Shoegaze from Japan: otom on his new album ‘Fortunia’

A few months ago, I received a short email that said very little beyond introducing its sender as otom, a Japanese shoegaze musician, and linking to his new album, Fortunia. I had never heard of him before, but I love Japanese shoegaze, and submissions from Japan don’t land in my inbox all that often, so I clicked. Within minutes, I knew I had stumbled onto something special. It was a discovery that reminds me why I started Tape Wounds in the first place. I love finding music you never knew you were missing, then wanting to pass it on before the rest of the world catches up.

Since the late 1990s, the Tokyo-born musician otom blends shoegaze with ambient post-rock, vintage psychedelia, classical composition, and modern electronica—always looking for ways to move beyond the familiar.  Fortunia brings together songs that began taking shape in the late 1990s and early 2000s, revisited and reshaped over years until they reached what he considers their finished form.

What makes the conversation particularly refreshing is otom’s lack of canned nostalgia. While My Bloody Valentine remains "the single most important band" in his life, his devotion comes with an unflinching clarity about what has happened to shoegaze since the '90s. He speaks openly about how a once-boundary-pushing genre has become "formatted," with surface-level textures and predictable templates replacing the radical experimentation that defined its originators. Throughout our interview, otom reflects on the decades-long incubation of Fortunia, the shifting identity of Japanese indie and the hidden-gem artists he believes deserve a global audience. 

Shoegaze as a genre has become formatted, which has made it easier for more people to access, but at the same time, I get the same feeling I get from commercialized "alternative," or fashion-punk that's lost its spirit—something that's calcified into a fixed style.

For people who may not be familiar with you, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about the kind of music you make?

First, I want to thank Tape Wounds and Kamola for kindly responding to my email and giving me this opportunity.

My name is otom. I'm a solo musician born in Tokyo in 1976. Around age ten, I devoured The Beatles and soundtrack composers like John Williams. I started playing guitar at 14, and for about 30 years I've been making music built around shoegaze at its core, blended with post-rock, experimental music, electronic sounds, '60s–'70s psychedelia, soft rock, and soundtrack-like textures. I handle everything myself DIY—from recording to artwork. I work mostly online and have an extensive catalog of releases.

When did you first discover shoegaze? Do you remember where you were or a particular moment when you first heard it?

The mid-'90s were the UK scene's heyday, and I think I found my way in through Spiritualized → Spacemen 3 → MBV, or Sonic Youth → MBV, or maybe through a magazine feature—though my memory of it is a bit hazy after 30 years. What I do remember clearly is that Loveless was the first thing I heard, and I went straight out to buy their debut album and their four singles/EPs. Back then, MBV weren't the universally recognized name they are now; it felt more like something only a certain in-the-know crowd was listening to. A lot of people just didn't like them, as I recall.

After that, I soaked up everything I could find like a sponge—related shoegaze acts, 4AD, Kevin's remixes and outside projects—buying and absorbing it all. That's how I found shoegaze.

Which shoegaze bands have stayed important to you over the years?

Without a doubt, MBV. Out of every artist in every genre, they've always ranked at the very top for me—though that's really limited to MBV up through around 2010.

I'm from the generation that arrived just a few years too late to catch them in real time, so the first time I actually saw Kevin in person was in 1998, when he was playing guitar for Primal Scream—I'd never been able to see him before that. My deification of MBV only grew from there, and I finally got to experience the band itself in 2008 at an outdoor show at Fuji Rock. When "I Only Said" started, it hit me hard—I was probably openly crying, honestly. And the "Holocaust" section of "You Made Me Realise," played with no volume limits, was truly overwhelming.

After that, I kept going whenever they toured Japan, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the quality was gradually dropping. I think their third album is a really good record too, but the magic of their '90s work feels lost. There's been no new material since, and touring the same old setlist over and over these days makes them come across like they're just cashing in for retirement money—which, honestly, leaves me a little disillusioned. So lately I've lost interest in going to reunion shows in general, not just theirs.

That said, they remain the single most important band for me, without question.

Your music combines shoegaze with electronic and experimental sounds. When did you first start mixing these different styles?

I'd say I was already working in this style by around '97.

The original shoegaze bands each emerged searching for their own distinct style, and it wasn't just about a band's core sound—they were trying to be innovative with every release. They embraced house beats and sampling, and then, out of nowhere, you'd get something like Mojave 3 doing their Bob Dylan thing. I think the artists themselves were experimental and progressive by nature.

