While she may not be a household name – or even a physical entity – Hatsune Miku is a bona fide pop icon across many corners of the globe, the face of a new breed of entirely virtual performers – or ‘vocaloids’ – who use synthetic voices and live projections to bring a new type of pop music to the masses – even opening for the likes of Lady Gaga.

Part character, part vocal synthesiser, Hatsune Miku (literally translated as “the first sound from the future”) often shows up as a guest vocalist of sorts on other artists’ tracks – and one of those acts is Aussie producer Lewis Cancut who, during a trip to Japan, began a futuristic collaboration.

Wanting to find out more about what it’s like working with something – or someone – like Hatsune Miku, we’ve had a chat to Lewis about the process, and the various other Japanese influences behind his new record Inside Rainforest, out now on NLV Records.

You’ll be able to hear these tunes live as Lewis celebrates one year of NLV Records with a run of special shows featuring Swick, Airmax ’97, Strict Face and, of course, Nina Las vegas herself – all kicking off this Saturday at Brisbane’s TBC Club.

Lewis’ ear-bending collab with the world’s biggest virtual star, Hatsune Miku

What lead you to working with Hatsune Miku, the world’s biggest virtual pop star?

At RBMA Tokyo, (electronic music pioneer) Isao Tomita did a presentation of his life’s work, which more recently included a concert he’d put together for an orchestra to play along with a Hatsune Miku hologram. As a side note, he was really the first person to do electronic music in Japan during the 1960s and his work went on to influence the development of J-pop. If you get the chance, take a listen to his version of ‘Snowflakes Are Dancing’!

Anyway, that was the first time I’d heard Hatsune Miku, but it made total sense to me straight away. The idea of a superstar pop-icon, who anyone can program their songs into, is a kind of brilliant contradiction. Truly a robot for the people!

How does a collaboration like that work?

I took quite a long time for me to learn how to write music with Hatsune Miku. Her voice has its own strengths and limitations, like any singer. But like any music I produce, in the end it’s about writing lots and lots of material, then narrowing things down to what’s working well. Writing and arranging sounds that support and complement Hatsune Miku’s voice is crucial – but this just takes time to learn.

The biggest challenge for me was that I wanted the track to be more than a just gimmick – I wanted it to stand on its own feet as a piece of music. I might find the idea of writing music for a vocaloid pop icon interesting, but if you put that to one side, is the music still interesting itself? I hope so! I’d like to make a lot more music using Hatsune Miku in the future, so it can’t be just a trivial process.

Was a Japanese theme something you’d been keen to do?

For a while my brother lived in Japan, so I would go there quite a bit and stay on his couch, but it wasn’t until I went there for the 2014 RBMA Music Academy that I made any real connections with the music scene in Tokyo.

After that I was introduced to J-pop artist Tigarah and we started trading ideas for music online, which then became the starting point for the project. I don’t really think of it as a Japanese themed EP, but around that time I was really drawn to what was happening in J-club and J-pop music, and I think those sounds just filtered through in their own way.

YouTube VideoPlay

A full ‘live’ Hatsune Miku concert is definitely a sight to behold

What were the overriding influences on the sound for this one?

Spending time recording in Japan was obviously a big influence. Music is everywhere in Tokyo; even all the train stations have their own unique songs which play as the train arrives. Just walking around in shopping malls too, where there’s multiple songs playing at the same time and they all blend together in the space to make something new.

Also, more generally speaking, pop music artists with a DIY approach like Debbie Deb, Haroumi Honsono, Sophie Msmsmsm AG Cook, Yasutaka Nakata.

Any particularly memorable moments or stories from your time over there, or during the creation of the EP?

While we were shooting the video clip for ‘Dream Like’ in the train station, police would always come and ask us what we were doing and could we please move along. This was super embarrassing for me, as I hate creating any kind of disturbance while I’m outside Australia.

To make matters worse, our camera man would often want to argue with them – then Tigarah would have to come and smooth things out!

Are you interested in pushing into other hi-tech territories?

Yeah, for sure! I’m not interested in just turning on Ableton and opening a sample library. There’s so many options for making music now, it can actually be overwhelming at times. I hope people aren’t afraid to take risks, because you can do anything. Go and record a dog barking for 30 minutes and maybe that’s the start of something great.

But for the next project, I’ve been thinking more about making an interactive record, which maybe comes as a kind of app where people put all the sounds together however they like. Maybe! I’ll have to chew it over in my mind a little more!

NLV Records End of Year Parties

Buy tickets here

Sat 10 Dec – TBC Club, Brisbane QLD

Fri 16 Dec – Boney, Melbourne VIC

Sat 17 Dec – Chippendale Hotel, Sydney NSW

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