Citing Steve Reich, UK bass music, Japanese Idol, pro wrestling and surreal porn as his inspirations, Bo Ningen frontman Taigen Kawabe playing is also aware that his Japanese lyrics confuse non-Japanese audiences: ‘I like how people can use their imagination to figure out what I’m singing about, or focus more on the sound itself,’ he says. ‘With, say, 1000 people in a venue, isn’t it more interesting that each of them is processing the soundscape differently in their minds?’
The psychedelic rock foursome recently revised its own soundscape with the addition of an Audient iD22 USB audio interface to their recording set-up. ‘I would say the mic preamp surprised me the most,’ the singer says. ‘It’s super-clear and can capture such a wide range of frequency.’
Having met in London and formed nine years ago, the band has toured with The Fall, Primal Scream and Kasabian, and worked with fashion brands Alexander McQueen and Yoji Yamamoto. ‘Doesn’t fit into one particular genre or music scene, is one of the strong points we have as a band,’ says Taigen, citing ‘Slider’ as a good ‘taster’ track. ‘If it’s more about the live experience, try Daikaisei Parts 2 & 3 which we normally play at the end of our set,’ he adds.
For studio recording of both instruments and vocals, everything has previously gone into a Soundcraft MPM mixer and to an audio interface. ‘I’ve just started to plug straight into the audio interface directly – especially the microphone – after I changed to the iD22,’ Kawabe explains.
He is unafraid of breaking boundaries in the recording studio: ‘I like to use something you’re not supposed to use for mixing to process the sound and mix it with original sound – cheap guitar pedals, or I’ll record something with the laptop mic, for example.’
Kawabe has been using the extra outputs afforded by the iD22 audio interface to connect to his mixer to process the sound. ‘Before using iD22 I always had a dilemma between the sound you hear from the mixer, and the sound you recorded through the audio interface when I record and process the sounds.
‘Capturing the right sounds/vibes/performances is definitely challenging all the time – it can’t be just clean or tidy,’ he explains of the band’s studio phi;osophu. ‘People normally perform differently in the recording studio too, so it’s really difficult to find the nice spot in between “energy from performing live” and “production magic”, but this is the most interesting and fascinating point of making a record.’
With the vocal chain running from a SM58 beta mic through a Boss RE-20 echo and (1980s) Boss VB-2 vibrato to a DI or other audio interface, Taigen has plans to buy a good condenser mic before making the next band recordings: ‘I would be more than comfortable with a combination of a good mic and iD22 mic preamp to record my vocal or some re-amp/production stuff for the recordings on the final release.’
After nearly a decade in the UK, he’s recently begun writing more songs in English: ‘Singing in English is like learning a whole new instrument – it’s a source of new inspiration and ideas. I come up with totally different rhythms and melodies when I sing in different languages.’
Bo Ningen has played festivals in the southwest of England this summer, after a whirlwind tour in their homeland.
More: www.audient.com
