Today we are going to present a fresh interview with
Krita Yuga, one of the first artists we discovered during our survey of the web. He’s a young and talented man who initially wanted to be a Manga drawer. Then he succeeded in finding a really personal “artistic path”… and he found it in music. So please, open
Yuga's myspace page and listen to his music while reading the interview!
Hi Yuga! First of all, let’s try to break the ice! Psychology says that childhood is the period during which we lay the foundations of what we’ll become in the future. So let us know something about you as a child, about school... in short, about what was the young Yuga’s conception of the world.
When I was a little child, the first thing I was obsessed with was death. I asked adult people around me what death is and what would happen when we die, but no one could really answer this question since they'd never died. I read a lot of religious and spiritual books but what I found in those books were basically some kind of dogmas - you know, "I know you don't know, believe it, otherwise you go to hell," that sort of craps - and I thought or rather felt that they got little to do with the truth, or I couldn't tell whether they were actually right or wrong unless I had some relevant spiritual experiences. I couldn’t get rid of this obsession until I experienced some kind of inexplicably transcendental experience in Varanasi in India. Since then, I've never been bothered with this kind of things. Now looking back, I think this is something you should worry about when you get old so as to prepare to die. For good or bad, I did it early in life by giving up every desire I had including my desire to know the answer to the question, which had been obsessing me ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, and I'm now trying to adhere to the world as stickily as I can, desperately looking for something that can make me covetous. Ironically, no sooner had I given up finding the answer to the question than I got the answer. The answer I eventually found to this persistent question, when both myself and my world were crumbling into Shunya or Emptiness, at the absolute edge of existence, was - WHATEVER. Frankly, I have to admit that I looked very like an idiot.
For instance, I spent my adolescence watching Japanese cartoons like “UFO robot Grendizer”, “Mazinger Z” and “Steel Jeeg”. Therefore, when I began searching the web in order to find some good artists, it came naturally to me to start by surveying Japan. So I would like to know what kind of relationship you had with the West. Did Eurpean or American culture influence you? And, if it is so, in what way? Have you ever felt a “preferential attraction” to a particular state, as I felt it towards Japan?
Yeah, as far as music is concerned, I've been more attracted by English music than Japanese music in general. I think this attraction motivated me to study English. When I started writing songs, I couldn’t imagine giving Japanese lyrics to my melodies, so I naturally wanted to be able to write decent English lyrics for my songs. I now also enjoy writing Japanese lyrics though.
Your biography mentions your travels, your wanderings around Asia, where you discovered the sitar. Would you like to tell us something in particular about these experiences?
Honestly, I didn’t plan to learn sitar when I got to India, I just wanted to wander about. Back then, I lost my confidence in my musical abilities, didn’t play any instruments, and didn't write any songs. But the longer I was away from music, the greater my desire for music became, and I found, anyway, I need to create music whether or not I am actually talented. So I thought it would probably be pretty nice to resume my musical activities by learning a new instrument.
Well, if I should tell you something particular about sitar, there’s a good story. Several months after I started to learn sitar, I was in seek of a good sounding sitar. So I visited almost every instrument shop in Varanasi and auditioned dozens of sitars. But I noticed that the best sounding sitar I had ever played was my teacher’s sitar that he let his students use during lessons. This sitar sounded much better than any other sitars I had ever played and heard. It was very old, according to my teacher, this sitar was crafted by Kartarchand in late 50's, but it didn’t have much decorations and a bit harder to play compared to newer ones.
I really wanted this sitar so much that I somehow persuaded him to sell it. I was so happy that I named the sitar Amateras after the Japanese goddess Amaterasu who is the goddess of the sun and the queen of the Shinto pantheon, and bought a fairly expensive silk shawl for her. Next morning, I woke up at dawn. It was a very misty morning. When I went outside, I saw a couple of peacocks flying into the garden and dancing face to face. This sight was very unreal or surreal, I don’t know which adjective is more suitable to describe it, but I was definitely impressed.
Later on, my next-door Italian hippy neighbour dropped by and told me that that day was Makar Sankranti which is a Hindu celebration day for the sun.
When listening to your music, one can perceive the idea of travelling. But going deeper into it, one can feel something more “underground” and intimate, as if the real journey had been for you a way to awake your soul and let it come to the surface.
Well, I hope so. If my music isn’t superficial and has flesh and bones, listeners should be able to go deeper. I think we can connect with each other via music not only sonically but also spiritually, and probably we also can share our experiences through music with the aid of empathy.
