Sienná - interview

Sienná is a music artist living permanently in Norway, but originally from Kyoto, Japan. We have conducted a short interview with him:

Why did you move from Kyoto to Norway permanently?

I´m still here in Norway after so many years, although it was really not meant to be permanent. I moved to Norway as a university student. My musical mentor and a great Norwegian artist, Abòn, has helped me out to kickstart my music career after I completed the master's degree in cultural science. That was how it was. My father has always told me that I needed to establish a solid livelihood besides anything else, which is quite understandable. So, I made a long detour to be where I am today as an artist, but I think that things happen as they should, and that I was probably not able to make my music without the detour or all the experiences in life so far. So all in all, I am a very happy person right now.

What inspires you in the kind of music you are creating?

My inspirations come from everywhere and nowhere. It can be a reflection of light and shadow on river, or it can simply be a delicious chocolate donut I ate yesterday. Most importantly, I am probably more inspired of being nostalgic about my hometown Kyoto and its local tradition and culture. The newest single "I know why" has some cultural traits from Kyoto soundwise. At the same time, it is about the melancholy and struggles that I went through during the last year. In a way, the songwriting process is often like an emotional journaling for me. I write it down, and go on with life. The song became untraditionally pop to be me. But I am happy with the result due to its sentimental value.

When is your band's upcoming single release? Why did your band choose to promote this upcoming single in UK instead of others parts of Europe?

The newest single will be released on 20th of October 2014. Basically we promote it to promote our UK tour starting from 23th of October 2014, and vice versa. At this moment, we are trying to be in high gear in the UK due to the fact that we will be able to support The Crazy World of Arthur Brown for the second time. We LOVE Arthur, and we genuinely respect and admire his works, his spirit and his personality. Also, most of the music promotion today is done and spread online. So it has more or less an international impact anyway, according to how I perceive it.

Is there any unique experiences you have personally encounter since you are originally from Japan and your band members are from Norway?

I am quite well adjusted to the Norwegian society (I guess), although I observe that my clock is running as twice as fast as my Norwegian colleagues´ inner clocks. Hallvard (Gaardlos) and Vegard (Bjerkan) are more relaxing attitudes towards the most. So it might be a twilight-zone experience for them from the peaceful Norwegian woods, working together with someone like me in the Tokyo subway´s rush hour. Otherwise, I guess we might be very different due to the educational background differences. They are educated musicians, and I am not. I perceive they approach to music somehow analytically while I act like an anarchist. Although, it is "yin-yang". I think we are actually very complementary.

How would you describe your music and which genre does your music belongs to? How long have you been making music and what kind of music would you like to explore in the near future?

Our catch-phrase is "East meets west in dreamy crossover electronica". Since I started to write my music since 2004, my signature sounds has somehow been dreamy and soothing whatever I wrote. After my debut EP in 2005, I found out that it was more natural for me to express myself through the Japanese traditional sounds I grew up with. So I combined it. With a huge help from Hallvard and Vegard, it became like a cup of Japanese matcha green tea with Norwegian latte, but with some weird additional ingredients. We are doing a cocktail experiment. If it sounds cool to us, it´s cool regardless of how strange it sounds. But basically, I would say our starting poing is electronic, avant-garde, Norwegian jazz and Japanese traditional. We would explore much more in the future, but you know only the time will tell. 

Thank you so much for the opportunity!