Get to know Esolagoto

First and foremost we want to congratulate you on your new album and tape release ‘Ephemeral’, for anyone who doesn’t know you yet, please introduce yourself in a few words.

Hello! I’m Esolagoto, a Japanese artist based in Tokyo, Japan.
Thank you! First of all, thanks to Beatsupply I was able to release my first lofi hip hop project & cassette tape, so I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude! I really appreciate it. Especially Dom, I can’t thank you enough for your kindness.

‘Ephemeral’ is an outstanding release that feels like one big field trip into your own sonic world. How do you go about working on bigger projects, do you follow a theme, set a concept or let yourself drift away and see where you end up?

I usually write songs as they spontaneously come to me, but I produced Ephemeral with the theme of “making lofi hip hop and lofi beats my own way”. Because I originally made ambient and electronica music, I consciously wanted to incorporate the timbre and texture that I cultivated at that time into these arrangements. Also, I tried not to mass-produce the same melodies, so I think that redundancy is minimized. Perhaps because of this it feels like being on a field trip.

Is Esolagoto your first music project / alias or did you produce under a different name in the past? While we are at it, does your name stand for something?

Yes, Esolagoto is my first project and I’ve been working under this name since 2016. Esolagoto means “picture sky” when written in kanji characters, but the word in Japanese means “fabrication”. When I started working as an artist, I was a good age from a societal point of view, so I graduated from a music vocational school that trains commercial writers but I never actually became a commercial writer. It was fitting to use the word Esolagato because it felt like a pipe dream that a person like me could work as an artist after that.

What, or who got you hooked on music production?

My uncle who passed away was a guitarist so I naturally came into contact with music from an early age. After a period of playing guitar, piano, and DJing I naturally wanted to make music and in turn became obsessed which led to now. Although they aren’t necessarily the reason I got hooked on music production, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Ametsub are the musicians who have been particularly influential to me. I was a little hesitant to name Ametsub, but I will mention him anyway because it is a fact.

How’s the beat & music scene in Japan like, especially in Tokyo? Do you have a favorite event, shop or club that you used to go to pre-covid? 

Before corona, I used to often go to clubs such as Womb, Circus, Vision, and Liquid Room in Shibuya whenever my favorite artists came. I also held an event with my friends at a juice bar called Juice Bar Rocket in Kitasenju. What I think about the music scene as a whole is that because making and distributing music is becoming cheaper than ever to do by yourself, individualistic styles of music will continue to increase. Also, it is becoming commonplace to be able to make videos, so I feel that people who have the eyes to find a niche based on these two points will remain. Regarding the Tokyo scene, even if there are good indie labels I think that there are few cases where they will maintain their activities after a few years. So I think it would be nice if good labels that are able to better compensate their artists continue to increase.

As a bunch of beat makers will read this article we can go into nerdy waters and talk about your favorite analogue gear, vst plugins or anything that you want to share. How do you create that special lagoto sauce? 

I own a Tascam Cassette MTR and a Boss Dr. Sample SP-303, but I didn’t use them for Ephemeral because the concept was to “reproduce lofi without using analog equipment”. As for plugins, other than Waves Aphex Aural Exciter and L3 Multimaximizer I only use the default Ableton 8 plugins. This time, I think that the most work I did was to send the low-passed track to the sendtrack with the overdrive inserted, and to use only the distortion as a resource for the texture and contouring of the high end. (This is something I haven’t tried before.)

Speaking of real sauce, what’s your go-to recipe when you cook at home?
Weirdly enough I feel like a lot of music people are also heavily into cooking, maybe because it’s quite similar to mixing a track but who knows.

Since corona I often make pasta. I especially like shrimp ragout tomato sauce and I make it well. Other than that I am challenging myself to do various things while watching YouTube. Certainly, it is similar to mixing because it is made by reverse calculating the order of adding ingredients and the adjustment of salt content according to the material lol

When you are not working on music, how does a regular day in your life look like?

I drink alcohol and watch movies.
I feed stray cats.
Recently, I run twice a week for a short time.
I meet up with my girlfriend.

What is the best advice you were given or that you can give to others, and lastly what do you want to be remembered for?

“Incorporating coolness + poison” is the best advice which I received from Ametsub.

What’s my advice? I guess it’s to “act before talking about ideals”.
It’s something that I can also tell to myself so it’s my favorite motto while producing.  I don’t think it’s something in my mind while producing, but I would be happy if listening to my song could evoke some kind of scene for the listener. It can be a scene from that person’s past, scenery they saw somewhere, or whatever. I hope it passes through your brain. I want you to see the sound.

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview.