From The Crude To The Masterful ‘n’ Moody

The Hana Haruna project started in 2018- initially making crude and brutal walled noise, but as it’s progressed it’s moved more towards layered, detail, and often progressive wall craft with an ambient undercurrent.  To date, it’s released over two hundred releases. Behind the project is Ken Jamison from Portland, Oregon who also runs the internet-based noise label Basement Corner Emissions( which we discuss later in the interview), as well as been behind a few other projects. Ken kindly agreed to give us an email interview.

M[m]: what are some of your earliest sonic memories?  And do you think any indicate your love of noise?

Ken: I'm 58 years old. I grew up in the 1970s and listened to what was known then as progressive FM rock but what is now known as classic rock. Of course the question is what would old fart music have to do with experimental sounds, particularly noise? The artists and bands played weren't forced into the strictures of top 40 radio and sales charts, and in fact, this came to be known as album-oriented rock. But besides being able to bring different and fresh ideas into the genre, it is through this, and through friends who also listened to the same, that I was introduced to bands such as The Stooges and The Velvet Underground, and also nascent punk, who showed me that I could discover new music, and indeed weirder and noisier music than what was commonly available on the airwaves at the time. In the 1980s I got into bands like Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Scratch Acid, Sonic Youth, and Big Black, and labels such as Touch and Go, Dutch East India Trading, and Homestead Records. All of whom delved into the noisy end of things, so my mind opened even more. My record collection exploded in those days. Also, I DJed at the alternative station at the college I went to and found bands like Happy Flowers and early The Jesus And Mary Chain who sometimes were straight-out noise. I would say that, unlike younger folks who kind of jumped right into a noise genre that was almost fully formed, my rather slow discovery of the form throughout a few decades perhaps kept my mind open to other addendums I could later add to what I created.

 

M[m]: Please talk a little about how and when you got into more extreme/ experimental sound? And what was your first introduction to the walled noise form, and was there a particular release that triggered you to want to make your own walls?

Ken: The 1990s were the first full-fledged dive into extreme sounds for me. I was thankful to be the perfect age to catch the early-'90s explosion of 'alternative' rock. Back then the prices were cheaper and I had a work income that allowed me to take chances on unusual albums by strange artists and see tons of live shows. And in the middle of the decade, I discovered free jazz and post-rock and fell in love with the different forms presented by the genres. Indeed my first noise project, Crepuscular Entity, was more informed by free jazz than classic harsh noise artists. I loved the studied anarchy there. Although noise projects like Merzbow, Sewer Election and Heinz Hopf influenced my sounds it was free jazzmakers like Peter Brotzmann and Alexander von Schlippenbach who became the primary influences on my noise. Mild structure but freedom of sound. It's why my Crepuscular Entity releases are mostly improvised; I start with a vague structure and then when I hit record I go with the flow of what the dials and gear give me. Then in the early to mid 2000s, I delved into outsider black metal with its unusual and gritty methods and that opened my mind more to straight harsh noise. I wasn't really a noise fan until I found the bi-weekly record reviews online from the sadly departed Aquarius Records in San Francisco and sent my money their way for the interesting stuff they wrote so passionately about. Wasn't all noise but it was certainly the gateway drug into the genre for me.

Like any HNW enthusiast, my first contact with it was likely Vomir. The first album I bought was 'Renonce' from the Crucial Blast noise imprint. I liked it but I still wasn't an enormous fan of HNW overall, too much sameness. But as I came into contact with different projects and indeed some later Vomir tracks which investigated more varied wall forms, I developed a grudging respect for it. I don't think there was a particular release that made me think I could or should do it as much as the attitude of 'fuck, I can do this better...'.

 

M[m]: you mentioned free jazz- what albums/ tracks really pushed your buttons when you were getting into the genre?

