Name: Mayuko
Members: Michelle Cheung, Kasia Kadlubowska, Rebecca Mauch
Current release: Mayuko's Songs To Whistle When Strolling Along The Abyss is out via Sinnbus.
Recommendations: HENDRIK BEIKIRCH “Véra”; Wolfgang Borchert – Kurzgeschichten; The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

If you enjoyed this Mayuko interview and would like to know more about the band and their music, visit the trio's official homepage. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.  
 


Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

R: I think the impulse to create something is a very basic human need that is actually in all of us. I guess some people feel the urge to create more and others less, some people find their language earlier and others later.

I would also consider myself a “late bloomer”, since I found my main language music already as a child, but didn't really find the way to create something new. I studied classical music where you usually reproduce instead of coming up with something your own.

Luckily, at some point around my 30th birthday, I found that tap that had been turned off until then and suddenly I was able to create my own music. I would say that life and its finiteness were in fact the main forces that were driving me.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

M: There are never really any concrete ideas to begin with but sometimes there are very concrete subjects that I know a song must circle around. When writing lyrics, for example, sometimes they come first, and sometimes they come last. I might build a skeleton of a song first and it’ll inspire me to write the lyrics based on the sensation the sounds give.

I have a visual brain so sometimes I’ll have a single moving picture in my head, and I’ll begin deciphering which elements of the picture I want to focus on.

A little bit of everything is a good mix. I try to ration between intuition and happy coincidences.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

K: Preparation is happening in a different moment because creating is for me more and more about intuition.

But - to be able to express yourself precisely and freely, you need tools that you gain during other times. Sometimes based on many years, sometimes based on short research or subject the work took you to.  

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

B: For some reason I get into that mindset best when I feel at home, though that doesn't have to be exactly my own home. It can also be a place where I feel comfortable, at ease, with people that I feel good with etc.

Everything else is good to have but not obligatory (except maybe coffee).

What do you start with? And, to quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

K: We are a walking database of world impressions. Libraries of emotions that we learned and observed through life.

So you see - an idea is a complex concept. It is always in a way collage. A piece from here, a piece from there. Your artistic or cultural background, things that inspired you. Or things that disgust you.

So I would prefer to say I discovered the idea and let it flow through my eyes, hands, and instruments, and then I release it free to others to hopefully inspire or move them.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

B: For our song “white heat” for example, I had created the musical core idea. I had also at some point written some lyrics but I didn´t see the music and these lyrics together.

When Michelle was supposed to add vocals to the music, she nevertheless used these exact lyrics and it turned out wonderful. That's something I find really beautiful about working together as a band: Sometimes we are like midwives to each other's ideas.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

M: Good lyrics in my opinion are ones that are not too obvious but can still deliver a message to the listener. I like when there is room for interpretation so I generally try to keep them abstract.

My biggest ambition is to create poetic and captivating lyrics without sounding like nonsense.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

B: I can really enjoy letting the gut feeling take over.

I usually am a person that very much likes to be in control over everything and in other aspects of life I´m not very good at letting go. It gives me a feeling of freedom to do so in my art, at least in the first process of creating.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

M: My process includes a lot of trial and error. Sometimes I’ll be led in a new direction and I’ll pursue it, but it’ll feel too contrived. I’ll scrap it and try a new direction. Sometimes it’ll click and sometimes I’ll have to exit the project altogether and accept that the day is not a creative one.

I always save my ideas though, because you never know if they might make a comeback after revisiting with fresh ears. I think all artists have archives of unfinished works that they either hate, have hopeful potential, or are idling with cluelessness.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

B: I already thought about that in the first question, I think that has a lot to do with what's actually driving us to seek that kind of creative expression.

I visited a prehistoric cave with 30 000 year old paintings this summer for the first time and of course I had seen pictures of paintings like these, but yet it hits different to stand there in front of the actual wall and realize that members of the same species like us stood there once and painted there: maybe to just play around, because its fun, but also as a way to connect to something bigger, a kind of spiritual act.

