main point you want people to hear in this song?” Learning how to clarify the focal point within a composition was the biggest change for me. In practical terms, he would say things like, “You can record the basic track only twice.” If you record too many times, the freshness disappears. He also proposed structures and developments that were the complete opposite of what I had imagined. Those unexpected suggestions were incredibly stimulating. Ideologically, I think we share the idea of “playing excessively” and “repeating while ascending”. I strongly relate to Kawabata’s phrase, “Psychedelic music is stupid music.” For me, he is both a musical mentor and an important friend with whom I can drink and talk nonsense. Working with him made me realize that I can be freer in my approach to music.”

Focusing on your sonic attitude and scene, you certainly share the same genre or specific elements with other psych bands in Japan, which encloses together the related and diffused visceral and chaotic taste, like Green Milk from the Planet Orange or Psyche Bugyo. Do you feel any affiliation or camaraderie with these other projects, in which it’s possible to find many relations?

“I love both Green Milk from the Planet Orange and Psyche Bugyo. We’ve played together in Tokyo with Green Milk, and now we’re labelmates on Riot Season. With Psyche Bugyo, we’ve done two-man shows in Kansai, and their leader Atsushi Tsuyama has even joined Hibushibire on guitar. For me, Tsuyama is like a father figure in rock music. That said, I don’t really feel that there’s a deeply rooted psychedelic scene in Kansai. So I don’t strongly feel a sense of collective unity. Sometimes I feel isolated, to be honest. What I personally prefer isn’t so much something visceral and chaotic, but something more open. If I think about a uniquely Japanese psychedelic expression, I would say it’s “excessive”, “long”, and “extremely loud”. It feels like a fantasy of overseas rock made tangible. Like how people in the Edo period, who had never seen a tiger, imagined and painted their own version of one – Japan developed its own unique interpretation of psychedelic music in a similar way.”

In the previous decade, Freak Out Orgasm! was very hyped by the journalism and the public. This work is impressive for its dynamic energy and expressionism, especially from the point of view of Japanese music, which offers, in this sense, interesting contributions every time. So what causes or context were, which give any added values in your empathic creativity?

“Honestly, I don’t know why it was so well received. In Japan, I don’t think it was highly evaluated at all. But I was very happy that it resonated with listeners overseas. When we played in the UK, an older man with long hair told us, “Your performance reminded me of Pink Floyd at the UFO Club in 1969.” At that moment, I felt maybe we had managed to materialize our own fantasy. But we still have a long way to go. I wrote all the songs and structures myself, then shared them with Kawabata, and we built them together. The atmosphere was relaxed, and it was a joy to create music with someone I deeply respect. That album contains all the curse-like emotions I had carried throughout my life. My grandfather was a Buddhist monk, so from childhood I was surrounded by the sound of ritual bells and chanting – drone-like elements that probably influenced me deeply. I also loved kaiju films and tokusatsu, especially their sound effects. I think those sounds unconsciously shaped my musical sensibility.”

Since the release of Magical Metamorphosis Third Eye has followed crucial developments with the immersion in the given sonic multi-coloured ambient with the proper influence of psych rock. From the policy viewpoint, this work recalls more directly the 60’-’70 music art, in addition to the final suite (Ayahuasca Witch Abduction) that offers a diverse and interesting ever-changing expression of your lysergic potential. Can you talk about how this more recent progress happened, aesthetically speaking?

“The third album felt like a natural progression. I wanted to take a different approach from the first two records. Kawabata even said, “Why don’t you just make it the way you want?” So I incorporated elements beyond rock – drones and electronic sounds that I had always loved listening to. During the writing process, I was listening a lot to European progressive rock, as well as folk and traditional music from various countries. “Ayahuasca Witch Abduction” was created with a ritualistic and drug-like concept. The title doesn’t have a deep meaning – I just wanted to use the word “Abduction.” I love UFOs. With each album, I feel that my range has expanded. New sounds emerge naturally as I continue creating.”

Your last album, Flashback Stonehenge moves in a more mystical direction, with austere and diversified elements in this last phase of your poetics. Interesting could be your version of In Heaven (by Peter Ivers and David Lynch, from the OST Eraserhead by the same Lynch), where the anxiogenic and cold beat of the drum machine gives a directive character to this implicit aim (and for the cinematographic context that it is extracted from). In sight of these last developments, the final and self-titled track represents a mixing of previous punk tendencies (in a broad sense, at least), and newer experimenting efforts, with influences from the minimalist poetics by Steve Reich and Michael Nyman; Everything consists of, broadly speaking, a crescendo of one part chasing the other and viceversa, simulating a certain cinematographic fashion. Can you talk about how this pastiche-like approach was born in your last record?

“Around the time of this album, I was reading extensively about mysticism and the occult. The worldview I was absorbing during that period directly manifested in the music. We covered “In Heaven” because I wanted to create a song with female vocals, and simply because I love Eraserhead. I thought having our drummer Aoi sing it would create an interesting effect. I chose a drum machine because I wanted a more inorganic, mechanical sense of ecstasy – that was the direction I was aiming for. The final track was born out of necessity – we had a deadline before our UK and European tour. I locked myself in the studio with our bassist and sound engineer Tetsuji, experimenting intensively, and it emerged almost accidentally. We completed it in about two or three weeks. I was very conscious of the influence of Steve Reich. Thanks to Asami, a marimba player, we were able to realize that vision. I wanted to establish our own blend of minimal music, krautrock, and experimental sound. The mystical experience I had the previous year when visiting Stonehenge and the Avebury stone circles was also very important. I wanted to express the cycle of life – things being born and decaying, over and over again. In Buddhist terms, it’s reincarnation. If listeners feel like they’ve watched an entire film after hearing it, I’d be happy. Life itself is like a movie.”