Hakushi Hasegawa was ready to stop making music in isolation.
For almost a decade, the Tokyo artist, 27, has transformed recognisable sounds into something strange and unfamiliar. Rapid keyboard passages collide with pounding drums and electronically altered vocals, with pop melodies tucked inside the chaos. That approach attracted admirers both in Japan and overseas, eventually making Hasegawa the first Japanese artist signed to American electronic label Brainfeeder, which released their 2024 album ‘Mahogakko’.
“But it was something I made entirely by myself, sitting in front of my computer the whole time,” Hasegawa explains to NME, speaking from home during a late evening video conversation in early August. “It had become really difficult to step outside my own vocabulary, so to speak.”
For ‘Honest Feeling Album’, arriving this week, they decided to bring other musicians into the process. The newly assembled HaHa And The Hairpins gave their initial ideas a different weight, adding muscular guitars, drums and horns. At times, including on ‘The Owner Of Sweetness’, the results approach the grinding intensity of metal. Hasegawa’s unusual musical instincts still guide the record, but sharing the work introduced both unexpected discoveries and difficult decisions.
“Since it’s actual people playing, and those people are…kind of eccentric people, all sorts of wonderfully strange sounds kept coming out of it, and that was really fun,” explains Hasegawa, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. “At the same time, there was also a real difficulty in making judgment calls. Like, is it OK to force this delightful, funny sound into my own texture or not?”
Despite the additional voices shaping it, ‘Honest Feeling Album’ feels closely connected to Hasegawa’s current artistic outlook. Alongside its turbulent rock and electronic passages are emotionally exposed dance pop songs and bossa nova with a misleadingly sunny surface. Its constant surprises are part of the pleasure for its creator.
Hasegawa’s introduction to music came through childhood piano lessons arranged by their parents. By junior high, that routine had developed into a deeper interest, including a short attempt at starting a band for a school festival that they now recall with laughter.
The internet proved more influential. Through message boards, Hasegawa met electronic musicians and discovered sounds they had never encountered before. Their first uploaded track, 2016’s buoyant, jazz influenced ‘Hadairo No Kawa’, soon found an audience within Japan’s online music scene. A release through respected netlabel Maltine Records followed in 2017, before an EP and debut album pushed their ideas towards a bigger, more explosive sound. In 2020, they changed direction with ‘Bones Of Dreams Attacked!’, a covers collection that reworked Japanese pop songs and included a gentle version of Disney’s ‘A Whole New World’.
“I consider myself the artist who most defies expectations”
Their restless movement between styles attracted international musicians including Porter Robinson, who invited Hasegawa to perform at his virtual Secret Sky festival in 2020. The Brainfeeder signing followed several years later. Hasegawa described joining as “an honour”, and the label felt well suited to the adventurous sound of ‘Mahogakko’.
Recognition was growing at home, too, an unexpected development in an industry that rarely gives such unconventional electronic music broad attention. Hasegawa’s work has since stretched across production for rappers, virtual performers and songwriters, as well as remixes for acts including Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.
During the ‘Mahogakko’ period, Hasegawa appeared on The First Take, the YouTube performance series known for recording artists in a single take. Sharing a platform associated with names such as Yoasobi, Hikaru Utada and Harry Styles was an unlikely turn. It also planted the seed for ‘Honest Feeling Album’.
“At first I was only going to have the drummer Shu Akimoto join for The First Take. I asked him if he knew anyone else who could play this type of song,” Hasegawa recalls. The musicians brought together for that session, Akimoto, percussionist Hitomi Aikawa, saxophonist Kei Matsumaru and bassist Ryo Miyachi, became a “prototype” for HaHa And The Hairpins. Guitarist Tokutaro Hosoi completed the group later.
Hakushi Hasegawa credit: George Asakura
“Getting to meet those people who became band members, that might honestly have been the most valuable part of the whole experience,” they reflect.
Most of the demos for ‘Honest Feeling…’ were ready by early 2025. The next task was finding room for the band’s abilities within those ideas. “I had to take their sound and somehow bring it into my own texture. My workload might have ended up being bigger than ever before, which was kind of unexpected.”
That collaborative approach also shaped the guest list, with Hasegawa trusting their instincts about which artist belonged on each track. The contributors span several corners of contemporary Japanese music and beyond. Accorinrin, vocalist of punk group Otoboke Beaver, brings force to ‘Why The Hell Do I Have To Say Everything From One To Ten Each Time Each Time Each Time Each Time’, while virtual YouTuber Tsukino Mito supplies a sweet idol vocal on the lighter ‘Gettinhereroute’. Having enjoyed electronic musician Tofubeats’ conversation between songs at live shows, Hasegawa invited them to provide commentary resembling a sports broadcast over Matsumaru’s saxophone performance on ‘Boss-Moire-FS’.
“I think Hasegawa’s appeal lies in how the music coexists with – and blends – various facets of their personality,” Tofubeats explains in an email several days later. “The academic background of a music college graduate, a love for experimental music, and the sensibility of someone who frequents clubs.”
“On ‘Honest Feeling Album’, I’d wanted from the very start to pay tribute to non-binary people who are already gone”
The honesty promised by ‘Honest Feeling…’ comes directly from Hasegawa. Some of their most immediate melodies accompany words they consider their most aggressive yet, with ‘The Owner Of Sweetness’ also containing their most unsettling writing. Inspiration can come from books, as on ‘Nausea’, which borrows its title and ideas of disappointment from Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel, or from a simple desire to have fun. “Ultimately, all I want to do is make people laugh,” they explain.
Once completely anonymous, Hasegawa has become more willing to reveal themselves while finding new ways to reshape that presentation. Throughout ‘Honest Feeling…’, their vocals are often raised into a bright register that cuts against the surrounding commotion. Behind that choice is a straightforward intention.
“It’s really just about one thing…singing cute,” they explain, laughing. Their fondness for “cute songs” informs their focus on maintaining a high vocal formant, a resonant frequency that helps shape the character of a voice.
“As I’m talking about it right now, I’m realising that anime songs and [Vocaloid avatar] Hatsune Miku have probably had a big influence on me,” they reflect. Against the album’s harsher instrumental passages, those vocals introduce another unexpected contrast. They also reveal more of Hasegawa’s personal tastes, making the music feel closer to its creator.
Hakushi Hasegawa credit: Courtesy of Hakushi Hasegawa
Their identity also informs closing track ‘Never Lack Nothing’, which draws on traditional bon odori music performed at festivals to remember those who have died.
“On ‘Honest Feeling Album’, I’d wanted from the very start to pay tribute to non-binary people who have died – or rather, non-binary people who existed in the past and are already gone,” they explain. “Once I had that in mind, I thought about what musical form would suit that best, and the answer was bon-odori, because that kind of music was originally meant for everyone to dance together in mourning.”
For someone whose music resists easy definition, the song offers a particularly intimate glimpse into their thinking. But that unexpected turn feels entirely characteristic. “I consider myself the artist who most defies expectations,” Hasegawa responds when asked about their place in contemporary Japanese music. “I use my own ever-changing musical language to create a situation in which I draw attention while simultaneously avoiding it.”
Hakushi Hasegawa releases ‘Honest Feeling Album’ through Brainfeeder on August 28.
