In TM’s Atelier – Episode 3: When the Concept Ignites

TM, He Is Still There, 2025, digital visual composition

(You can find another TM work, “He Is Burning,”  here.)

Our album Le Cube Dans Mon Rêve is based on the idea of creating what we call musical Cubism — a sort of imaginary music made possible through digitalisation.

This is not the usual way of using digital tools.

It is more of a suggestion — a way of saying that they can be used differently.

In most cases, the digitalisation of music seems to mean automation, cost reduction, or simple sound processing.

But I wanted to ask: isn’t there a more artistic way forward?

One example of this is precisely a concept that could never have existed before.

Some people might have started to think of us as musical Cubists (laughs),
so I should probably say — that was just one of our projects.

We’ll probably never do it again.

In the past, we’ve imagined other sorts of virtual music as well:

for instance, music built around auditory illusions
(Auditory Art for Visual Arts),

or the idea of a contemporary hotel jazz band
(Newfangled Hotel Ambience).

We also created a sort of digital folk music that exists only in virtual space
(The Anomalous Folk).

And within each of those projects,
every single piece has its own concept.

In the series based on auditory illusions, for example,
there’s one piece built entirely on geometric symmetry —
the one I mentioned earlier, In The Mirror.

Another, Parallel, separates two crossing rhythms to the left and right channels of the stereo field.

These are pieces that could never have existed before.

That’s exactly why they matter.

A human? Or a machine?

To put it simply — in digital music, you can make an instrument sound as if it’s being played by a human, or as if it’s being played by a machine.

I often switch between those two styles, and sometimes I explore a middle ground — a sound where you can’t quite tell which is which.

That’s something only digital composition allows.

One reviewer once wrote that

“even though the music is entirely created in a digital space, it doesn’t feel cold.”

That’s true — it can sound warm, but it can also be made to sound cold, if we wish.

In short, the digital medium allows concepts that could once exist only in imagination to take on a real form.

On BBC Radio 3, Sara Mohr-Pietsch once described our music as

“zany and imaginative.”

I was genuinely moved by the precision and elegance of her words — they captured it perfectly. How insightful.

All of this, I think, has a deep connection with the kind of childhood I had — one filled with imagination, and a constant fascination with the world inside my mind.

To be continued

The Visual Work "He Is Still There"

The Paradox of Symbolism

The visual piece shown at the top of this page, as you might imagine, is a composition made from layered images of fire.

I approached fire in a symbolist way — it represents the concept behind the music itself.

And I could have left it there.

If that had been all, I wouldn’t have bothered to write an explanation.

But two thoughts came to me while I was looking at it.

The first concerns what I call the paradox of symbolism.

I used fire to symbolise a concept.

Yet in this visualised form, the fire — originally a symbol of the concept — ends up becoming a symbol of the music itself.

So… where did the original concept go?

More broadly speaking, the moment an abstract idea is given concrete form through symbolism, that concrete form can take on new meaning — to the point that the original concept fades from view.

It’s a bit philosophical, and rather amusing.

(Don’t think I’ve lost my mind, okay? laughs)

While working on the piece, I kept looking at the fire again and again, and at some point, it suddenly started to look like a cat seen from behind.

And once I saw it that way, I could never unsee it.

Now, for me, it’s less fire than cat.

This has something to do with Gestalt psychology — the psychology of perception and form.

The word Gestalt refers to the phenomenon where a simple shape starts to carry meaning.

It’s a German term, but it’s actually quite well-known in Japan, especially through the technical term “Gestalt collapse.”

(I’ve often told German-speaking friends about it, and they’d say, “What? What’s that supposed to mean?” — laughs)

At university, I studied a field close to psychology, and we learned about this.

For instance, if you stare at the letter A for too long, you can start to lose any sense of what it is — that’s Gestalt collapse.

Conversely, when a mere shape takes on meaning in your mind, that’s Gestalt itself.

In that sense, this fire that now looks like a cat — that’s exactly a Gestalt.

When I was little, I used to stare at the wooden ceiling and see faces in the patterns, and sometimes I couldn’t sleep because of it.

That must have been a Gestalt too.

Linking philosophy and psychology makes things even more interesting.

When a symbol — expressed in a symbolist way — undergoes a Gestalt that gives it a different meaning…

… the symbolism itself collapses.

“This work represents the concept of music,” I say.

And if someone replies,

“Oh, I see — it’s a cat!”

— then the whole idea falls apart. (laughs)

But really, none of this matters all that much.

And yet, perhaps these seemingly trivial things are exactly what symbolise the very concept behind FMT’s music.

(Note: The title of the visual piece at the top, “He Is Still There,” and its companion piece, “He Is Burning,” are both wordplays based on the fact that the Japanese word for “fire” (火) is pronounced “hi,” similar to the English “He.”)