On Creation, there were acts like Teenage Filmstars, and around '92–'93 you had Flying Saucer Attack pushing feedback and ambience further, Spoonfed Hybrid (ex-Pale Saints) with their distinctive audio editing, The Third Eye Foundation combining saturated noise with drum and bass (this was around the time Kevin was reportedly trying to make a drum and bass album, too), early Mogwai, and so on. Alongside the Chicago sound of labels like Thrill Jockey, these all got grouped under "post-rock," and a lot of other shoegaze-influenced sounds came out of that same period. By the late '90s into the early 2000s, electronica artists working with Max/MSP, like Fennesz and Christopher Willits, were folding the essence of shoegaze into their own work. Manual and Boards of Canada did the same thing, of course. Then from around 2010 onward, there's Beach House, who gradually leaned more into shoegaze from their earlier sound, and Airhead—the guy who plays guitar in James Blake's band—whose album also worked shoegaze in really nicely. More recently, I've felt a real sympathy for the way Suzanne Kraft builds his own distinct world.

This is just my personal, fairly loose take, but what these artists have in common, I think, is that none of them just reproduced the standard shoegaze format, template, or texture as-is; they each absorbed the essence of what influenced them and searched for their own distinct sound. I grew up listening to artists like that, so when it came to making my own music, doing the same felt like the obvious thing to do.

There were a few artists around the late '90s and early 2000s doing pure, straightforward shoegaze sounds, and I did enjoy listening to them, but even then I felt that attitude wasn't cool. The experimental style the original shoegaze artists pursued is, I believe, what's truly progressive and truly musical, and I've always wanted to follow that same path—which is, in its own way, the deepest respect I can pay to shoegaze, precisely because I love it so much.

Do you think of yourself as a shoegaze artist, or do you prefer not to use a genre label?

I've been strongly influenced by it, and I've learned my methods from it, so in one sense you could say yes, and in another sense, no. Zoomed out, I think what I make ultimately comes down to experimental pop or post-rock. I remember reading somewhere that Kevin said something like, "We never thought of ourselves as shoegaze"—I think my perspective is close to that. Of course, there's a huge gap between MBV's greatness and myself, but I make music based on the same philosophy as my previous answer. That said, sure, I do have plenty of tracks that sound blatantly like the genre, but I'm always conscious of adding some element that doesn't quite fit. Looking back, I think it's been 30 years of constantly being careful not to sound too much like "that" sound.

Given where shoegaze's sound has been trending lately, I feel some resistance, in various ways, to putting the shoegaze tag on myself—but since it also serves as an entry point for listeners, I do tag it, sort of reluctantly. Honestly, it leaves me a little frustrated.

Your new album Fortunia includes songs that you wrote many years ago. Why did you want to bring these old songs back now?

Most of the songs on this album were written between the late '90s and early 2000s. I'm the type of artist who lets things mature slowly—I approach songs almost like oil painting, changing the arrangement again and again on the way toward a finished form. After living with these songs for what felt like an exhaustingly long time, they finally arrived at something close to perfect in my own mind, and I also felt I should put out a kind of "calling card" release—a collection of the pieces I'm most confident in out of my huge catalog.

For example, the opening track "Without You" was my attempt at doing my own version of "To Here Knows When." Its finished form now pairs a drone-like guitar tone with a rhythm arrangement that moves from dissonance to resolution—something like Steve Reich's "Piano Phase," or the opening of the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th, where motifs from the 1st through 3rd movements are revisited before finally arriving at the "Ode to Joy" phrase. Having it selected as one of Muso Japan's best singles of 2018 was a real honor.

Then there's the second track, "Hidden Sun," where the loop-based sound, the drumming that ebbs and flows, and the guitar's dramatic build all came together really well. This one is also one of the tracks that best represents me, and since this particular version had never been included on an album before, I put it on this one.

And on the fourth track, "Talk"—the song of mine that's been listened to by the most people—I managed to fold Pink Floyd- and Glenn Branca-style delay sounds, played on a classical guitar, into something that works as a pop song.

I felt I should put out an album collecting these songs—the ones I consider my most successful. It feels like I've been released from some kind of spell, and right now a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

“Seasons” was written around 2005. What do you remember about that period of your life when you wrote it?

This song was written around the time I met the woman who would become my wife. I was listening to all kinds of music and doing all sorts of things back then. I never stopped writing songs, but during this period I was working as a projectionist at a movie theater and prioritizing that job over my music. That said, I went to a lot of live shows. It was really the last era before the internet's spread caused genres and musical progress to become saturated and fragmented—one of the most memorable periods of my life.

