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Interview: Cold Name (Nobuyuki Sakuma From Jesse Ruins)

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Nobuyuki Sakuma is no stranger to new names. For years, he DJed and produced music as Nites and a few years ago launched a new project, one that would eventually grow into a trio and grab international blog attention, called Jesse Ruins. Now Sakuma is recording solo again under the moniker Cold Name, and so far has released a mix and a “Twin Peaks” sampling song called “She’s Filled With Secrets.” Make Believe Melodies talked to Sakuma about Cold Name, the state of Jesse Ruins and Lil B.

Make Believe Melodies: When did you decide to start the Cold Name project?

Nobuyuki Sakuma: I’ve been planning it since two or three months ago.

MBM: Why start Cold Name now?

NS: It’s mainly because I had a little bit of time after finishing the recording of Jesse Ruins’ new album. I wanted to make a mix, but my Nites project had ended earlier this year, so I just made a new project.

MBM: How will Cold Name be different than the Jesse Ruins project, or your Nites project? In particular, what sonic differences do you hope to achieve, and why?

NS: First of all, my main project is Jesse Ruins. That’s for sure. It was my solo project, but now we’re releasing and performing as a band, and have some plans for the future. Also, I finished my Nites project after releasing a free EP through Bandcamp earlier this year to focus on Jesse Ruins. I didn’t really mention it, but recently, I have used my real name when I’m DJing. So I focused on working on Jesse Ruins materials, but since I had some time after finishing that, I decided to have another project to release something that enables me to release something different from Jesse Ruins. Right now, Cold Name is like a side project I work on when I’m not working on Jesse Ruins. It’s similar to my Nites project that way, but it’s musically different from both Jesse Ruins and Nites.

MBM: Does the Bermuda Triangle mix you made hint at the Cold Name sound? Why or why not?

NS: Bermuda Triangle is a hint for Cold Name’s sound. It’s like an industrial interpretation of the situation in the Bermuda Triangle right now… It’s half joke, half serious. There’s varieties of genre in it if you listen to it closely, but the dark, industrial and cinematic atmosphere is more of my roots than saying it’s the purpose of the project. How to express those details depends on the concept of the project, and Cold Name is a project to let out what ever I felt like doing at the moment.

MBM: The most surprising moment on Bermuda Triangle was the inclusion of a song by rapper Lil’ B. What about Lil B are you attracted to? Do you listen to a lot of his music, or just the ambient stuff like “I Am The Hellraiser?” Why?

NS: It’s not like I’m really into Lil B. But I love the album “Rain in England” that features the track “I Am the Hellraiser.” I don’t have the other works by him, and I’m not interested in those. But the whole of “Rain in England” is non-beat and features similar synth and ambience throughout the album, which is ridiculous and unlike hip-hop, so I love it.

MBM: What’s Jesse Ruins up to?

NS: We’ve finished recording, and are playing shows while practicing new songs. Jesse Ruins started out as my solo project, but (vocalist) Nah joined, and (drummer) Yosuke joined after being a support member, so the bedroom project has slowly evolved to be a band. I’m still leading the band, but the band members have started giving me advice, we’ve realized more than ever that we’re a band, and others have told us so as well. It’s becoming really positive for Jesse Ruins.

MBM: What’s the status of a new Jesse Ruins’ album?

NS: Some people might know, but Jesse Ruins has left Captured Tracks in the US. I can’t tell why we left, but Jesse Ruins is not stopping, and all I can say is that it’s not a negative thing for the band. I can’t talk about details, but we’re negotiating about the album release with several record companies. The label is going to change, but Jesse Ruins debut album is going to be released as planned. Please look forward to it.

MBM: What are your plans for 2013?

NS: We’d like to do a foreign tour that we’ve been planning on after releasing the album. And I’ll work on materials for Cold Name when I’ve got time, and hopefully have a physical release. I also have a plan of doing a remix, so I’ll announce about that later on. Cold Name will be something I’ll do with my own pace, to express anything that I want.

New Cold Name (Nobuyuki Sakuma Of Jesse Ruins): “She’s Filled With Secrets”

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The music Jesse Ruins – and, to some extent, every act associated with Tokyo’s CUZ ME PAIN label – has always been vaguely unsettling, but that trio’s songs also always added a glimpse of light to the shadowy sounds, whether it just be a dance beat or a particularly pretty vocal. Jesse Ruins’ head Nobuyuki Sakuma’s new solo project Cold Name – he originally posted an industrial-leaning mix a few weeks ago – has just posted his first song under that moniker, and it is among the most directly creepy he’s ever recorded. “She’s Filled With Secrets” is more skeletal than anything Jesse Ruins has released as of late, nothing more than a beat and some whispy synth. And some samples, taken from the (still popular with Japanese musicians!) David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. The best part, though, comes late, when Cold Name introduces a piano to the mix, which manages to be both lovely but still tingle-inducing. Listen below.