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n your songs I can hear different approaches and moods. For example, “Invisible walls” is delicate and lysergic while “The exiled” is an obsessive and rhythmic chain that finally becomes angry and noisy. Different moods, different feelings and emotions, different sounds... How do you build up your music? From where do you draw inspiration? And what are your actual emotions? What a difficult question... ;-)
Well, it depends. "Invisible Walls” is based on my own experience. This will be a long story and I don’t know exactly where I should begin with… I determined to move to London after I spent several months in Amsterdam. As I was very fond of British rock music since I was a kid, I wanted to stay in the UK as long as I could. Some friends of mine advised me to buy a return ticket and pretend to be a tourist who would just stay in there for a couple of days for sightseeing. But my experiences in India changed me, I thought that was a bad idea, an ugly karma, or whatever you name it, I thought I should live as honestly as possible. It may sound crazy but I bought a one-way bus ticket to London and told the immigration officer that I wanted to stay in the UK as long as possible but I didn’t want to stay illegally. As a natural consequent, the officer had to refuse me. I know he just did his job. At the end of the day, honesty wasn't the best policy in England on that day. Anyway, it was indeed a very sad experience for me.
After spending a couple of months in Norway, I tried to move to Ireland and the same shit happened again. According to the Irish immigration officers, who determined to deport me to Norway, they have a treaty with the United Kingdom that prohibits those who have been refused to enter the UK to enter Ireland, and I had to stay at a cell in their police station and was kicked back to Norway again.
Then, I decided to move to New York via Reykjavik so I bought a flight ticked that makes a stopover in Reykjavik. I arrived at the airport in Iceland and I had to enter the country once. And then, you know, that shit happened again. A woman at the immigration didn't believe that I had a real passport somehow, and seemed to have concluded that the picture on my passport was of someone else. But I don't know exactly what was going on in her brain, I demanded but she explained nothing. Maybe the stamp of refusal that the British government kindly gave me worked adversely. Then, a beefy police man came by and told me that he had to bring me to a jail. I naturally refused it and demanded them to explain what was wrong and why I had to be jailed without violating any local or international laws. The police man suddenly handcuffed me forcefully and it caused me immense physical pain, since I am rather anatomically inflexible, that posture caused terrible agony. But there was at least one good thing happened at that airport at that time, my right shoulder joint became more flexible than ever thanks to his forceful handcuffing. So I call this experience "Icelandic chiropractic." I was taken to an isolated small prison, and they confiscated things like a belt so that I couldn't kill myself in this cold little cell. Next day, I was deported to Norway again, Norwegian people and the government always welcomed me, I love Norway. An Icelandic police man who escorted me to Norway was actually a nice guy, he sympathized me and encouraged me to make an official complaint. Also a Norwegian immigration officer told me what Icelandic Immigration did to me might infringe the international law since I had a ticket to New York and they didn't have a right to confiscate that ticket. He also advised me to officially complain about it, and I was furious you know. So I went to the Icelandic embassy in Oslo and found myself gobsmacked at the attaché who just told me "I don't know, I wasn't there!" no matter what I said to him. I had to realize that there was no use discussing it with him. So I went to the Japanese embassy in Oslo. They told me I should write and submit a report and they would officially request an explanation on this issue.
I suck at keeping negative emotions such as anger and hatred. So as time goes by, I was beginning to wonder what the hell I was so furious about. I was ashamed of my immaturity that I was driven by anger. Well, I think it is sometimes necessary to pretend as if I'm angry. But I believe I should be able to control my emotions, especially negative ones, and should never be driven by such emotions. I determined to blame it on my own karma and forgive them, and I went off to the arctic zone to see auroras.
So in my world, there are Invisible Walls along the Greenwich Meridian that always beat me off if I try to go beyond them. Also I have a tendency to escape from the real world to fantasies and games. You know when you play a role playing game like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, you cannot enter some specific areas in the game unless you achieve something, killing a dragon or finding a key or whatever, you know, things like that. This experience reminded me of this sort of limitation, and I mulled over what I need to achieve to be able to go beyond these Invisible Walls. I kind of concluded I should believe my higher self is actually playing a game in the higher dimension so this reality is the game that he plays and I live in that game as his avatar. So I think I should grow and make progress in this real world rather than spending time to grow my characters in other artificial worlds, and I'll probably be able to go beyond the walls when I truly love this world as much as I love myself.
As for "the Exiled", I was basically inspired by Japanese myth. Explanation of this song involves my interpretation of Japanese myth and description of some part of my own belief system, and will be extremely long and probably boring for people who are not interested in these things, so I encourage such people to skip to the next question. But I think it's a good opportunity for me to try to describe what the heck is going on in my mind which I myself don't know clearly, since they have vaguely and abstractly existed in the right side of my cerebrum and I've never tried to express it verbally. So let me try.
