DYGL’s Kohei Kamoto on ‘Dangle Candle’ & Space and himself

Last Updated on 2025-11-25 by a-indie

The Path to Solo Production

Encouragement from Friends

—Maririn: I see. Now let’s discuss your solo work “Dangle Candle.” Had you been thinking about creating solo material for a while?
Kohei Kamoto: I had been making things for a while, but I hadn’t considered properly releasing something like this at all.

—Maririn: For example, uploading to Bandcamp or SoundCloud?
Kohei Kamoto: Long ago I uploaded things once or twice without announcing them, but for the past five or six years, nothing at all.

—Maririn: Is this the first time releasing under your own name in a way where people can see it? What kind of change in mindset led you to decide to release it?
Kohei Kamoto: I’d always wanted to release something, but I’m the type who needs a trigger to actually do it. Both with Ykiki Beat and DYGL, I was making songs with Akiyama and everyone else. With DYGL, there’s a natural flow of playing live shows leading to the next release, but solo, there was no trigger at all.

—Maririn: That’s a difficulty unique to solo work.
Kohei Kamoto: This time, the two people who came in as co-producer—Yuma Koda (who plays keyboards with never young beach and creates film and commercial music) and Yuma Abe (Yuma Abe of never young beach)—kept telling me “make solo work.” So I thought, “Okay, I’ll properly make something and release it.” I really felt their encouragement pushing me to make it happen.

A Year-Long Production Process

—Maririn: How long did the production take?
Kohei Kamoto: The production timing is ambiguous, but roughly a year. I personally feel it took quite long, but since I was working with co-producer Koda, I’d make demos and then we’d develop them together, which took time. Including all that work, it took about a year.

—Maririn: Rather than gathering things you’d made previously, you started from zero after deciding to make an album?
Kohei Kamoto: Yes. I started from zero.

Collaboration with Yuma Koda

—Maririn: Since Koda-san works on film music and such, I imagine there’s a different approach from band work. Working together this time, were there influences different from when you’d been creating on your own?
Kohei Kamoto: Yes, quite different. Even before making demos, he consulted with me about “what kind of thing should we make,” so many of his ideas are incorporated. I think we could work together because he knows not just film music but really diverse music including indie rock. Thanks to that, we could do the work of “let’s settle on this direction,” and clarify the atmosphere and texture we wanted to create. Those aspects might be influenced by his musical and cinematic sensibilities.

Album Title and Concept

The Meaning Behind “Dangle Candle”

—Maririn: The album title “Dangle Candle,” which literally translates as “hanging candle,” what meaning is contained in it?
Kohei Kamoto: I was struggling with the album title and jacket for a long time. In the first track (“MoL”), I use sampling, and in that speech, the words “Dangle Candle” appear. Precisely, it’s “Dang Ol’ Candle.” “Dang” (like damn) and “Ol'” (old), followed by “Candle.” A phrase comes up saying “life is like an old candle,” and rather than using that directly, I used the sound of “Dangle” to make it “Dangle Candle.”

—Maririn: I see. It’s abbreviated.
Kohei Kamoto: The meaning of “hanging candle” connects to the artwork (holding a candle). It runs through the whole album, but I also started creating lyrics from sounds without thinking too much about meaning. Rather than directly saying something, I prefer having “blank space,” where different listeners and viewers have different interpretations. I was conscious of that kind of “duality,” so holding something that’s hanging, changing “Dang Ol'” to “Dangle,” and lyrics that make you wonder “which meaning is this” or “does it have meaning”—I consciously created those aspects.

The Secret of Track 1 “MoL”

—Maririn: Speaking of the first track you just mentioned, the title is “MoL.” Is this also an abbreviation?
Kohei Kamoto: This stands for “Meaning of Life.” It connects to “life” I mentioned earlier. The sampling source is dialogue from a character in an American cartoon, but what this character says seems meaningless yet, depending on how you interpret it, sounds philosophical. On the American site “Reddit” (like Japan’s 2channel), people debate “what does this dialogue mean?” The first track is that dialogue with pitch manipulation and processing, layered with synthesizers.

—Maririn: By the way, what cartoon is it?
Kohei Kamoto: It’s “King of the Hill,” an American cartoon. It’s a comedy that plays with stereotypes.