Hotel Mexico, Jesse Ruins And Sapphire Slows Team Up For “Yubiwa”

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So this is sort of a big deal – three of the heaviest hitters in Japanese indie music today (which is to say, they are all signed to international labels of some sort) have collaborated on a song called “Yubiwa,” which is basically The Avengers of shadowy sounds from Japan. The players: Kyoto’s Hotel Mexico (on Double Denim), Tokyo’s Jesse Ruins (of CUZ ME PAIN and Captured Tracks) and Sapphire Slows (Not Not Fun). The obvious fear going into a track like “Yubiwa” is that too many home-recording artists could spoil the song, what makes each of these acts stand out would end up lost in an effort to democratize everything. Impressively, that doesn’t happen on “Yubiwa” – each artist stands out, their skills combining just right to make a pretty exceptional song. Hotel Mexico brings the most obvious style, as “Yubiwa” features real guitar and drums, sounds rarely floating around in the ethers Sapphire Slows and Jesse Ruins create. Slows’ voice haunts the back of the song, and she also contributes the same ambient touch that makes her swirling songs so compelling – they are mysterious yet inviting at the same time. Jesse Ruins, meanwhile, bring the dreamy electronics to “Yubiwa,” their synths grazing the song, adding a touch of out-body-experience to the track. It’s a fantastic song, one summing up what each of these artists has done so well over the past two-and-a-half years. Listen below.

You can here remixes the groups did of each others songs here.

Self-Promotion Plus: Writing About Pictureplane For The Japan Times

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This weekend, American dance-punk artist Pictureplane will play two Japanese shows this weekend, one in Tokyo on April 6 and one in Osaka on April 8. In advance of that, I wrote about Pictureplane for The Japan Times today. You can read that here.

The shows themselves look to be really good too. The Tokyo show, at Seco Bar, also features CUZ ME PAIN acts Jesse Ruins (who just released a heavyweight remix) and Faron Square who will be playing new material. The Osaka show, at Nuooh, includes Hotel Mexico and Seiho on the undercard.

Jesse Ruins Remixes Teen Daze: “The Future”

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It’s not uncalled for a musician to show why they are good, why they matter, via a remix. Most of the time, though, the remix serves a purely marketable function – it keeps the wheels of the hype machine rolling while allowing two artists to stay relevant in a media sphere prone to tossing acts off the radar week to week. The majority of remixes offer a chance for one performer to make another performer’s song sound a little bit more like what they sound like. Jesse Ruins’ remix of Teen Daze’s “The Future” isn’t like that, but rather a stellar reworking that shows why Jesse Ruins has become one of the more notable indie acts out of Japan this year.

The original version of “The Future” sounds pleasant for three minutes and tiring at five. Teen Daze commit a mistake many “chillwave”-esque bands are prone to, which is the idea that a song just needs to be the aural equivalent of one sound for several minutes. This in itself isn’t a bad idea – Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around” and Neon Indian’s “Should Have Taken Acid With You” do the same thing – but when stretched out too long, it becomes less a blissed-out experience and more a showcase of not many ideas. “Feel It All Around” lasted just over three minutes, while “Acid” ended after two minutes and twenty seconds.

Jesse Ruins elevates “The Future” into something else entirely by introducing tension into the song. Playing with conflicts has been a consistent characteristic of the duo’s work over the past year, beauty rubbing against ugliness (the vocals) and light vs. dark (the other sounds). The original version feels like staring at a picture of the Bahamas for five minutes and only internally going “pretty!” The remix, much like thinking about the actual future, mixes moments of prettiness with a nagging dread, conveyed through off-color twinkles and what sounds like a dentist’s drill. “The Future” ends up being one of Jesse Ruins’ best tunes because it highlights everything good about the group in just under five minutes (a five minutes that never lag, by the way), while also giving them a direct point of comparison (the original), which they outclass completely. Listen below, or here if it won’t open.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/41421049″ iframe=”true” /]

Thanks to Beats Per Minute for sharing this first.