Ken:  Basically any later-career John Coltrane that 'serious' jazz fans hate. By and large, I listen more to the European side of free jazz, but I think it was Coltrane's free playing - since I was listening to his 'normal' stuff already - along with Ornette Coleman's 'Free Jazz' album that got me fully into it, but that's trying to remember 25-year-old-plus facts. Brotzmann's 'Machine Gun' and Schlippenbach's 'Pakistani Pomade' were seminal albums for me. This is insanely messy but I love it. Spoke to me more than most of the rock I was listening to at the time. Also Coltrane's 'Meditations'. There is a track on his 'Live In Japan' three-CD set that really influenced my thinking. It was I think the last of two or three different versions of 'My Favorite Things' on the album; just an epic track of improvisation, with lots of great free playing barely touching on the original song, until suddenly a few bars of the chorus come through to bring things back to a semblance of order before taking off again. I try to operate similarly with my harsh noise, with an idea of a slight structure in which everything goes improvisational once record is hit, and the light boundaries act as a guide. Also, I have a strange admiration for a version of Albert Ayler's 'Bells' released on ESP-Disk. Rough recording of a rough live piece but it is so intriguingly anarchic that I get noisy inspiration from it. Just hearing obviously talented instrumentalists who can play straight deciding to play free made me realize I didn't have to follow rules, or at least the ones I didn't want to.

 

 

M[m]: Hana Haruna started in the year 2018 - please talk a little bit about what inspired its formation? And how did you select the name, and what’s the meaning behind it?

Ken: The above-mentioned attitude and the desire to experiment and see what I could do. I made a few walls as Crepuscular Entity but decided to create a new, solely noise wall project so I could focus my energies in that direction. And I loved the idea of being able to make noise by setting up a couple of looped chains of sound, hit record, and go have a beer. It was at that time I was becoming interested in the otaku culture of Japan and its worldwide influences via anime and manga, but mostly just the unique creativity there was. I am still engaged with it, and I am a huge fan of vtubing and the crazy entertainment afforded by it. In the beginning, I was inspired by the gravure idol culture, which are women selected by their attractiveness and hired to model or sing or act. Hana Haurna is a Japanese adult video actress who came up through the gravure system. Most of the titles of my noise wall tracks - though not all - are derived from the names of gravure idols. I chose the overall name of Hana Haruna because she stood out from the rest with her exotic looks and the alliterativeness of the name, which flowed off the tongue easily. But to be honest, it is not necessarily an idol-specific project, using their names is more interesting to me than everything being 'untitled' as is so common in HNW. 

 

M[m]: Could you explain the gravure idol scene a little more & its appeal?. And what other actors do you admire in the scene?

Ken:  I don't really have a direct admiration for it other than aesthetics. It was more like a gateway drug into Japanese otaku culture. Right now it's a source for track titles. And once in a while, I'll do a long wall for a classic gravure idol, sort of a general thanks for inspiration to the form.

 

 

M[m]: Does your interest in Japanese art develop beyond the gravure idol? For example, do you enjoy Japanese film, literature, or art?

Ken:  I've always enjoyed Japanese film and those who have seen Hana covers know I like the traditional woodblock art, but I only watch a little anime and have always meant to read more manga but time and money have interfered with those desires. Mostly my interests are in vtubers, which to those who don't know are 'virtual tubers', people who stream on YouTube and Twitch, in what is usually called 'anime girl' form, meaning an animated avatar that is rigged to move naturally like the real person who is behind it does. Provides anonymity which allows these people to get relatively wild in their entertaining, what they say. The whole damn culture behind it. I do get inspiration from the culture. I may not be hardcore otaku but I love the culture of unique creativity behind it. Japan does unique creativity very well.

 

M[m]: How do you feel the project's theme focus has changed/ developed since you began?

Ken:  The project's focus has always been on not doing shit like everyone else and the theme is about trying new avenues, even if they sometimes fail. I have never been into the 'no dynamics, no change, no development, no ideas' mantra. I understand it and I know the point is to make near-monolithic edifices, but that's sometimes taken too seriously by practitioners, to the point where too many walls sound too similar. I guess I personally have changed into a bit of a radical on the form. I want to add stuff that hasn't been tried before and I want to inspire others to try a different angle. I read posts and articles written by those trying to set an orthodoxy and I don't think 'yes', I think 'the hell with that, I'm just going to fuck things up and drag everyone else's carcass along with it...'. I guess the biggest change is going from classic-form HNW to more experimental ideas and to insist on being in the forefront of changes. Again just a primary emphasis on having an open mind.

 

M[m]: Could you discuss your first set-up for Hana Haruna?. And how has it changed/ developed since then, and do you still use any of the same kit?