You’ve said the album was influenced by books about people who live slightly outside the logic of the world, yet still maintain their own dignity. How did this idea influence the music on Fortunia?

Naturally, this includes the lyrics, but also the track order, the short interludes between songs, and the sound arrangement of each track—everything is built to follow a certain internal logic, flowing from beginning to end like a single story.

This album is the result of trying to digest, in my own way, the ways of thinking and the aesthetic sensibilities found in In Search of Lost Time, Don Quixote, One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Confederacy of Dunces, and The Consolation of Philosophy, and reflecting them in the work. For example, there's an episode in In Search of Lost Time that depicts differences in spiritual class—the idea that a person's worth isn't determined by status or appearance, but by the spirit with which they live. I've woven that kind of theme in as one thread running through the whole album.

There are many songs about seasons, snow, rain, and nature on Fortunia. Why do you like using these images in your music?

Now that you mention it, yeah, I do use a lot of that imagery, haha. Honestly, though, basically everything I write is about people—myself included—as well as social structures, politics, and that kind of thing. Seasons, snow, rain—most of those images function as metaphors. It's pretty close to a technique that some of my favorite directors—Alejandro Jodorowsky, Seijun Suzuki, David Lynch—use a lot: to depict a scene of someone getting shot and blood splattering, you show a red umbrella suddenly popping open instead.

I also make heavy use of wordplay and double meanings, to the point where even native Japanese speakers might not catch everything. There are also certain kanji and expressions in Japanese—heavier, more dramatic-sounding words—that instantly make something sound like "lyrics" in a vaguely chuunibyou [edgy adolescent] way. I make a point of avoiding words like that, trying instead to build things out of plain, simple words a kid could understand.

Writing lyrics used to be a struggle for me, but these days I find the process of crafting them with a literary sensibility genuinely enjoyable.

You describe Fortunia as the first otom album released on subscription streaming services. What made you decide to release it this way?

Honestly, I wanted to release it on vinyl, but once it was finished it ran over an hour, rip. I went with streaming because it's the medium that can reach people most widely right now, but there's no question I prefer physical formats, both emotionally and sonically. I've thought about a CD or tape release too, but that comes with costs, so for now I'm holding off and seeing how things go. I still have this lingering dream of doing something like those old Windy & Carl CD-R releases—hand-painted watercolor covers, every single copy different—but I just don't have the energy to keep up with that right now.

What would you like people to feel when they listen to Fortunia for the first time?

It's an album carrying some fairly heady ideas and methodology, but the whole theme is ultimately about distilling that down into something pop—I made it with Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a kind of target. So more than anything, I'd like people hearing Fortunia for the first time to just relax and enjoy it.

A lot of modern shoegaze is becoming more connected to grunge, emo, and heavier music. Your music has stayed closer to the dreamy side of shoegaze. Why do you think that sound still attracts you?

When I think about shoegaze as a genre, I can't separate it from early-'90s UK indie, the Scottish-centered neo-acoustic scene, or the Manchester movement. I also think it includes the fashion and the general atmosphere of that time, so to me, shoegaze is something that got packaged as its own independent thing—not something that exists before or after that specific moment in the '90s. What those bands had in common was a psychedelic sensibility and a sense of floating weightlessness, and I believe that's the actual essence of shoegaze—that's exactly what I love about it.

The current style—loud, headbanging, aggressive guitar playing—feels like something completely different from the cool detachment of classic shoegaze, or the ironic, distinctly UK sensibility you'd get from something like The Smiths. I obviously like loud, emo music too, but I sometimes wish there were a clearer, separate name for it. I'm nowhere near as deeply informed as people who really dig into modern shoegaze, but from what I've heard, it feels like: line up some high-gain and reverb pedals, go loud, or do the whole whispery-female-vocal thing just tracing over what Slowdive already did, and—boom—instant shoegaze. It all feels like it barely goes beyond texture, and honestly, the whole tendency feels somewhat conservative. Not that I'd deny the songwriting quality is often surprisingly high. Shoegaze as a genre has become formatted, which has made it easier for more people to access, but at the same time, I get the same feeling I get from commercialized "alternative," or fashion-punk that's lost its spirit—something that's calcified into a fixed style.

Whatever I personally think the essence is, these are the artists who count as shoegaze today, and listeners are eagerly seeking exactly that, so supply and demand line up—and I'm somewhat aware that a sound like mine isn't really what's in demand these days. It's the natural order of things for forms and interpretations to shift with the times, but I guess that's just "So it goes." Personally, unfortunately, I just don't have much interest in shoegaze as it stands today.

