25 - HANJŌ

Giannis Kampiotis
November 15, 2022

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, HANJŌ

An architect living in Tokyo where space is limited, he takes the challenge to make music with a small footprint.

We take a peak in his setup and he tells us about his approach 🎶

Read Time: 7 minutes 📰

The Setup

Gear List

Synthesizers / Drum Machines / Samplers

Modular

4ms Pod x48
... ongoing!

Guitars / Pedals

1967 Guyatone LG-170T
Orange Stamp
AMT M2
AMT Chameleon Cab

Effects

Bakery Delay

Mic/ Voice Processors

Scarlett Studio Condenser microphone
Roland VT 4

Interface/ Recorders

Scarlett Solo
Irig Pro Duo
Irig Pro
Tascam DR-05
IPad Pro 11
Blokas Midihub

Controllers

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

Hi, my name is David, I am an architect based in Tokyo. Μy music project is called Hanjo.

Hanjo is about making music with a small footprint. The project is born in 2020 as consequence of living in Japan for several years.

Tokyo is a city where space becomes very valuable, the impossibility to allocate a permanent studio/rehearsal set up gives birth to Hanjo.

The name Hanjo comes from a Japanese word that means a half tatami mat.

Before I started this project, I was involved in the local rock scene in Spain for over 10 years playing guitar in bands, doing gigs in small venues and running a little label. In Tokyo I discovered hardware and it was my way back into my passion. In this project I explore new ways of creating music, I test different configurations and set ups using portable hardware gear and iOS production tools.

What's the one thing in your studio you can't live without?

My essential piece of gear is my Moog Sirin. It is the first analog synthesizer I ever bought before I even knew what a waveform was. It was the first synth that I heard and immediately gave me goosebumps. Since then it has found its place on almost all of my productions and sets.

Other essential pieces for me are the OP-Z, my Digitakt and my vintage guitar. The OP-Z was my introduction to hardware, Εlektron boxes are the pieces of gear that gave me the workflow and confidence to go out and start playing electronic shows by myself and my guitar is basically my go tool to jam and breakdown songs every time I feel like it.

What's your process?

Generally, I spend the whole week at work listening to music. I like focusing on 1 album and deconstructing its structures, drums patterns, basslines, production choices… I often spend months and months with 2 or 3 albums on rotation.

After the whole week I am generally really inspired to make something. I choose a set of tools and sit on my tatami to produce a full song from scratch and document the process with some videos. Sometimes I start with the drums or the bassline, it could be a chord progression with the guitar… when I have a solid base, I build it up from there. I like to have a finished product on that same day, so to finalize my process I make a recording of a performance regardless of the development stage of the track and with that I can either develop it more or move to the next one.

Most of my weekly jams are just sketches and stay that way. But sometimes when a show is approaching I will recover and finalize ideas that match the set or try to write a whole new track based on some previous sketch.

How would you explain your style?

I feel I am still in an exploration phase trying to find my sound palette. I rotate gear and setups often to explore new ways of making music. My vision is to merge my love for rock music developed from years of playing in rock bands with a more contemporary way of producing music with samplers, synths or any other new tools that allow me to create my own musical universe.

I look up to many artists but in terms of music feel I really connect with Queens of the Stone Age, Apparat, Bon Iver, and younger voices like Ela Minus, machìna, Alex Vargas... just to name a few. The list goes on with many lesser known artists or even friends from our local Tokyo scene that are pushing the boundaries between tools and genres.

Has this journey of building a hardware setup changed the way you think about music or life in general?

It has changed dramatically the way I listen to music and enjoy it.

It has opened a door for me appreciate a very wide range of electronic artists that I was not really understanding before and I also found many of my favorite artists had went down the hardware route at some point in their music journeys and brought back elements that made their sound so outstanding to me.