Ken:  I don't have a set grouping of gear and pedals for Hana, I never have. The only thing that stays the same is two looper pedals at the start of two chains of gear. I put a number of sounds on each looper, sometimes mutilated beforehand, and run them through as source noise. I try and have varying lengths of time of sounds on each pedal to create a variety and loose dynamic feel. The pedals in the rest of the chain are never the same, I'm always changing and adjusting while doing set-up and I doubt I've ever had the exact same gear lined up in any two walls. This keeps my own interest up and lets me experiment with different effects. And I'm a pedal hoarder and I have many, I never sell my stuff. It's all about 'ooh, let's try this' and the more gear I have the more sounds I can exploit. I've tended to use lots of reverb and waveform distortion through the years so I have quite a few of those requisite pedals in my collection.

 

M[m]: Please talk a little bit about how you create & build your walls?. For example please talk about how did  'The Light Shines From The Soles Of Her Feet' one of your recently impactful releases came about?

Ken: Each of the tracks in 'The Light Shines From The Soles Of Her Feet' is named after a Japanese vtuber I like; Aki Rosenthal, Akai Haato (now known as Haachama), and Yozora Mel (now unfortunately no longer streaming under that name). I used samples from streams of theirs or of people speaking about them and roughed up and mutilated these samples and looped them through my gear chains, with plenty of reverb and delay, and eventually got what I wanted. Lots of weird shit bouncing around with odd asides and voices bleeding through at moments. That's more of what I want for the future, sort-of ambient styling but with what crackle-and-crush I use to not be of the typical fashion. How I build my walls have been changing the last couple of years. I look for less-obvious samples of sounds not usually thought of for HNW, primarily to challenge myself and keep it interesting and also to make something new and different-sounding. But set-ups remain similar like I mentioned elsewhere; chains with loopers at the head and lots of pedals between. Some excess still remains.

 

M[m]: I was just looking back over my reviews of the output Hana Haruna - and really it highlights two very different sides of the project. My first encounter was 2019’s Sonic Pornography for the Now Generation- which mixed together thick and densely roasting, to bleak and grimly lo-fi. And the last title I reviewed was 2024’s The Light Shines From The Soles Of Her Feet, which featured a nuanced and detailed mix of textured walled noise and ambience.  Do you still enjoy creating more rough & dense walling, or do you prefer the more moody & detailed take?

Ken: In the beginning, Hana was a very violent-sounding project. I loved to shove as much sonics into it as possible. I've never been into the slight crackle HNW beloved by other practitioners, I've always wanted fullness in my walls, but I've also used slight pauses and lighter sounds since the beginning. I have to come to enjoy making more moody and nuanced wallery nowadays. Picking up an Eventide space pedal a while back has helped there; that tends to be involved with any Hana recordings in lesser or not-so-lesser ways, the sounds I can get out of that are downright sumptuous or mind-bending. I still engage in density, I just try to throw some variety in there as well. Much of this comes from my own cussedness mentioned before, just to throw a spanner in the works, but I do want to take it in a more experimental direction and for the immediate future I am doing a lot more ambient noise wall, but Hana will always be the queen of huge sound, but more often the hugeness will be expressed in layers of delay and echo and reverb. There will still be violent Hana walls, just perhaps more textured and enveloped ones?

 

 

M[m]: Since the project started you’ve released over two hundred releases under the Hana Haruna banner. Please select ten of your favourite releases thus far, giving a little detail on each one?

Ken:  Oh lord, I dunno if I could do that if I had five more years to look through them. I can give you a few that come to mind:

'Rin Rin Doll' on Matt Vickers' Hot Fuzz label - released last year, this is where I really went after textures, going full-on static and crackle. Also close to my own heart because the subject matter is a Japanese lolita fashion model whose videos I enjoyed and who was amongst the first to get me looking into otaku culture.

'鼻のない悪魔' on Gates of Hypnos - Really wanted to lean in hard on the reverb here and I think I mostly got it. Kind of the start of putting textured mood at the forefront of my walls.

'Hana Haruna' on kv&gr/recs/Basement Corner Emissions - My first solo recordings as Hana. Prime example of monolithic violence for monolithic violence's sake.

'Seriously Dirty' on Perpetual Abjection - Did the crackle static here but tried to add ever-so-subtle dynamics into it, without altering the wall concept. Oddly enough I thought I could do better with it after I sent it to the label, but it has grown on me to the point where I think it is among the best Hana albums. I think I got ahead of my brain here in developing new ideas.

