'H' Magazine April 2001 - 30 Mins Night Flight Interview

Hello everyone, I've gone back to my home town for the weekend where there's a stack of old magazines I collected on my year abroad when 30 Minutes Night Flight came out. Was flicking through and decided to translate one of them. It's a really, really nice look at the album concept. To be honest, I listened to the album while translating (on a loop, then switched to the best of David Bowie) and it changed the way I feel about the album. Really worth having another listen while reading Frecklegirl's lyric translations after this interview.

Also, I had a little giggle at Maaya saying something profound then the interviewer being like, 'Wow...so anyway, so have you been anywhere on holiday?' Time limit much?

'H' Magazine vol.94 April 2007 - 30 Minutes Night Flight Interview
Original interview by Tomoki Takahashi

It's a sleepless night when suddenly a toy plane flies right past your eyes. Before you’ve had a chance to realise what’s happening, you’re sitting in its cockpit and a great journey over the borders of cities and countries is spreading out before you...That is the concept created by Maaya Sakamoto for her new album 30 Minutes Night Flight.

As the name suggests, this enthusiastic piece of work takes off on the wings of the imagination, opening a treasure chest of different ‘encounters’ in the space of 30 minutes. I sat down for a chat with this multi-talented artist, who is not only a musician, but also a voice-actor/stage star/writer, on the theme of ‘journeys’ and ‘encounters’.

Interviewer (I): An evocative solo voyage at night...it's an album that makes the listener feel like they've been let in on a secret when they've finished listening to it.

Maaya (M): It does, doesn’t it? For this album ‘journey’ was a key word. I really like travelling, so...I think it’s really interesting how there’s always something different about the setting off and the coming back home aspect of it. You can see your everyday self very clearly when you travel a long distance, can't you?

So, for this period of 30 minutes you’re on a journey. You're asking yourself ‘is it a dream? Is it reality?’, seeing all these different things, all these other people living all these different lives, and then finally you come to have this bird’s eye view of the Earth from space before returning back to the everyday...and even though you’re back in that very same room, you can feel something has changed. I wanted to make an album that felt like that.

I: So in this imaginary world, is a ‘night-time flight’ something you do often?

M: I think it’s different depending on the individual, but we all experience those fleeting moments where our thoughts disappear off somewhere, don’t we? To the point that even while we’re having this conversation, I’ll suddenly be like, ‘huh? Ah, I was somewhere else for a moment there’ (laugh).

I: Ha, ha, ha.

M: I think everyone has that kind of ‘switch’ in them. I think it’s the source of our energy, something humans have evolved with. Sort of like someone looking up at the sky and thinking, ‘I wish I could fly...I wonder how birds fly...’ Then from that pushing themselves to someday creating a plane (laugh).

That ‘something else’. Our world is constructed by things like the weather, distinct smells, what other people say to us, and it’s these things that get our imaginations going: if only I could do that, it would be nice if this was like that etc. I think it’s a wonderful gift that people have.

I: I also think in this album each ‘everyday’ and the bigger picture - like the contrast between Earth and space - is painted very vividly.

M: Another thing I wanted to do with this album was to...take that really personal world that we see with our own eyes, that radius of however many metres around us, to a larger existence that doesn’t really touch on our consciousness in everyday life.

For example, let’s say we’re talking about space. Even though we know it ‘exists’ out there, we don’t think about it at all as we go about our daily lives. I mean, that’s fine. But it's those times when you’re imprisoned by your own emotions, those sleepless nights when you feel completely desolate, or when you can’t sleep because something really good has happened, that suddenly there is a moment when you feel like you are connected to something greater, something you don’t even contemplate normally. I thought it would be nice if I could help listeners experience something like that...or rather, if even I could feel like that.

That’s why in a single song like ‘Universe’, for example, the verse starts out in a small world but then the chorus is like moving the camera out to a bird’s eye view. Think of it like a plane flying at low altitude then gradually ascending up and up. The camera gently takes off then zooms in on the lives of different people on the ground below...I thought it would be good to write using those kind of dynamics.

I: So although making this album was like meeting lots of different people, it was really a piece of self-examination.

M: That’s right...basically, everybody has different problems and feelings, right? Even when we look up at the same night sky while deep in thought, what you see is completely different to what the person next to you is seeing, isn’t it? The colour of the sky changes depending on your own feelings, but then if you try to share that feeling in words, to explain it as ‘for me, it’s like this’ to someone else, does the other person really understand? I guess we’ll never know that for sure.

We are living things which live embracing solitude, never truly understanding another person’s feelings. Though I feel like that is an incredibly lonely way to see it, despite all our feelings being different, we’re all looking up at the same sky...I think that’s something really precious.

I: I see. By the way, is there somewhere that you like travelling to in real life?

M: I do like travelling in Japan but the nerves I get when travelling abroad...to a place I have no knowledge of, where I have no sense of the land, when I’m walking alone in a place where I have to work hard to make myself understood. I feel a little like it awakens my whole body, sharpening senses I don’t usually use. It feels pretty good, you know? It feels like a part of me that was asleep has woken up...if it’s just a short trip you can only see as much of the good things as you can and buy souvenirs. But I think on a long journey you don’t just see the good things, there are also times when you want to go home.

I: Definitely.

M: I’ve done home stays since becoming an adult. And I did think this at the time but...not staying in a hotel, having your room cleaned every day, or leaving a tip on the bed; but by eating together with someone at the table, washing dishes, you really have a chance to learn about the values of that place. You can also have a conversation, can’t you? You’re constantly questioned, like ‘what is your job?’, or ‘what is your personality?’ The answers don’t just pop out easily (laugh) Usually, I work surrounded by people who know me, but even so, sometimes I stop comprehending exactly what I’m doing, or start wondering whether I’m only going along with what others think I should be doing. It’s a chance that you don’t usually get to encounter in everyday life, and I thought it was a really good experience.

That’s why I’ve had a dream for quite a while of going somewhere far away and staying there for a long time span...really, if it was just a question of how I feel, I would always be setting off on a trip somewhere (laugh).

END