What excites me far more is the energy, innovation, and appeal I feel from younger artists pushing new sounds right now in 2026—people like Mk.gee and Dijon, or black midi and Geordie Greep (who sometimes sounds like King Crimson to me). And while she's more of a mid-career artist at this point, I think someone as genuine as Circuit des Yeux deserves to be far bigger. I'd love for her to come tour Japan.

Do you think shoegaze sounds different when it is made in Japan compared with the UK or America?

I'm not exactly someone who keeps up closely with the Japanese shoegaze scene, so I don't know it that well, but I'm sure it sounds different. That said, if anything, I feel like it leans a bit more American. I don't see many artists these days who are still holding onto that psychedelic sensibility. The US and the UK have always had this tradition of trading musical counter-movements back and forth, right? And my impression is that young people in Japan today are less drawn to, or less eager to chase down, foreign music than they used to be—so I think it's naturally evolved in its own kind of "Galápagos" way.

Do you think there is a “Japanese shoegaze sound,” or is it more accurate to talk about many different local approaches (Tokyo, Osaka, etc.)?

When I look at the loud, emo-leaning bands, or the kind of by-the-numbers dream pop acts that seem to be the gateway artists for people in their 20s to early 30s right now, I do think it adds up to a Japanese shoegaze that's developed its own distinct character, for better or worse. I think there are differences depending on the local scene, but overall the broader tendencies don't seem all that different. My impression is that what we have now comes from the 2010s-onward revival connecting with the Japanese indie rock of that same period, so it ends up feeling like a mix of shoegaze sounds with a "schoolgirl"-type theme, or something adjacent to that.

Of course, the songwriting quality across the board is genuinely very high, but I do wonder—if the revival or the trend hadn't happened, would they have chosen that sound in the first place? I also feel like there's a real sense in which the genre itself has become a tool for consumption, driven purely by trend. I've lost the youth I once had, but these artists have an environment overflowing with limitless music and tools—so instead of digging up some moldy old genre from the past, I'd rather they create something unheard of, something only they could make. Doing that might even let them stand alongside MBV or Slowdive, and I think that would be genuinely progressive. That's the sight I'd love to see.

What do you think people outside Japan often misunderstand about Japanese music?

This is true of things outside music too, like anime, but I think what people abroad tend to misunderstand is assuming that whatever's gotten visible through the power of social media represents Japanese music as a whole. Honestly, the Japanese scene has clearly evolved in its own direction, but I do feel like, starting around 2010, artists' expression got a little more childish, a little more "green," I guess. What's the word in English—green, or naive, something like that? That applies to input as much as output, and I think it's true across film, animation, and literature in general too.

Personally, when it comes to artists from before that era, there's an endless amount I could confidently recommend to people abroad. Rather than whatever's currently buzzing, I'd rather people pick up the masterpieces that laid the groundwork for it. City pop and fusion, which used to be considered uncool at home for a while, getting reevaluated overseas and then reimported back into Japan—that phenomenon kind of proves the point, and it's also something I genuinely find wonderful.

If someone outside Japan wants to understand the breadth of Japanese shoegaze beyond the “big names,” which records or artists would you recommend they start with?

I'm not really that interested in current shoegaze, so I honestly don't know much there. But Flipper's Guitar (Cornelius, aka Keigo Oyamada) is a huge name already, though they're one of the very few artists who genuinely understood shoegaze and the UK indie scene deeply and correctly, absorbing it into their own work in different forms almost in real time. They're a genuine pioneer, without question.

Slightly outside shoegaze itself, but if we're talking about guitar-and-noise-centered sounds that feel distinctly Japanese, Les Rallizes Dénudés and Keiji Haino are the famous names, right? I think they carry a real Japanese emotional sensibility. Not catchy in the slightest, though.

Finally, I want to once again thank the readers of this piece, and Kamola for giving me this opportunity. Thank you so much.

I've said a lot here, but at the end of the day, all of this is just one opinion, and I also believe music should be free—whether it's about essence or imitation. So personally, I don't want to get caught up in the small details; lately, I've been thinking I'd like to become the kind of old man who stays unchanged no matter how the times shift—someone like Martin Newell of The Cleaners From Venus.

I hope Tape Wounds, a publication that digs so deep into shoegaze out of genuine love for it, keeps going for a very long time.