HATIS NOIT is a Japanese voice artist from Hokkaido, and Robert Raths is founder and director of ERASED TAPES, an independent record label and artist collective based in East London.
Hatis Noit makes music simply with a microphone and foot pedals, creating loops to make multiple layers of her amazingly powerful voice, which is hard to imagine when you meet her to speak in person. She has a very delicate and calming voice when she talks, yet she is just as composed and her words to express as carefully chosen. Her inspiration is everything she could find from Gagaku - traditional Japanese music, Bulgarian and Gregorian singing, opera and Buddhist chanting.
Her achievements include collaborations with Matmos, Kevin Richard Martin a.k.a. The Bug, and remarkable live concerts from London’s Southbank Centre, accompanied by the London Contemporary Orchestra, to the Manchester International Festival curated by David Lynch, live studio sessions for WNYC New Sounds in New York and BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, numerous tours and headline shows, with some of them at quite unusual and breathtaking venues across Europe, the US, Kazakhstan, Thailand, a vocal training trip to India and beyond — constantly surprising us.
Erased Tapes was founded in 2007 by German-born sonic explorer Robert Raths. His own gentle, elegant and beautiful, yet very architectural approach can be felt throughout their musical output, visual artwork, their studio and gallery. It is home to genre-defying artists from all around the world such as Ólafur Arnalds, Rival Consoles, Lubomyr Melnyk, Penguin Cafe, Peter Broderick and many more. There are numerous video recordings of these artists performing in incredibly beautiful nature and acoustic spaces that help further illustrate their artistry.
Erased Tapes was awarded “Best Small Label” at the 2015 AIM Awards, following their BBC Prom with Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen performing at the Royal Albert Hall being the fastest selling event of the entire season.
Robert also designed a space in East London called the Sound Gallery, which opened in 2017 and hosted special events, workshops and where you could visit by appointment to listen and experience music in different ways.
AMAMAMA: Where are you from and tell us what you do.
Hatis Noit: Shiretoko in Hokkaido, Japan. I’m a singer.
Robert Raths: Cologne/Bonn in the Rhineland, Germany. I like to explore sound and space, but my background is in visual art.
A: When did you move to London and what’s your first expression?
H: In 2017. How euphoric is it when the summer is not so humid like where I’m from.
R: In 2004. The same air with a very different kind of breeze that comes from all directions. A place where anything is possible, where you can experience everything in a hyper dynamic way, the very best as well as the very worst of mankind — all at once!
A: Where and how did you two meet?
H: In Kyoto. Through one of Robert’s Japanese artists, Masayoshi Fujita.
R: She opened the night with an incredibly moving vocal performance, it was wild, some audience members were so disturbed and taken by it. Then we were sat in front of each other at the dinner table and talked for hours. It’s really the promoter’s doing that we found each other.
A: Do you travel together for Hatis’ shows abroad? Which one was the memorable show for both of you?
H: We have had lots of wonderful and crazy shows and tours. Although it’s very hard to pick just one, a show and residency program in Thailand with our label friends in 2019 was really fun.
R: yeah, that was a good one! I’m just so grateful I have a companion I can travel with, because you know, you can’t just travel with anybody. It’s so special and I still don’t take it for granted that we can travel together and have such a beautiful, quality time together — literally every aspect of it, even the super mundane things. I treasure every single moment, and I’m so thankful, especially now that we can’t travel at all.
A: We are currently in the lockdown for COVID-19 pandemic. What has been changed in terms of work? And how have you been managing?
H: In terms of creation, things surrounding me have become way more simple than before and the situation lets me be focus and dedicate more on producing music in the studio and I appreciate that. At the same time this lets me realise how important for me to have a time to connenct to audience and space in live performance and how much I miss that experience.
R: luckily I’m used to and perfectly content with locking myself into a laboratory, studio, cave, whatever you want to call it — throwing yourself into the mud of creation. And it’s the little things that help us remain sane — like appreciating that one of the many things we cannot control is gaining a little bit more sunlight and with it energy with every day that passes right now.
A: Today, you are wearing AMAMAMA dungarees for us. What do you usually wear?
H: Anything that excites me and lets me be a bit braver.
R: I like wearing fabrics that amplify your sensations, wether it’s making you feel even more free, or light, or heavy, or strong... anything that intensifies the experience
A: What do you find easy as a couple with the same work industry, and not easy?
R: haha, art is all about exploration. so what’s better than having a companion to explore together?
Q: Which country if we could and hopefully soon, would you like to go for the next show?
R: any place, right here is fine, our minds can travel
A: Do you think you would live in London for a long time?
R: time will tell. I still love and hate it in equal parts. and despite the fact I’ve travelled to so many corners of the world, whenever I return to it, it’s the closest I get to the feeling of coming home
A: Any future projects?
H: I have been working on my next album.
R: the future is now
A: Music you’ve been listening to lately?
H: Desire Marea
R: Moor Mother & billy woods, Lee Scratch Parry, Stockhausen, Ravi Shankar & Ali Akbar Khan, Ahmad Jamal, Kevin Richard Martin, Jan Jelinek...
A: Favourite books or quotes?
H: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. - Reinhold Niebuhr
R: A mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
A: Anything else you’d like to tell us?
H: Love you, a beautiful strong spirit!
R: I would like to thank you for creating such beautiful clothes for people of all ages. It’s so refreshing and we count ourselves very lucky to have you as a friend!
