In TM’s Atelier – Episode 5: A Journey of Creation and Self-Discovery
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TM, An image you’ve pieced together / Une image que tu as recomposée / あなたの中で編まれた一風景 二, 2025, composition visuelle numérique
From Imagination to Creation
When I was around ten, one of the things I was completely absorbed in was The Sound of Music.
About a year ago, I studied its composer, Richard Rodgers, and was astonished by the depth of his structural writing.
I even wrote a piece inspired by the way he built his music — a study in applying his methods.
I wish I could share it, but it still remains unreleased.
As I mentioned on the “About FMT” page,
around the age of twelve I encountered electronic pop music.
I became fascinated by KORG synthesizers and multitrack recorders,
and naturally began composing.
Even then, I think there was already something
that would later become the essence of FMT’s sound.
It was fortunate to be in Japan at a time
when electronic instrument makers were thriving.
By thirteen, I had joined dozens of bands and also played the drums.
It came naturally to me, though I had a slightly unusual view of drumming:
“You don’t need to own a drum kit.
If you have rhythm, you can already do a lot.
And practice can happen in your head —
if you can play it mentally, you can play it for real.”
But my interest was never in mastering technique.
Whether piano or drums, performing itself has always felt painful to me.
In that sense, when I say that FMT composes without instruments
to explore new conceptual approaches,
there’s probably another reason too:
that playing instruments has always been a source of discomfort for me.
Meeting TI
During my student years, I played drums in many different bands.
But to me, those bands were more like work than a place of creation.
I was given a setlist, played through it, and that was it —
it became a sequence of tasks to complete.
What I truly enjoyed in a band was arranging, building —
in other words, creating.
It was around that time that I met TI.
We lived in the same neighbourhood and our ways of thinking resonated easily.
We shared the same sense of joy — the act of making something from nothing.
At that point, FMT didn’t yet exist,
but the creative spirit we shared was already the same:
playful, experimental, and digital.
When we eventually started FMT,
it wasn’t with the intention of making a particular kind of music.
We simply wanted to create.
The Exploration Continues
At university, I studied psychology, driven by a deep desire to understand who I was.
But the real place of learning wasn’t the classroom —
it was the fifth basement floor of the university library.
There, I secured solitude and spent my time reading:
psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and the history of ideas.
Reading original texts in English and French
was my greatest pleasure.
And yet, after all that, I still didn’t know who I was.
My dissertation was titled The Pleasure of the Sound —
a quiet nod to Roland Barthes’ The Pleasure of the Text.
I wrote, from a psychoanalytic perspective, about the question:
Why do certain sounds seem to pierce us?
I wanted to become a musician,
but I had no idea how that could happen.
So after graduating, I began working in consulting.
My first job was in system consulting
at one of the global auditing firms.
Even the way documentation was written was standardised,
and I found myself enjoying the precision and logic
of recording every detail clearly.
Looking back now, I’ve come to see it’s quite similar
to what I do today with FMT —
writing production notes for every track.
It only just occurred to me, and it made me laugh (laughs).
In the end, people don’t really change that much.
To be continued
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