NINA UTASHIRO - THE VOICE OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS
Photos by Saram Han
Nina Utashiro sings with brutal honesty. Whether that be by verbalizing the subconscious or exposing raw and uncut emotions, she is unafraid of baring the beautiful and the ugly, the tragic and the comical.
Taking inspiration from grand soundscapes, ballet, and equestrianism, her upcoming EP, ‘Operetta Hysteria’, is a perfect blend of Romantic-era classical music and 80’s industrial darkwave, transcending generations and dimensions. The protagonist of her own seven-chapter masterpiece that commences with a bang and ends with a grand finale, she is bound to receive a standing ovation.
The New York-born Tokyo native is no stranger to the art world either. Previously working as a visual merchandiser, editor, stylist, model, and creative director, she has been chipping away but more so from a backstage perspective, perfecting the art of putting pen to paper as an editor for magazines such as i-D Japan and commons&sense as well as sharpening her eye for visual aesthetics as a stylist and creative director.
Now reincarnated, she is ready to step into the limelight, this time disclosing the most intimate part; her inner thoughts. A visually compelling and at times jarring yet strangely familiar place, we welcome you to deep dive with us into the mind of Nina.
GATA: HI NINA, FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T HEARD OF YOUR MUSIC IN THE PAST, COULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR SOUND?
NINA: I like to describe my music as ‘the tiny little voice that you hear at the back of your head’. The one that you might not be able to get in touch with if you're not a wordsmith or more intuitive than logical. That’s what I try to encapsulate in my music.
I also never write music to preach because I think your job as an artist is to be brutally honest with yourself rather than telling people what to do. Sometimes it can be like a therapy session, writing down what has happened in my life. So I use my work as a way to journal and then my label to expose what I’ve written down. I’ve always loved artists that are just doing their own thing so I guess I ended up curating myself to that.
GATA: SPEAKING ABOUT OTHER ARTISTS, IS THERE ANYONE THAT YOU LOOK UP TO OR HAS ESPECIALLY INSPIRED YOU CREATIVELY?
NINA: Musically, I’ve always loved classical music like Chopin. It was the first exposure to music I had because I grew up dancing ballet. To me, it sounds like the color white, translucent, and has a sense of innocence. But Sylvie Guillem, the ballet dancer was probably the number one person I looked up to when I was a child for her mentality, punkness, and skills just from a pure ballet perspective. I saw her last performance of Bolero before she retired and it was beautiful.
“I never write music to preach because I think your job as an artist is to be brutally honest with yourself rather than telling people what to do.”
Sylvie Guillaume in Vogue Russia (October 2011 ‘Dance in Vogue’ issue).
GATA: SINCE WE ALSO BELIEVE CINEMA CAN BE A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR MANY ARRIVES AND CREATIVES; IS THERE ANY MOVIE THAT HAS INFLUENCED YOU?
NINA: One of my favourite movies is Paper Moon, starring Tatum O'Neill as well as Christiane F. which I think is a classic. In terms of visuals, Salon Kitty, Melancholia, Fifth Element, Casino, Cruel Intentions…Maladolescenza is also one of the most cinematic pieces of work I have ever seen. It showcases the brutality entangled with the innocence of what children are. I also watch quite a lot of mainstream works like The Godfather trilogy, the sopranos, and Taxi Driver, not so much for the visuals but more so for the context. I always had a thing for mafia movies for the philosophy.
GATA: YOU’VE PREVIOUSLY RELEASED MUSIC UNDER THE ARTIST NAME THIRTEEN13 WITH SINGLES INCLUDING BLOOD AND HIGH-CLASS BITCH. WHAT WAS THE REASON BEHIND THE SHIFT FROM RELEASING MUSIC UNDER THE STAGE NAME THIRTEEN13 TO USING YOUR REAL NAME WHEN IT CAME DOWN TO RELEASING NEW MUSIC?
NINA: With Thirteen13, it started out on a whim so I had no intention of making it an actual career or even showing my face at the beginning. I was still a stylist and behind the scenes so it was more of a secret project. Quickly after I started though, I got financial backing. Obviously, they want a return on investment and they said they will invest in me on the condition that I show my face because they thought it would be easier to become successful. Only when my current manager from Sony approached me did I realized that this was going to turn into a real project and a career option. I don’t like doing anything half-assed and I’m quite fond of playing life games so I thought that the biggest bet would be to use my real name as once it’s out there, there was no coming back from it; a go big or go home kind of thing.
