tamanaramen: Dreams Only for Now
Moving between Tokyo and London, sister duo tamanaramen create immersive worlds where sound and image blur together. Balancing ambient intimacy with the energy of the dance floor, their music drifts between softness and movement without fully settling into either.
Ethereal and IDM-inspired, their work often feels like a half-remembered dream, hazy and delicate on the surface, yet carrying a quiet emotional weight. Their tracks rarely tell straightforward stories. Instead, they hold onto flashes of memory, distance, and the uneasy feeling that time is slipping by faster than it should.
Instead of resolving those emotions, the music lets them linger. Their new EP Memento was created during their first year living in London. Shaped by that transition, the project reflects on identity, mortality, and the experience of being far from home, weaving together memories of Tokyo with the uncertainty of starting over somewhere unfamiliar.
GATA: For our GATA family, could you introduce yourselves?
tamanaramen: Nice to meet you. We are tamanaramen. We’re a sister audiovisual unit and DJ duo. The older sister, Hana, creates the visuals, and the younger sister, Pikam, creates the music.
GATA: I’m curious, how did you come up with your name, and does it mean something different to you now?
tamanaramen: Originally, the name came from when Pikam was in high school and needed an SNS handle. She randomly chose it from iPhone word suggestions.
Later, we discovered that there is actually a local ramen style in Kumamoto called “Tamana Ramen.” We didn’t know that when we first picked the name, but as we continued using it, people from Kyushu became really interested in us. We even ended up hosting a DJ event at an actual Tamana Ramen restaurant in Kumamoto.
Now it feels like a beautiful name that resonates with a real ramen culture and connects Japanese food culture with music.
“People were slurping ramen while listening to techno, industrial, and reggaeton —
the chaos of it all was so fun. ”
GATA: Hana, you’re a visual artist and video director, and Pikam, you’re a sound designer and music director. Now everything exists as one world. Did that happen naturally, or was there a moment where it really clicked into tamanaramen?
tamanaramen: We had already been creating things together since high school and university. Back then, our work often felt like a collision of teenage selfexpression and individuality. Recently though, while still embracing each other’s strengths, we spend much more time talking and communicating. Now it feels like we’re moving toward the same goal at the exact same pace.
GATA: Both your videos and your music feel like fragmented memories, and they come together so naturally. Do you usually start with sound or visuals, or does it all develop at the same time?
tamanaramen: Usually, sound comes first. As we talk about the rough sonic image, landscapes naturally begin to appear in our minds.
GATA: What you create feels very soft, almost like a whisper, but still carries a kind of quiet energy, like a secret you accidentally overheard. Do you like that feeling of something being slightly hidden?
tamanaramen: Yes, we like that feeling of things being slightly hidden. Because we’re sisters, Hana and Pikam are closer than ordinary friends — honestly, maybe even closer than most family members. We share a very special intimacy between us. We probably tell each other a lot of secrets too. Maybe that atmosphere naturally reflects in our music.
GATA There’s often a sense of closeness but also distance in your work. Do you see loneliness as something to move away from, or something you hold onto?
tamanaramen: That’s a good question. I think loneliness is something we want to hold onto. Rather than overcoming it, loneliness is something that stays beside you forever. It feels like something you always have to carry with you.
GATA: Do your songs start from something real, or from a feeling you can’t fully explain?
tamanaramen: Most of the time, our songs begin from emotions that can’t really be explained clearly.
GATA: What’s something small you’re both a bit obsessed with at the moment?
tamanaramen: We’re currently in Taiwan for a DJ show, and we became obsessed with the egg tarts we ate at a night market.
GATA: What’s been on repeat for you lately?
tamanaramen: Our new EP, Memento!
GATA: You move between Tokyo and London, what does each place bring out in you?
tamanaramen: When we’re in London, we focus more deeply on creating. Compared to Tokyo, it feels quieter, and we spend more time reflecting inwardly and confronting ourselves. Tokyo, on the other hand, has its own unique convenience and speed. It feels like riding the rhythm of the city. It’s easier to spend time on things outside yourself there.
GATA: Do crowds feel different in Tokyo and London, or do you find the same energy in both?
tamanaramen: I think the crowds feel different. When walking through the city, the feeling of people’s gazes is very different. In London, people seem uninterested in others, while in Japan, people seem more conscious of others. Because of that, London feels freer. In Japan, we sometimes feel a sense of social pressure to conform. Ironically, even though we’re foreigners in London, we feel more like outsiders when we’re in Japan.
“Dreams only for now, thinking about the time we have left. How much longer will we live? How much more can we do?”
GATA: With RAMEN CLUB, where people come together around music and ramen, you’ve created something that feels bigger than a party. Is there a moment from a night that’s stayed with you?
tamanaramen: Thank you, that makes us happy. One unforgettable moment was RAMEN RAVE, which we hosted this January at Kumamen in Roppongi, Tokyo.
RAMEN RAVE is a series where we take over ramen restaurants and turn them into DJ parties. We first started organizing it while living in London last year. Since the Tokyo event was our very first one in Japan, it remains especially memorable. People were slurping ramen while listening to techno, industrial, and reggaeton — the chaos of it all was so fun. We’ll keep uploading RAMEN RAVE videos on YouTube, so please check them out.
GATA: You just dropped your new EP Memento. What kind of memories or feelings does Memento bring back for you?
tamanaramen: The title Memento comes from the phrase Memento Mori. It’s a Latin phrase meaning, “Remember that you will die,” or “Never forget that one day you will die.”
After stepping away from Tokyo’s fast-paced chaos, we found ourselves spending more time reflecting inwardly and reconstructing our understanding of life. We lost friends, lived daily life in English instead of our first language, struggled with unfamiliar food cultures, and coexisted with many different values. For me, it was also a period when I was suddenly confronted with the reality of the world itself.
During that time, the lyric naturally came out: “Dreams only for now, thinking about the time we have left. How much longer will we live? How much more can we do?” And after that comes the phrase: “looking, finding.” Since moving from our home country Japan — Tokyo — to London, around 14,000 km away, many people ask us why we chose to move to the UK. But at the same time, we wonder: if life eventually ends, what’s so unnatural about living where you truly want to live?
Just because you were born in one country doesn’t actually mean you must stay there forever. While feeling lost and searching at the same time, our decision to begin a dual-life between two countries may have come from a kind of memento mori mindset. Memento contains songs we created during our very first year living in London. The EP includes memories of Tokyo preserved in our minds, sketches of the landscapes currently in front of us, and collaborations with artists we met while working across Europe.
These songs were created while we were struggling, searching, and experimenting with how to live a meaningful life within limited time. The present can feel eternal, yet we know it will definitely end someday. We kept wondering: “How far can we adventure through this life?”
GATA: Okay, last but not least, be honest: best ramen spot in Tokyo and best in London?
tamanaramen: Tokyo: くまめん 六本木店 London: RAMEN KOI
sculptural dresses: RYUNOSUKEOKAZAKI / plastic rings: MAHANA / satin gloves: stylist’s archive
TEAM CREDITS
INTERVIEW, PHOTOGRAPHY, DIRECTION: SONJA SCHMID
STYLING: DOMINIKA SZMID
HAIR: MASAYA OTSUKA
MAKEUP: BERI
MAKEUP ASSISTANT: HOSHI