Yukimi

Yes, I still live there.

I’ve lived there almost all my life. I lived in Japan and the States also when I was small. I’ve travelled so much with the band through all these years — sometimes I felt like I was constantly on the road, so I don’t have the urge to move to a big city or anything like that. I have my family there, my recording studio. Sometimes I'm almost afraid that if I lived in New York now, I'd be so busy watching everybody be creative that I wouldn't be creative myself. So I like the peace and quiet of Gothenburg. It's a small city but it's home. It works very well.

I toured and did backup vocals and percussion for José González for a few years before releasing the Little Dragon debut. Gothenburg is a small city, so it’s easy to bump into other artists and bands. Everyone kind of knows each other, but I have definitely been a bit locked in to my studio bubble.

There are definitely some similarities. In some ways, not with the food. We have something in Sweden called jamte. It's like, don't talk so big about yourself. In Japan, it's very much like that too. It's ugly to brag. It’s interesting, because I'm half American also. 

Funnily enough, I was asked if maybe I would go to Tokyo this year. It came up. But before that, I haven't been in a very long time. It's been a while.

Maybe I'm the perfect balance (laughs). As we mentioned, Swedish and Japanese cultures share similarities — people can be quite reserved in a way. You can't see every part of people easily. It's not like when you go to Latin America for the first time and you feel the music and the warmth. Swedish and Japanese cultures I think are more closed in a way. That doesn’t imply bad connotations, but maybe, it takes one extra step to get to know people.
I think once you have friends in Sweden, they'll be your friends for a long time. If you, for example, visit California, you’ll probably get friends fast and maybe they'll be gone fast as well. It's that type of loyalty that you have here and in Japan, I think.

I think it was a very unanimous feeling throughout everybody in the band that we'd worked so long together and compromised so much. It's been a beautiful process. It was just in the air, it’s hard to put into words, but we all realised that it was time to explore new ventures — it felt right, like a very instinctive feeling. Things aren't always like I expected because I expected us to be a band forever and ever. We still share the studio, we're still friends and everything works well.

Exactly, everybody needs to express themselves fully and not have to consider. It's great sometimes after twenty years of considering each other. I thought, this time I'm going to do this my way and follow my own path.

A lot of things are simpler but others are more challenging, for sure. Press pictures are more challenging (laughs). It's hard to have four people love the same image. After seven albums, you go through that process a few times and that can be exhausting.

I like when things are raw and simple and not overworked. Sometimes that's been a compromise for me because someone else has an opinion and we have to work on it more and more. I feel that the vibe that was very raw can be gone. At the same time, I also learned that it becomes something else, it’s a process, which can also be a very valuable thing. Now doing a solo thing, I'm enjoying making that decision at the moment I feel like — okay, it’s done. I no longer have to consider external additions.

No, I'm not an instrumentalist. The album is produced by Eric, who plays the drums in Little Dragon, and co-produced three songs with Liane La Havas, who is a singer and writer artist. She's featured on one of the songs, but we also co-wrote a couple more.

There's Pos from De La Soul, who is rapping on one of the songs. There's also my father.

No, in English.

I see myself more like a producer in that sense, like a backseat driver saying ‘let's put this here and let's do this like that.’ I have some ideas, melodies, and lyrics. I write them and search for a specific type of sound. We have a conversation, and I allow others to suggest ideas, like whether a different string sound might work better. Sometimes, whatever comes to mind in the moment and just following your gut feeling. At the beginning of the process, I tend to not think much. Then, later in the process, I think more.

Very much. I think that you have to. In the beginning of a demo, I try to just give every idea a chance. I can start on a melody, a beat, or something else; sometimes we start from scratch. I don't analyse things until I have to decide if it's going to be on the album or how I'm going to finish it. If you become too judgmental early, you create walls for yourself. I don't want to be critical to think whether an early idea is good or not. Of course, I have a vision, but I don't give it so much power. I just want to try something and have fun and not be so worried about whether it is good enough.

I don't think any song was particularly complicated, but No Prince stands out because it's about self-love empowering yourself and embracing who you are, no matter what. There’s a line in that song that I had written for many other songs before, but those never made it onto an album. I was really happy that those two lines finally found a home in No Prince: “We are made of earth, same old dirt as the nors you hated.”
I write a lot of music and then choose which songs make it onto an album. In a way, that’s the real complexity of the process. But when a song flows naturally, it can also come together quite easily. In the big picture, it’s a lot of struggle (laughs).

