Ep. 20 | Tub Talks with Aska Matsumiya: Musician + Film Composer
This week we sit in a hot tub for the first time with musical composer and artist, Aska Matsumiya. Aska is at the end of her third trimester of pregnancy as we bathe. Her belly is full and ripe, and the baby is ready to come out any day. Aska shares her experience on approaching early motherhood for a second time, 20 years after the birth of her first and only daughter, Bebel. Immigrating from Japan to California with her family as a young lady, Aska remembers her experience of cultural and linguistic differences between the two nations from childhood through today. Since she was three, Aska’s relationship with composition and piano grew as her own language, an alternative method of expression when words and socializing did not come naturally.
Aska explains how her relationship with piano continued to blossom and guided her towards her dream of going to Julliard, landing her at American art schools in her early childhood education. However, when Aska was 15, she found authentic friendship in school with kids who were alternative, artistic, and exposed her to a foreign genre of music: Punk. Aska experienced her first punk concert that would bring her to drop out of high school, drop her dream of being a concert pianist, and join her own punk band with whom she would begin touring in a van. Yet, life quickly had a different plan: at 19, Aska was pregnant, inciting her to quit the band and embark on her next journey in life: motherhood.
As a young mother, Aska describes how she dove into the musical culture of Seattle, playing in indie bands in the Sub Pop era. Her love of variant genres of music and doing odd jobs like working for fashion magazines, consulting for brands, or even playing piano for ballet classes helped to develop the skills, and give her experiences that would weave together to make her better at scoring films now. People come to her because she knows the patterns of classical music and simultaneously knows how to break all of the rules. People come to her to score films when they want something different.
At 25 years old, Aska began her scoring journey through working with director Crystal Moselle, composing pieces for various fashion clips and then, her breakout film: The Wolfpack. ‘There Are Many Of Us’ was Aska’s first original song featured as the central theme song of Spike Jonze’s film, ‘I’m Here’. Spike told her she could make things and that could be her work. This nugget was mind blowing, and helped Aska to transition from taking on all of the odd jobs she was piecing together, to focusing in on composing scores full time.
Aska now incorporates her cultural identity with her Japan-based music production company: Black Cat White Cat Music, which she created with her brother. They curate musical artists from around the world to create original soundscapes and songs for Japanese commercials and productions. Aska explains cultural differences she has encountered in the Japanese business space. She explains that in Japan, trust comes from words. Whereas in America, everything is contracted. She describes how growing up in America has helped her and her brother create a bridge between Japanese culture and the world outside. Aska sees that the way people listen to music in Japan or Germany, resonates with the way that she likes to create music. She observes that Japanese culture is more comfortable with silence and space. She describes a Japanese word that doesn’t translate to English conceptually or lexically: “Kue-issho.” She couldn’t think of the word exactly in the bath, but later said that it is a Buddhist thought that means “you will eventually find yourself meeting up again with the one you wished for, in one place, and to keep that strength to seek the hope in destiny.”
Aska and I first met through our mutual close friend Desiree, who passed away in a tragic and shocking surfing accident in 2015. Our individual friendship began through our shared mourning and loss of someone we loved. Aska shares how she composed an album as an expression of her grief for Desiree, but she never released it. Simply the act of creating it was cathartic.
Surfing had been a passion that Desiree and Aska enjoyed together. Aska learned to surf from our collaborator and Tub Talks guest, Kassia Meador. Aska was scoring a surf film for Kassia, and it was in the experience of paying attentions to the details, the micromovements and how to play sound to the movement, that she became interested in experiencing it herself. When she asked Kassia about it, Kassia put all the necessary materials into her hands and took Aska into the water. Aska describes surfing as feeling like a child on a playground because it’s playful. She understands how fundamentally important it is to feel joy so simply. Adults can forget how to have fun. Surfing elicits that joy in Aska’s life. And this conversation inspires us to find these joys, and our passions, in ourselves. I hope you enjoy this deep soak with my friend in bloom, Aska Matsumiya!
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