Album art for single ‘Blood’, released under previous stage name thirteen13
GATA: YOU ONCE SAID IN AN INTERVIEW THAT YOU YOURSELF DO NOT LISTEN TO MUCH RAP. WHAT CONVINCED YOU TO START SINGING IN THIS GENRE?
NINA: Yes, I’m not necessarily a huge listener of the genre. Coming from New York and being exposed to what Hip-Hop is over there, it had never crossed my mind to rap because I was never about that life and I was unaware that there was Rap music that isn’t Hip-Hop. But the producer who convinced me to start rapping, pointed out to me that rapping is just a form of expression; a technique rather than the context, and that not all rap is Hip-Hop. I was also drawn to the idea of becoming a musician because I don’t play very well with others and I realized that I’d rather be the person to run a project than become a part of someone else’s. A musician as a career involves a lot of ‘coming up with ideas’ which seemed like fun. Furthermore, I really like big budgets and since music is of a much bigger calibre than fashion in that sense, I wanted to play in the big leagues and do big budget image making. So that’s how it started I guess.
Photos by Saram Han
“My mother was always an individualist, and she used to tell me ‘if you’re liked by everybody, you are doing something wrong. If you’re an independent thinker, you’re bound to be attacked and if you aren’t getting attacked, you’re getting too comfortable.”
GATA: YOU PREVIOUSLY WORKED AS AN EDITOR FOR VARIOUS MAGAZINES (ID, COMMONS & SENSE, LIBERTINE DUNE ), MODEL, STYLIST, AND FOUNDER OF YOUR OWN CREATIVE COLLECTIVE ‘PETRICHOR’. DESPITE HAVING SO MANY CREATIVE OUTLETS FOR STORYTELLING, WHAT MAKES SINGING SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER ARTISTIC MEDIUMS YOU HAVE MASTERED?
NINA: Singing and writing lyrics is the most intimate for me because I’m expressing my thoughts in an extremely direct format, and it involves nobody else. The more people are involved, the more the original essence gets watered down. It’s kind of like rumours. How it ended is never the same as how it started. For me, I write the lyrics down first, then I start mumbling the words trying to find the right kind of voice I would want to use, and then that turns into recordings and then trying to explain to my team what the song is about.
So singing and writing lyrics is step one, the most intimate, raw, honest, and pure part of the process. Just chilling inside my own bubble with no judgement while smoking two packs of cigarettes and mumbling lyrics on my bed is so much fun.
GATA: YOU ARE FLUENT IN BOTH LANGUAGES, YET YOUR LYRICS ARE PRIMARILY IN JAPANESE. WAS THIS A NATURAL OR A MORE CONSCIOUS DECISION THAT WAS MADE?
NINA: It’s natural. I’m bilingual, so when I’m surrounded by people who speak Japanese, the voice inside my head turns into Japanese. Once I’m outside of Japan, after spending two or three weeks in another country, it turns into English. But since I’m mostly in Japan, and the majority of my friends are Japanese, that voice in my head tends to be Japanese more often.
As I mentioned earlier, I want to be brutally honest, so although I curate my thoughts to be on beat or to rhyme, I try my best to stay organic to the voice in my head. So for now, it’s primarily in Japanese but I’m trying to spend more time overseas and see more English-speaking people so I can write lyrics in English more
GATA: YOU WERE BORN IN NEW YORK BUT SPENT MOST OF YOUR CHILDHOOD IN JAPAN. SOMETIMES HAVING AN INDIVIDUALISTIC MINDSET IN A COLLECTIVIST COUNTRY IS HARD. HOW HAS YOUR BACKGROUND SHAPED YOU AS A PERSON OR THE WAY YOU EXPRESS YOURSELF?
NINA: I have no sense of community at all. I cannot empathize with the idea of love related to geography, like say, the love that some people have for their hometown. When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to belong anywhere which is where I think the lack of a sense of community comes from, but I don’t really consider that to be a bad thing. My mother was always an individualist, and she used to tell me ‘if you're liked by everybody, you are doing something wrong. If you’re an independent thinker, you’re bound to be attacked and if you aren’t getting attacked, you’re getting too comfortable.’
Moving to New York was a massive turning point for me in terms of my identity because as a mixed person, I had been perceived as white in Japan, facing stereotypes like ‘rowdy,’ ‘slutty,’ and ‘stupid’ my whole life. All of a sudden when I stepped foot in New York, everyone saw me as Asian and expected me to be really good at math, a pushover, and I attracted all these guys with yellow fever. It was so crazy to me how everyone perceived me in a completely different way even though I was the same person. Being mixed race has taught me that what people tell you what you are is subjective and it’s through their biassed perception. If you place yourself in a different community, what people will see you as will change. I learned that only I will know who I am and I don’t want to limit myself to whatever community there is surrounding me. If you build your identity based on how people perceive you, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you lose your community, you can easily lose who you are.
