Japanese producer and dj Kaoru Inoue discusses organic music elements, releasing vinyls and adding colors to people’s daily life.

Kaoru Inoue, aka Chari Chari, played guitar in his punk band when he was a teenager, studied literature at university, and then became a music buyer for WAVE in Roppongi, one of the largest record retails in one of Tokyo’s biggest commercial districts. During this time, he frequently traveled to Indonesia to buy secondhand vinyls. Then in the mid 90′s, he committed himself to electronic dance music. He had already gained notoriety in Tokyo’s underground music scene as both a DJ and a producer, and started releasing tracks from Howie B’s label, PUSSYFOOT. His biggest hit, ‘Aurora’, was in 2002 and was recently featured on Deep & Sexy 2, where it was mixed and compiled by Ron Trent and released by Wave Music. ‘Aurora’ has also been supported by many DJs from around the world, such as Francois K., Danny Krivit, Joe Clausell, Jazzanova, and many more.
This summer, for the first time in five years, Kaoru will be releasing his new album, “Sacred Days”..

So you are now releasing new album after five years of silence. What took so long?
I’ve been working on different project, Aurola Acoustic, Fusik, Collaboration, CD Compilation, etc, I could not focus on my project but I have been working on other production.

Your Aurora Acoustic project delivers simple acoustic guitar instrumentals alongside the sounds of nature, which you recorded yourself at many locations throughout Japan, including a world heritage location in Okinawa. You’ve also created sound tracks for Yoga DVDs. Why do you think acoustic instrumentals and sounds from nature are so important for our highly digital society?
After all these years making music, I realized the harmony that music consist of is very organic. Reactively we have valuated inorganic factors because of the those fact and saw many people tried to control those organic nature with digital technology, and in fact the digitals created something very new incidentally or even mistakenly. Regardless of comparison of digital or analog, It’s obvious that Human nature have affinity for organic elements. I know because of those digitalis, we will revaluate the organic nature in music. I believe the important modern role of instrument sounds and note of nature is to intuit a concept of harmony to us.

In the last five years society has undergone dramatic ecological and social changes: Global warming & Economical crisis, IT revolution, etc. Has your music changed as well, and have any of these changes been influenced by these prominent social incidents?
Not in a dramatic way but those stuff influenced technologies and my consciousness, so it should have reflected to my music somehow.

Speaking of change, the music industry has also drastically changed in the last five years. Many record stores in Shibuya have closed, almost all producers and djs now have myspace/facebook accounts, and fans can directly reach an artist class that used to be god-like in their unattainability. From your experience running record label Seeds & Ground, what are the most remarkable changes you’ve seen in the industry, and how have they affected the way you promote your music?
Thanks to the sites like Beatport and Juno Records, now we can release many records without taking much risk of having stocks of records. I realize that the importance of on-line promotion has increased a lot.
on the other side, I also realize the acceleration of music Freeconomics, I can understand the phenomenon in inertial, but I still feel complicated.

You use various websites for both your label and yourself, and blogs, webzines, and online stores are now industry standards. What financial gains do you think are obtained by using these methods of online promotion, and how do you measure your success on the internet? Plays? Downloads? Blog coverage? Back in the day, you traveled decent lengths to get vinyl, so there’s some love there. Do you still release vinyl? If so, why, and what do you think about the ecological advantages inherent in digital distribution?
I do release vinyls. On Vinyl, high level of technology and theory has constructed around its acousmato and I believe, people with those peculiar tastes will stay and i would like to deliver my music to those people.
Also for me dance music is the culture of 12 inch vinyl fundamentally therefore I would like to keep it this way. As long as people want them and we don’t lose money, i would like to keep on releasing vinyls!
It is rightly note about the ecological factor in digital distribution, but most of these logics are unfortunately used for new business development, it is contradicted if we think about the development of all digital infrastructure and all the effects to our environment rooted in those new business development. Ultimately its the question of wether we will adopt the new paradigm for a post IT revolution, in contradistinction to the industrial society and economical growth after the industrial revolution.

As a veteran music maker and listener, what artists are currently on your radar?
Jebski、The Backwoods aka DJ Kent, Felipe Venegas, Coyote, Michel Cleis, Peter Broderick, Mountains, and recently I listen a lot to Miles(Davis)’ 60′s records.

Finally, how do you envision the music scene/industry/environment five years from now?
Record sales will be shited to on-line and in long term, music is going to be free of charge. As that advances, I am sure the increase of importance of our job sites, I mean, concerts and gigs. I have lots of hope for rejuvenation of Live Events I am hoping my music to add colors to people’s daily life and to cerebrate extraordinary day.

Kaoru Official profile
Seeds & Ground website
Seeds and Ground myspace