"TEAM" self-liner notes by Shuta Hasunuma

Shuta Hasunuma Team is a rock band consisting of five members: twin drums, twin guitars, and myself, and is the precursor to Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic. The album "TEAM," released in November 2025, can also be heard as "Shuta Hasunuma's first rock album." It is a work filled with memories of my activities up to now and fundamental inspirations for practice. Let's take a look back at the history of the band.

2025.11.27 at TOWER RECORDS SHIBUYA, photo by Ryo Nagata

In the fall of 2008, I released "POP OOGA," an album I'd worked on for a year. It was the first time in my life that I dedicated a whole year to creating a single work. I worked part-time while steadily working on the music every day in my parents' room. At the time, the term "bedroom music" was in vogue, and I truly lived up to that term. A year before the album's release, Atsushi Sasaki of the music label "HEADZ" approached me and asked if I wanted to release an album on their label. I still vividly remember my enthusiasm and determination. However, I didn't have a blueprint for the album. I didn't have an artistic concept; I just worked. But I did receive some hints. Sasaki suggested, "I'd like to hear something that incorporates the electronic and ambient sounds you've been working on over the past few years, with a pop element, and infused everything you've got into." After careful consideration, I finally completed an album that I was happy with.

2009.10.20 at O-nest

Because I was solely focused on completing the album, I had no idea how to perform this work live. Simply outputting electronic sounds from a laptop would not provide a sufficient sonic palette, nor would it allow for a musical sensibility. To create a live performance that satisfied me, and to perform the computer-based music on this album, I decided to perform everything live, assigning melodic and rhythmic elements to instruments. I then asked guitarists Ryosuke Saito and Shuta Ishizuka to come to my room, and we worked diligently on arranging the pieces for instruments. Looking back, I can say that this solitary work was an important step in creating music for the team, and for what would later become the "Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic."

2012 at CCOO OSAKA CONPAS

Before joining the team, I had never performed music with others. Communicating the musical elements born within me to others and playing together in unison were all new experiences. I was, in both good and bad ways, completely unfamiliar with conventional wisdom. My background is in "sound," not music. With each album release, I began to have a dialogue with "music," and gradually began to have conversations with people outside of myself. While the "team" takes the form of "rock music" musically, it's no exaggeration to say it was the first band I'd ever formed! I didn't know a thing about booking studios for rehearsals or splitting performance fees after live house performances. Each time, I learned from the other members and overcame obstacles. Being in a band is a great thing; you don't have to think alone; if you discuss things, it can become music. My music expanded as I interacted with others, and the rigid parts of my music became softer, or the softer parts became sharper and harder.

2019 at RADIO HERMES

Humanity is extremely important when working together as a musician. All the members of the team (including Phil) are kind and considerate. Such people have the ears to hear voices that go unnoticed. I was lucky to have met everyone. I don't think it was a coincidence that so many such musicians and people were around HEADZ at the time. We performed frequently as a team from 2008 until the earthquake. We had the intention of fighting against the "bland brightness" that existed before the earthquake in a rock-like way. As the title of our album, "wannapunch!," made from recordings from the event we organized, "Flying Away from Music," suggests, I think we wanted to "punch" something invisible. Looking back, I feel that this was the atmosphere before the earthquake. After the earthquake, the team evolved into Phil, and we evolved into a system that expressed our relationships with others and the repeated gatherings and separations of people through "music."

2024.09.28 at ROPPONGI ART NIGHT, photo by Kanade Hamamoto

When we performed an outdoor live show at Tokyo Midtown for Roppongi Art Night in the fall of 2024, we realized that even though the band was in such good shape, we, the "Hasunuma Shuta Team," had never recorded an album. We had always focused on the one-off nature of live shows, but we felt strongly that we wanted to leave a record of it. A year later, in the fall of 2025, we were able to record it on an album in the form of "TEAM." I'm really happy that we were able to leave a record of it on an album in the form of "TEAM."

M01 TEAMWORK

This song expresses the joy of working together and feeling the presence of others when each person's loneliness comes together. I wrote this song in 2010, but I rearranged it and added layers of vocals to include it on this album. I wrote the lyrics specifically for this version.

The door opens and the curtains flutter

I can feel you in the wind

A forest is born and grows rapidly

The voice of the sun calls

With the morning light shining from the cloudy sky on my back

Keep walking, take a detour

"That's fine," there's still time

Friends gather

One day, I was doing field recording in the forest. I wrote lyrics that captured the situation at the time in words. They are also messages to convey to the members of my team.

For this song, we first recorded the band in a recording studio. The recording was done by Toshihiko Kasai. At that time, the performance data was saved in MIDI format, and electronic sounds were overdubbed on a synthesizer in his home studio. I like how the rough-textured analog synthesizer fits perfectly with the team's twin drums and twin guitars. One of the things we paid particular attention to is how Ishizuka's repeated guitar riffs have different phrasings, and his tone is also very stoic. On the other hand, Saito's sound has a vivid and fresh texture.