GATA: MORE ABOUT YOUR NEW MUSIC. YOU HAVE SEVEN SONGS ON THE UPCOMING EP. CAN YOU TELL US WHY ARIA WAS CHOSEN TO BE THE FIRST SINGLE TO BE RELEASED?
NINA: All of the songs are named after classical music composition styles. “ARIA” felt like it was fit to be the opening of this project as an Aria is typically the most memorable part of an opera; the ‘mic drop’ moment when the singer commands the stage. For me, a collective body of work is like a story with chapters holding a beginning, middle, and end. So I wanted to start off the EP with something aggressive and pointed outward.
“When you make music with someone, more so than videos or images, to me it’s kind of like having sex with them. It’s really intimate and vulnerable. Personally, I think it’s usually better to hang out and go on a few dates before you sleep with someone if you want good sex.”
GATA: YOU HAVE SOME INCREDIBLE PEOPLE WORKING ON THIS EP. SOME INCLUDE AKIRA WOODGRAIN AS PRODUCER, MATT COLTON FOR MASTERING AS WELL AS THE PEOPLE WHO YOU HAVE CLOSELY WORKED UNDER ‘PETRICHOR’. WAS IT HARD TO ALIGN YOUR CREATIVE VISION WITH EVERYONE SINCE SOME WERE HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD?
NINA: Not really, no. I tend to know what I want and I give off that vibe so people tend to either love that or hate that and I can tell pretty instantly. I do like to take my time in the beginning to get a sense of who they are before I decide to work with them though. Akira has worked with renowned artists as well as some upcoming artists as well so he was easy to communicate with and the whole process was extremely smooth.
For the people under PETRICHOR as well as the director and producer of my music videos, I have spent hours talking and hanging out with them so we understand each other quite well at this point. When you make music with someone, more so than videos or images, to me it’s kind of like having sex with them. It’s really intimate and vulnerable. Personally, I think it’s usually better to hang out and go on a few dates before you sleep with someone if you want good sex. I’m a “work smarter, not harder” type of person so I tend to want to go into the studio and always come out with a track that is good enough to put out. So I make sure to go on a couple of dates with them to see if the conversations have any spark before going into the studio. I don’t have the tolerance for disastrous one night stands.
Album art for singles ‘Aria’ and ‘Hymn’, released in May 2021.
“From now on, we are releasing PETRICHOR tied with the release of an album or an EP, sharing the same theme but narrating it differently.”
GATA: YOU CREATED THIS EP ‘OPERRETA HYSTERIA’ DURING COVID WHEN YOU WERE QUARANTINED BY YOURSELF. CAN YOU TELL US HOW THIS IDEA CAME ABOUT?
NINA: I basically experienced an emotion that I think was hysteria and it almost came out in my actions physically, which for me was scary because I am usually very good at controlling my emotions. I’m a control freak so the idea of not being able to contain myself is horrifying to me. So I thought it best to use music to sort it out. I used this EP as a way of therapy to process my emotions.
Jacket cover for OPERETTA HYSTERIA
GATA: ALONG WITH THE NEW EP, YOUR MAGAZINE ‘PETRICHOR’ IS GOING TO CHANGE. CAN YOU EXPLAIN IN WHAT WAY?
NINA: We are going back to zero, basically, and it will be more sophisticated, more official. Last time it was more of my personal opinions and expressions, but I wanted to change the narrative to something more journalistic, with different perspectives. Now that I make music, I have the space and freedom to do my own thing in that realm, so I felt that I needed to exercise a different part of me through the magazine and become more of an editor and focus on curating.
From now on, we are releasing PETRICHOR tied with the release of an album or an EP, sharing the same theme but narrating it differently. I have my senpais that I used to work with at other magazines (i-D and Libertine Dune) that taught me how to be an editor on board now to keep things multi-dimentioal. We have invited artists like Daido Moriyama and Momo Okabe to join this issue by contributing their works that fit the theme that is “Operetta Hysteria.” We also have a wonderful art director now that took the content and packaged it in the magazine with much elegance and sophistication.
Past issue of ‘PETRICHOR’ magazine, issue 01
THANK YOU SO MUCH, NINA FOR YOUR TIME!
Words by Ayana Waki