This state of being in the flow, can give me a feeling of connectedness to the world and everything in it, that I often miss in real life. Though that state can not only be reached through creating, but also when performing live. I like the idea of a concert as a collective spiritual ritual like the rituals that these cavemen might have done so many years ago.

M: It’s indeed been an on-going goal of mine to have a spiritual approach in order to tap into my creative self. As much as I try to find a true state of channeling the flow of creativity, I go to what I know, and that is to use my logical brain to get the gears going. Sometimes it serves me and sometimes it’s a blockade.

I do believe though, there is a possibility to enter our spirits into divine states and pull forces from our universe to manifest creation.

When you're in the studio to record a piece, how important is the actual performance and the moment of performing the song still in an age where so much can be “done and fixed in post?“

B: The piece needs to keep its soul, that's all. When that is given, all post production is decoration.

It's like the decision whether to build a log cabin with that wood that you have there or a treehouse or a villa. The wood is still the same, it's the question of what you want and need in the end. (You have a huge family and some diamonds lying around? Go for the villa. I personally would always go for the cabin. But make it a very fancy one :D )

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

K: Time is a crucial element in life. Time is all we have. My songs like to grow, they like time, they like to take some air away from my mind.

They are ideas though that come ready in a day or within a week, but to finish a song and make the idea ripen it takes time - for me personally.

Even recording a solo song is usually a collaborative process. Tell me about the importance of trust between the participants, personal relationships between musicians and engineers and the freedom to perform and try things – rather than gear, technique or “chops” - for creating a great song.

K: Again - crucial, beautiful, and delicate subject. Trust is a keyword. And it is also very personal. Sometimes you have such a precise vision in your head - and then you need to know how to lead people who work with you on that vision through your mind.

This can be a very hard process even with very familiar musicians and producers. But once some trust and common interest in serving the song is on the same page, the rest is like a very slow work in a salt mine. You are just digging, and digging and digging until you get what you were looking for.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?  

M: Production is probably the most important step for me. If I have a sound and structure that is solid, it will help me make choices of what I want in the mixing and mastering stages.

Having a solid foundation to a piece is obviously essential. Composition is just as important as arrangement - if you have an insecure arrangement, you can compose and compose, but it might not necessarily make it better.

But if you have a strong arrangement, you have much more freedom to compose around everything as much as you want.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

K: Creation never left me in a state of emptiness until now. I am hungry to create. One idea leads to the other. What makes you empty is too much work. Living out of balance. All the music business and non-music related subjects.

Well If I am not inspired it is a clear sign that I need to disconnect. Nowadays, I think it is very easy. It is literally enough if you go offline for a few days. We are overloaded with impacts, so just letting a few days for a mind to process it ended in a creative process.

After a tour, you feel empty. You miss the buzz and your friends and the hero-like state of mind but this is a different kind of emptiness if you could keep your source vital.

Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or perhaps the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?

K: The beauty of this language, in an advanced state of speaking it, lies in the fact that it cannot be misunderstood.

It is just a beautiful mirror of states that can not be expressed in any other way.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

B: The transcendental aspect of music makes it a special way of expression for me. It builds a bridge into my subconscious and bring up topics, or emotions from there that I cannot reach otherwise.

Maybe once or twice in my life, I had food though, that was so incredible that I assume cooking was the same kind of transcendental act for the person who cooked it as making music can be for me.

M: Creating can spur similar feelings no matter what it is, but there is a uniqueness when you create a new project from scratch rather than something out of repetitive familiarity.

Sometimes music is another channel that can efficiently communicate without using words. Of course you can be extremely articulate but there is something incomparable about feelings and sensations without explanation. It can open up a whole inner world and evoke memories buried in our consciousness, for example.

Music is, in my opinion, the one universal language that no matter what level of education or awareness you have, you can always understand.