M02 United Tee

This is a team version of the song that was the first track on his solo album "POP OOGA" released in 2008. It's a classic song that he often plays live. He always plays "Soul Osci" after this song.

During recording, Ito Ken and I talked about experimenting with sound creation, and we made major changes to the texture of the drums. Furthermore, John McEntire's (hereafter referred to as John McEntire) mixing lowered the center of gravity of the drums, resulting in a sound like nothing I'd ever heard before. I sense a process that can't be summed up simply as saturation. It's a sound creation approach I would never have taken myself, so I was impressed when he sent it to me.

M03 Seneca

This is a cover of Tortoise's song. I've been covering it live for about 15 years now. I've attached a conversation with John Macke below. I relate to what's at the heart of the music, so I play it too.

Hasunuma: Music that conveys a political attitude even without words. It was the first time I'd ever experienced anything like that as a teenager. For example, if you sing with a guitar, you can express yourself through the words in the song. Or hip-hop, too. But it was quite a shock to experience an attitude through music without lyrics like Tortoise's "Standards." When I encountered this work, it gave me the opportunity to think about how my creative work can contribute to society, and it made me realize that even if it's not something particularly impressive or powerful, I can still express my stance through music. At yesterday's live performance, percussionist Dan Bitney said before "Seneca" (from "Standards"), "This is a protest song."

John: That's right. I think when we were making "Standards," we were already channeling our anger toward George Bush into music. We hated Bush as much as we hated Donald Trump. In a way, when we were making the album, we felt like we were foreshadowing 9/11. We felt like the world was heading in a really bad direction. In particular, the shadow of George Bush was influencing the whole world... Well, even though we have strong political beliefs, we don't express them openly.

( From the NiEW interview article: " What Shuta Hasunuma received from Tortoise. He talks extensively with John McEntire. ")

M04 Gakona

This song is also very old. I think it was composed around 2009. Without the makeup, it has a bossa nova-like quality. It's an unusual song, with Brazilian irregular time signatures played on twin drums and guitar. Five synthesizer sounds were layered and post-produced specifically for the album. Again, the sonic texture shines through with John Macke's saturated mixing work. Personally, I'm pleased that we were able to record it so well in the studio.

M05 Triooo - VOL

This track is a staple of the team's live performances, and has also been used for solo performances and with the Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra. It's packed with the live feel of a one-take studio recording. We also had some material with overdubbed guitar phrases from Ishizuka, but we ended up deciding that the first take we recorded was the best! Around 3 minutes 30 seconds is the transition between Triooo and Vol. The tempo picks up as we move into the Vol. part. As it reached its peak, I asked John Make to "distort the drums and guitar." The sound distorts beautifully the moment Vol. I really like this distortion. I didn't use a synthesizer; I played a Fender Rhodes in the studio.

M06 ZERO CONCERTO

We performed a piece I wrote for the Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra as a team. There is no sheet music for this song, and all the members performed it ad-lib. Every live performance was an improvisation. There is vocal music, but the timing of its introduction wasn't decided in advance, and the performance progressed without any shared chord progressions. We also recorded it in the same style as the live performance. We improvised twice in the studio, recording the material and keyboard MIDI, and then in my home studio, I added and subtracted the two parts I found interesting to create a complete song. It was thrilling to try to transform the raw live feel into a completely different piece of music through post-production. I'm confident that we were able to capture it perfectly as a recording!

M07 Blackout

This is a new song recorded as an improvisation using a riff motif from a track on Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic's "Symphil" composed in 2023. I wanted to create a piece that was somewhere between improvisation and composition, with the only instruction I followed being "as ascetic as possible." Ishizuka-kun is so ascetic that he barely plays anything. I also asked Ito-ken to keep his drumming "innocent!" I feel like this is the direction we'll go in when the team gets together to record in 2025!

Art Direction by Akinobu Maeda
Artwork 00740 by SERRAGLIA, courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Heino (Helsinki)

While this album, "TEAM," takes a rock approach, that may only be the surface of the sound. Considering the Tortoise cover, the repetitive ZERO CONCERTO riffs and developments, and the prominent post-production in the songs, it could be said that it exists on the broad current of post-rock and math rock musical genres. My bandmates and I create and perform music in a variety of locations and environments. It's been over 15 years since we formed the band, and our genre is far from fixed; it's constantly evolving. It's no exaggeration to say that our personalities are a genre in themselves. Coming together as five members allows us to break away from established boundaries and play aggressively and freely. It's a space where each member is open to that open attitude. After completing our long-awaited studio-recorded album, the time has finally come to unleash that passion once again in a live setting. This is the team we formed specifically for the live performance, and it's time to show off our talents!