'Pop Gold' on kv&gr/recs/Basement Corner Emissions - Third solo album on BCE. The second, 'Flesh Walls', put more texture in the violence, but 'Pop Gold' is the first where I thought 'okay, this worked out great'. Kind of the standard for Hana Haruna albums for the next couple years.

'A Hand Of Four Queens' on Father Of Lies - Pure static texture. The opening wall, 'Fujino Aoi', is one of the best I've ever done. Pleased as hell with that one.

'What The Hell Happened To Kyary Ero Guro?' on Basement Corner Emissions - Where violence met texture in its fullest form. This was around the time I took over a former label co-run with another person and made it into BCE and I was feeling my oats and put more aggression than usual into it.

'Meditations' on Basement Corner Emissions - Eight 30-minute walls based on non-organic concepts. Meant to invoke sounds that came to my mind via each of the titles ('geologic', 'signal', etc.). What totally fucked my mind was it became one of the most downloaded releases on BCE. Guess I did something right.

'Trek' on Basement Corner Emissions - The concept was a trek through the Himalayas with most walls representing mountain peaks. The idea of these huge edifices and vast distances I tried to represent with layers of reverb on much of the recordings. May have been the first real experiments in that style.

'Miko' on Gates of Hypnos - I love this one. Best median of ambient wall with trad crackle. More of a mass sound than pure wall. It's what I point people to if they want to know why Hana sounds the way it does today.

I guess that's ten... 

 

M[m]: As is common in the walled noise/ harsh noise scenes you’ve done a fair few splits- what stands as some of your favourites?  And what do you think makes for a good split?

Ken: The splits that stand as my favorites are not necessarily ones that Hana does good walls in, but that the other project stands out or because I love their work. 'The Twin On The Other Side Of The Noisy Mirror' with Tukulito Zakayhama and the self-titled split with DJ Self Isolation - both on BCE - are great walls by their respective authors, but unfortunately I can't find or get hold of them nowadays. Often the best talent are found in the most hidden cracks. Always look forward to doing something with Obscure Heaven, Sleep Column, and Шумоизоляция and their various projects, my maestro wall friends from the east, as well as projects like Koobaatoo Asparagus and CONSTANTAUTUMN from closer climes. Did a good split with Pace Fatality, which was the wall project of my dear friend Jo Vallianatou, who unfortunately passed away a couple years ago; that is on Machine Tribe Recordings. Particularly proud of a three-way with Vilgoc and Sado Rituals that I released on CD a while back. And of course a split with the late Emily Aideen's Massive Panic Attack in which we each did an hour-long wall. Man, there are just too many good wall projects I've done splits with and I know I'm leaving many obvious ones out...

As for what makes a good split? Primarily that the tracks from each project fit together well in concept. Not necessarily sound similar but give a similar mental feel. Hard for me to put it in any more detail, it's not immediately tangible. I like to wait until the other artist sends me their work so I can create something that would fit in well with theirs. This is more true with Crepuscular Entity where it's not in repetitive mode but fully-formed and improvised tracks. I do really like doing splits, they give each project's listeners a chance to hear new work, and new ideas.

 

 

M[m]: Have you ever played live with Hana Haruna? And if so what was the live set-up, and if not is it something you considered?

Ken: I never have performed Hana live, nor my Crepuscular Entity. For the latter it will likely come soon, I am just removed from my hometown of Portland for a bit here while some money issues get worked out, and I have friends opening live opportunities as we speak. I dunno about Hana, I mean I know it's doable but I foresee that in a more casual environment than a live show scene. Maybe a get-together where I can hit 'play' while I go have drinks with the audience. The standing stock-still with a bag over the head has been taken and I don't have the patience for it. We'll see.

 

 

M[m]: Since 2017 you’ve run/ curated the rather prolific noise label Basement Corner Emissions. Please talk a little bit about how/ why this came about?

