A new interview is up now for the Japanese online website, Cold Experiment. This interview was conducted somewhat recently and covers a lot of topics, including a lot of things relating to the music and the creative process as well as films, directors, architecture and top five records (well, at least the first top five records that came to mind at the time).
Thanks to Takuya at Cold Experiment for the opportunity and Nao Katafuchi for the translation, as well as friends, labelmates and fellow musicians mentioned in the interview. You can read it in both English and in Japanese.
Thank you for accepting the interview this time and congratulations on the release of the new album and the start of the label. First of all, please tell us the concept of Soft Riot and your career so far.
And thanks for talking to me! The concept for Soft Riot has shifted over the years. It officially started back in early 2011 but I had been messing around with it casually for years before that. It was something I experimented with on the side while I was playing in other bands. I moved to the UK from Vancouver (Canada) in late 2007 and a few years later I started reviewing all the little sketches I had been creating over the years and focused my attention to getting them into some form of a release. This resulted in the original “No Longer Stranger” EP which was a digital-only release in early 2011 (later re-released as an LP in 2013).
The original concept worked with a more cinematic, minimal electronic sound — very much on an atmospheric dystopian sci-fi slant. I had a particular sound I was going for, down to how I inflected my voice for the project — making it like a hushed narrator observing things going on in the world.