First of all, since this song is based on Japanese mythology, I have to explain my own interpretation of Japanese mythology, which might differ from the standard interpretation, and philosophy used to construe it. The myth says that, in the beginning of the world, there were three gods, namely, Ameno-Minakanonushi, Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi. Minakanonushi is the subject, the observer who creates and maintains the world by perceiving duality that constitutes the world, can be replaced with the word Atman defined in Indian philosophy. Takamimusubi and Kamimusibi together create duality that the subject, Minakanonushi, needs to perceive to exist, high and low, light and darkness, hotness and coldness, bigness and smallness, the future and the past, and so on. You cannot be located at the extreme edge of the world, you always have to be surrounded by things, there are always things above and below you, to the left and right of you, and in front of and behind you wherever you are. You cannot be located at the absolute edge on the time axis either, you need the past and the future to exist now. These things which make up duality are Takamimusubi and Kamimusubi. In other words, I can say that Brahman in Indian philosophy is divided into these two conceptual gods. Minakanonushi is the ego that perceives the world right here and right now. And in Shinto religion, every individual is actually Minakanonushi of his or her own world to some extent, that is why mirrors are placed in every shrine. This world creation story is completely different from that explained by the modern physics, this is the story of awakening of an ego. Your world was created when your ego awoke.
So this is a baby born as a result of marriage between Shinto mythology and Yuishiki or Vijñapti-Mātratā (consciousness-only) philosophy of Buddhism. Still I want to clothe her with miko (Shinto priestess) costumes though, since Shinto originates from nature worship and animism, which fact can give it a cutting edge in the coming planetary age, and also, there is no such concept as heresy in Shinto religion, one can worship whatever he or she finds spiritually valuable and can make up his or her own original interpretation and belief system within the religion.
I wouldn't deny the way in which most people perceive the world, the way the modern science provides us with. In fact, to some extent, I'm inevitably under the influence of the modern scientific perception of the world, in which the world exists anyway whether or not you perceive it and you just occupy specific coordinates in absolute and concrete time-and-space without having your own centricity. I believe artists with originality, artists with their own worlds, have a consciousness-only-ish way of perceiving the world to some degree, whether or not they are aware of it, that is why they can have their own worlds. You know, you can never have your own world if you don't believe that you exist at the center of the world. It takes spiritual energy to put this "consciousness-only" perception across physical reality; otherwise it is nothing but a purely conceptual idea useful for thinking but ineffective in the material world. I think I have my own world, a fairly detailed world backed up with a philosophy, but don't have spiritual energy sufficient to make it compelling. So I'm looking for my shakti and divulging my secrets to this extent in hope that she can see that I'm me.
OK, I have to give you further explanation on Japanese mythology. There are Three Special Gods (Mihashira-no-Uzunomiko), namely, Amaterasu (the deity of the sun), Tsukuyomi (the deity of the moon) and Susano'o (the deity of the sea and storm). They were born when the first male god Izanagi did Misogi (shintoic lustration). Firstly the sun goddess Amaterasu was born from his left eye, then, Tsukuyomi was born from his right eye, and finally, Susano'o was born from his nose.
Izanagi commanded Susano'o to govern the sea. But he rejected the order and said that he wants to meet his mother (Izanami), and stayed in Heaven (Takamanohara). Susano'o offended Amaterasu in some unforgivable ways and that caused her to shut herself into the Heavenly Cave (Amenoiwato). Since Amaterasu is the goddess of the sun, the world was plunged into darkness and everything began to wither and die. Susano'o was exiled from Heaven for this reason, and descended to the surface of this planet, to be precise, Izumo (present eastern Shimane prefecture). So, yes, this song, "the Exiled" is about Susano'o and I wrote this song, empathizing with and being inspired by him. He was an unruly bear in heaven but, in Izumo, he seemed to have done a flip-hop and became a hero. He saved a girl (Kushinada-hime) from Yamata-no-Orochi (8-headed Python) and married her, wrote the first waka (Japanese traditional poem), and ruled his country. Thereafter he went off to the underworld and became the king there.