Ken:  BCE evolved out of another digital label that I took over fully after a former partner left it. I changed the name and decided to focus on finding new and underheard projects and releasing their sounds to more ears. I could've gone the hipster route and made it into a label that chased the same couple dozen US and European big-name acts that labels that aspire to sell image over quality always do. But I didn't want to go the route of forcing the same monotone artwork on every album or sell hip-to-wear t-shirts or proclaim noise is only good if on tape, this is all about promoting the label over the projects released and I wanted to do the opposite, to make sure the emphasis is on those who create the sounds instead of creating cool-to-have talismans so people can photograph them and put them on their social media and talk about how cool the label is. Don't get me wrong, I release CDs on occasion on BCE and I am very happy to send my own material to other labels to put out on cassette, I know people like that - my own personal record collection consists of thousands of physical releases on vinyl, cassette, and CD - and I know that helps get the word out about my projects and the same for others. Personally, I like to get my work out on labels like Machine Tribe, Mima Kass, Outsider Industries, and Abhorrent AD, because although most of the albums are out on really nice physical copies the emphasis is on the noise itself.

I decided to make BCE a mostly digital download label so that I could more rapidly release fresh sounds. I have released over 1000 albums and EPs - in fact I released 'BCE #1000' as a huge compilation last November - and they are all name-your-price for download. I decided to run BCE as a non-profit as it is easier to manoeuvre and schedule lots of releases that way; those who pay a buck or two here and there I take that money and bank it towards buying free downloads for the rest. My example for what I wanted BCE to be wasn't a fashionable boutique label but Ivan Sandakov's Wall Noise Action label, which closed up after its 1000th release but provided mass variety and opportunities for artists. (Indeed I have two Hana albums on there, 'ASMR for Hooligans' and 'Day Drinking' that I could've easily added to my favorites list above.) But while I have the utmost respect for labels similar to BCE like Endogenic Records or Przemyslaw of Sado Rituals' wonderful Gates of Hypnos, I also like to give shout-outs to great labels Like Polwach Beokhaimook's Perpetual Abjection. The artwork for the CDs he releases is his own cool art and each is different and special in its own way, and while he has big names on PA he also looks for new and underexposed HNW projects to put out. A prime example of a label that can be a great physical one that also tries unique ideas and artists.

 

 

M[m]: As you’ve been very much intertwined with the wall scene for some years now- recording & releasing in the form. What is your feeling about the scene in general today? What do you see as plus & negatives, and who are some of your recent discoveries in the scene?

Ken: I'm not much of a scenester, I prefer to stand a little aloof from the interactions that can get politicized, but I get the question. I do know a lot about it now. A big negative is that many HNW makers feel the need to ape the classicists of the form, feeling making stuff like so-and-so in order to hopefully ease into success. But the old guard are making the same-sounding walls over and over so this is a self-defeating idea. But I do hear new projects that are trying new methods, fresh sounds, and that is the biggest plus; as many big names are no longer gobbling up the oxygen of notice and getting cloistered in a few groupings of regional or scene labels. These new guard wall makers can stretch out and try experimentation unhindered by trendiness. 

Again, I'm going to leave out a lot of awesome new projects by just mentioning a few, but I'll give some recent finds a shout-out: Thar Desert, DCLXVI, ELEKTR0BATH, L'Azionismo Viennese. Betty Koster of Phantasm Nocturnes has a solid new horror-themed HNW project out in May Cause Death. Ennaytch is doing innovative HNW, though Tommy Lenahan has been around for a bit. David Hilshorst of Whore's Breath does cool walls. I recently released an excellent sparse ambient drone wall by one of my long-time faves, Lord Cernunnos, with 'Signs In The Stars'. Damn, there are so many so I guess my inability to name a lot is a good sign of the health of the business. 

 

 

M[m]: Where do you see Hana Haruna going next- both sonically & theme-wise?

Ken:  In the direction she is headed in now. I'm going to play with thicker sound to mesh with the usual wall structures. 'The Light Shines From The Soles Of Her Feet' is the best example of what I want to do. I don't want to just do good walling, I want to challenge myself with concepts and sources I haven't thought of before, and also to nudge the genre in fresher directions. Help change HNW by injecting new ideas and perhaps smashing a few icons in the process. Heck, the best sign in my mind is that I don't actually know what Hana Haruna will sound like five years from now.

 

Big, big thanks to Ken for his time with the interview, and for giving such interesting/ in-depth answers. Hana Haruna doesn’t have its own bandcamp/ web presence, but the Basement Corner Emissions site is here https://basementcorner.bandcamp.com/