the hatch『333』Interview – Chaos Crystallized into Pop

Last Updated on 2025-12-23 by a-indie

Members Discuss the Highlights of『333』

Each Member’s Favorite Parts

－Maririn: During recording, what was the most memorable thing about your own part, what you were particular about, what you want people to listen to, and also what parts of other members do you really like and want people to hear?

Soichiro Anzai: For parts other than mine that I like, in the very last song (“gdby cntct”), there’s a guitar stroke-like part. After the grandmother-like voice comes in, everyone goes up together, and I really love the guitar in that ascending part.

Midori Yamada: That too, I recorded at home right before submission. I did just a line recording with an old YAMAHA mixer from around the ’70s. What was missing came in with that.

Soichiro Anzai: For my part where I thought “I might be able to do it now,” in “KUSHIco7” there’s a section with just drums and percussion, and the bongo there was recorded in a fun, good way. We recorded that at Ikuta Ryokuchi.

－Maririn: I went past there the other day to get to Taro Okamoto Museum.

Midori Yamada: There’s a huge sequoia tree at Ikuta Ryokuchi, right? We were recording at night in front of that area. At first, the percussion we recorded at Tsubame Studio had ambience, or room acoustics, so I thought if we included the resonance of a different room, it would float. I thought it would be better to record in a place with almost no reflection, so we recorded outside.

Soichiro Anzai: We bought a camping cart-like thing, stuffed it with equipment, and rolled it around. I got used to the hill to the ryokuchi.

Kento Yamazaki: You got trained (laughs). What I like is the piano in “Korogarutane pt2(転がる種 pt2)”. When you focus your ears, everyone is doing completely different things, but when you listen from far away, it sounds like a piano solo.

Midori Yamada: We recorded about 90 takes of “Korogarutane pt2(転がる種 pt2)”.

Kento Yamazaki: I think that’s very the hatch-like. Midori leaving that kind of solo is a first, right?

Midori Yamada: Yeah, first time. I basically can’t play solos.

Kento Yamazaki: For my phrase that I like, it’s the bass in the “MIdy” section where it sings “uncertain eyes.” I like it because guitar and drums were decided first, but there was no groove axis. I thought “we absolutely need to create an axis,” so I took responsibility for that and created a looped phrase. After that, 16th note tambourine comes in, so it becomes a progression where the answer to the groove of the riff I’m playing matches there.

Midori Yamada: Whether that section afterward exists or not makes a difference. Changing the subject, but this album, most songs have a style of showing off with instrumentals in the latter half. I don’t really like ending with just singing.

Kento Yamazaki: What’s strange about this album is that it’s the third as a band, but it’s the first since Souchan joined, so we can release it as “this is what we are as these five people,” but it’s a strange album where we’re also thinking “we’ll probably change from here ourselves.” We can’t say “we’ll go in this direction from now on,” and we definitely can’t say “this is what we are.” We’re that kind of band.

Ryoken Miyazaki: For my guitar parts I like, in “gdby cntct” in the latter half, I could play various things with incomprehensible effector sounds. Reverse reverb, POG, Memory Boy, and such. I’m not super skilled at guitar, so rather than playing normally, I could do weird things with strange sounds while playing in a way that felt good. For other members’ parts I like, it’s that percussion was added. Until recently, I hadn’t consciously listened to music with percussion. Latin, Afro, Bossa Nova—listening to those genres, I became able to consciously listen to music beyond Western and Japanese music. In that sense too, percussion occupies a very important part of this work. Also, I really like the chorus work. As I said earlier, I don’t think we’re a band that sings out, but we could supplement that well with chorus work.

Midori Yamada: It’s not entered as clear chorus. It’s probably entered just faintly enough that you can listen past it, just to create atmosphere.

Ryoken Miyazaki: Also, the mixing is really, really good. When we first recorded, honestly I was worried. We messed up a ton, like “will this be okay?” (laughs). But in the very end, the mixing was good. I think the messed up parts are supplemented by adding something.

Midori Yamada: We played so many instruments, I don’t even remember. I don’t even remember which ones I did. Hmm… I only have memories of mixing (laughs).

Ryoken Miyazaki: What about the glockenspiel and xylophone?

Midori Yamada: Ah, glockenspiel and xylophone! I can’t play them, but the glockenspiel and xylophone in “Korogarutane(転がる種)” and “Tohmei” were played by me. That turned out well including the miking. I’ve been thinking lately, but instruments between guitar, percussion and melody, chord instruments are really attractive. They don’t actually exist in band parts, but I thought it would be okay to put those kinds of instruments in the music. I thought I could make all kinds of excuses because Souchan joined (laughs). Being able to break away from rigid images about adding various instruments was because Souchan joined, and because acoustic elements came in from recording with Yui Kimijima at Tsubame Studio. Being able to try various instruments within that was good, and what was memorable was the xylophone. Also, for vocals, I sang in a different way than before. When we talked about “how should I sing,” because there was the previous image, Kimijima-san and Zakiyama told me “you should sing strongly and clearly so the lyrics can be heard.” But I absolutely couldn’t get into that tension. I thought the singing I like is introspective singing. I could put that nicely on there. Also, for other instruments, bass was memorable. This time, I only used line bass sound in about two songs. Current trendy sounds basically emphasize low end from bass taken from line, right? But by not being particular about that, I think we could arrange bass well. So the bass sound becoming something different from before was a discovery for me and was interesting.