Remember the nose is located between the eyes, and thus Susano'o is actually Ameno-Minakanonushi, the ego who is perceiving the world at the center of his universe, and is always surrounded by dualities. By the way, the planet where we live is the Earth, and despite the meaning and the derivation of its name, it is actually the one and only aquatic planet in our solar system and no other aquatic planets have been discovered by mankind so far (which fact shows, at this stage, the human race has no interplanetary common sense at all as far as naming of planets is concerned). In other words, the Earth is the only planet that has seas where Susano'o is supposed to govern. I see the stories of his exile from heaven and activities on and under the surface of the planet as processes, in which he governs or rather assimilates himself with the planet Earth (again I have to use this as a proper noun indicating this aquatic planet as there is no other word available), and I strongly believe that there must be a sequel to the myth where Susano'o returns to Heaven as the ruler of the Earth or as the planet Earth itself, this is the story of the completion of globalization and the begging of the planetary age, Dimensional Ascension of the Earth in which mankind is inextricably involved, and it should take place in our time. I know many decent people are opposed to globalization, but globalization is inevitable and globalization itself isn't a bad thing. The problem with the currently ongoing globalization is that it is mostly economical. What I meant by "the completion of globalization" is that the human society is globalized not only economically but also legally, administratively, politically, mentally and spiritually, so that the same environmental and human right protection laws are enforced globally without loopholes and people regard the Earth as their home instead of the world as a result of mental globalization. When Susano'o returns to Heaven, we also return to Heaven while being living on the Earth, since the Earth itself returns to heaven as a celestial being – no man will call the surface of the earth the world and everybody calls it home at that stage, and the Sun (Amaterasu) and the moon (Tsukuyomi) will become the incarnations of Takamimusubi (higher part of the duality) and Kamimusubi (lower part of the duality) respectively. Until then, in this conventional world, the sky is Takamimusubi and the ground is Kamimusubi. I'm sick of being forced to exist at this pre-planetary stage, but that is the reality I have to accept. I basically have nothing to do on this stage, so I really appreciate your existence if you understand what the hell I'm talking about here, as you're the proof that we're moving to the next stage. So this song is actually about Dimensional Ascension depicted from the shintoic perspective.
When I experienced that inexplicable experience in Varanasi, I was forced to give up everything I had, including my desire to maintain my own ego. I instinctively felt that my mind and spirit would be shattered if I didn't obey this compelling force. When I gave up every desire I had, I saw something, that was supposedly the Earth but it wasn't the beautiful blue planet I knew, it was like a rough monochrome image of Earth's spinal cord drawn on a good old 8-bit Atari or maybe a rough sketch of the basic concepts of the Earth drawn by well… somebody up there. I still don't understand exactly what it was, but I saw something like that, something utterly inexplicable but somehow I'm struggling to explain now. At that very moment, I was inseparably stuck to it, I was filled with 'that something' and I involuntarily said "Oh this is too tiny, this can never accommodate me," and 'that something' spilled out of me like a flood, and I fainted away. It took years for me to digest this experience, which at last emerges in the form of English language text now, but I'm not very sure if I should really try to explain it. Anyway, what I talked here is based on this experience, not only on thinking.
Let’s deal with something else. Is the Japanese musical scene a stimulating world or not?
There are some great Japanese artists who stimulate me but I'm also stimulated by artists from other countries. Honestly, I generally prefer old kayokokus (Japanese popular music in 70's and 80's) over the current J-pop. I think kayokyokus tended to have more impressive melodies and more intriguing lyrics. Anyway, the answer may be yes, but I think the current scene isn't that great as a whole.
Could it be worthwhile, for an European indie and unknown musician, to go to Japan? In other words, is Japan, in your opinion, a place where one can easily express his talent and follow his passion?
I think, for any European, not necessarily a musician, it is worthwhile to go to Japan to experience different culture. But if he wants to establish a basis for his musical activities, Europe is the best region for unknown European musicians indeed, unless there is a specifically big demand for his music in Japan. They can live and work legally in any EU-member state and welfare is usually better in Europe.
Do you go around with other musicians? Or are you a “solitary man”?
By nature I'm not gregarious or outgoing. I realize this isn't a very nice thing though.
What’s your relationship with everyday life, or with people of your same age, some of which maybe are now PC programmers or Manga drawers?
Relationship with every day life? Just normal, perhaps living a bit slower and sleeping a tad longer. I don't care about the age of my acquaintances very much and, unfortunately, I currently have no friends who are PC programmers or Manga creators.
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s there any specific direction that you think you’ll move towards in the future? (even if it’s not sure that a precise direction to move towards must necessarily exist...)
I have an idea, but maybe it’s wrong...
I don't understand what you exactly meant by the word "direction." If you're asking about a musical direction, I want to finish the album that I'm currently working on by the end of this year. This album will be done in my current style that you can listen to on my myspace page. I also want to create more conventional and normal songs as a songwriter, you know nothing innovative but "simply good songs," and I also want to create a more aggressive rock album and a melodic instrumental album some day.
And now, let your thoughts flow freely! Indeed, I consider it right to let you conclude this strange interview. Do it your way...
I already spoke too much, nothing more to say… I Just want to thank you for your interest in my music.
What I can say is: thank you for your kindness, Yuga... and keep in touch!
Carlo Trevisan