I think that intuitive sense is very powerful. You realise that a song has something special and you want to see it through. But sometimes, along the way, that feeling fades or an idea doesn’t evolve into what you initially envisioned. And other times, a song you didn’t expect to stand out suddenly feels undeniable, like, of course, this one has to be on the album.

I'd say my album was finished by the end of 2023. I probably worked on it for a year. A lot of going back and forth but first, just accumulating a lot of ideas.

I've been a mother for nine years.

Absolutely. Very profoundly, I'd say. When my first son was born, I went through a bit of a dip. I wouldn’t call it depression, but for the first time I started questioning the point of music. I had never thought that way before. I questioned everything — what I was doing and why I was doing it. Why has music always been so important and why was it important for me to make music? It came as a really strong feeling. It took a while for me to find my way back into writing.

I brought my son with me on the road a lot, and it was not very rock and roll at all. It was really tough and nothing like I expected. I had a boy with so much energy — he would climb the walls. In my imagination, it would be cute and easy, just travelling along together. But it wasn’t; it was really hard. I think what it has done is probably really profoundly make me grow as a human and make me want to write about things that I feel matter. Nothing in my life has affected me as much as becoming a mother.

Like being born again. Right.

The sound of the album wasn’t planned at all. I come from such a rich blend of genres, just like having an American mother and a Japanese father while being born in Sweden. Of course, Erik Bodin, the producer, played a significant role in shaping the sound as well. I'm drawn to the psychedellic side of music, but I also have a soft spot for sweet, soulful love songs and those gentle, melodic sounds. For me, it was natural to combine the two.

We met on Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach tour, and we've known each other ever since. Little Dragon was on De La Soul's album as a feature. I couldn't think of anyone else to be more perfect for that song than him. And even now, when I listen to his part, it always makes me tear up. It's deeply personal. I think he just wrote something beautiful. I'm so proud and happy to have him be part of the song.

Pretty much like that. We  just got a call and were asked to work with Damon for his new album. Of course we said yes. We went to London to meet the band. We toured with them for a good year.  We did a few tours where we did support, and I was on stage for one song with them.

Yes, it’s the second one. The video is directed by a Swedish director called Fredrik Egerstrand. He also directed Break Me Down, photographed my album cover, and took my press pictures. We've been friends for a long time, but we haven't worked this closely before. I really enjoy having him as part of the product — the visual aspect of this album. He also lives in Gothenburg, so it's very easy and practical.

We filmed it very recently. We wanted to be creative with the fact that Lianne La Havas, who is on the screen, was in Brazil and I was in the studio. We thought in an ideal world, she’d be in the same room and we could make a video. But since that wasn't the case, we just wanted to be creative with the visuals and TV monitors. The roses and backdrop, we just felt that that type of romantic look fitted the songs.

I thought it was interesting to ask my dad about it because he's very Japanese in some ways, but also a post-war child. I wanted to hear his thoughts. I haven't seen him cry much in my life, so I was curious about his perspective on crying and how he feels about it. He just started talking and went on a long rant — I recorded it. He had so much to say about it, and I was like, thank you, Dad.

We have a very good relationship. We're very close and we talk a lot about art – he’s an artist –, so it wasn’t difficult. I think I was just reflecting on how important and healing crying can be. Even on a societal level, different cultures have histories that haven't been worked through, things that haven't healed because no one has mourned them properly. It’s important not just on a personal level but also culturally, to acknowledge and process what has been buried or forgotten. So it became about both my relationship with him and the broader multicultural perspective.

He says that he's gotten older and it's important to cry. He's more sensitive to everything now. You should express yourself. Also, as a Japanese man, he's finding it important that you should scream, let it out. You should cry. You should shout. You should laugh. You should dance, not bury life down inside of you.

Kind of like in Sweden, maybe.

I have a few shows in Sweden and then I have a North American tour coming up in April. It starts on the East Coast and goes through to the West Coast. Three weeks in a row. I've done it before, but not on my own. I'm excited.

I've been very happy working with them. They’ve released good music for so long and I'm happy to be a part of that.

Nothing (laughs). No, I'm just kidding. They're good at all kinds of things. I guess everyone's doing the protocol of what a label does. But I feel that they like the music [I do]. That's really important, to feel deeply that they're passionate about it. And for me, to have a deal with a label, you have to feel that people — otherwise, what's the point?