Words by Jim Ottewill

“There comes a point where I understand what a song will deliver,” says experimental artist Hatis Noit. “When that happens I often start to cry as I sing. This is how I write music - it means I know the compositional phase is done.”

At first glance, the inner workings of Hatis’ startling sound might seem complex - ethereal and eerie, drawing on classical Japanese music and Bulgarian chants. But scratch the surface and it’s all about raw, synapse-bursting emotions.

Originally hailing from Japan, now based in London, Hatis has invested years in honing her craft through live performances, collaborations and traversing the earth. These experiences have led to her impressive debut album, Aura, released by the bastion of all things good and independent, Erased Tapes. With almost every sound created by Hatis’ voice, and inspired by German philosopher Walter Benjamin, the record’s focus is on forging connections and living life in the present.

“I was halfway through making this album when the Covid lockdowns happened,” she explains. “I really missed the core moments which I found in live performance. During the pandemic’s worst times, I missed how art and music exist in an actual space where we can share it with people. For me, ‘Aura’ is the perfect word to describe the human elements that were absent during this time.”

Hatis’ musical path is extraordinary in terms of the distance, challenges and places she’s found herself. A decisive point occurred when she was a teenager on a trek to the birthplace of Buddha in Nepal. While staying at a temple, she was blown away by the strength and power of a female monk’s vocals. 

“She was chanting - so no actual music, just a single voice without any instrumentation - but to me it was striking,” remembers Hatis. “Her voice was strong enough to catch my heart. I thought if I could become a singer, then I could be like her. Not a technical vocalist or pop performer, I just wanted to create music like this, that would touch people deeply.”

Wrapped around Hatis’ musical roots are contrasting strands of sounds. Her initial musical experiments occurred in avant-garde metal bands while she’s taken influence from traditional Japanese folk music, Gagaku. Rather than sheet music, this musical style lives and breathes between people, and is learned via word of mouth. 

“When we play Gagaku, there’s no written score,” explains Hatis. “Everything is from teacher to student, person to person, that’s how this music is maintained.” 

This ancient form of traditional music has coloured Hatis’ creations in terms of her approach to melody and rhythm. Aura is inspired by Gagaku’s sense of revelling in the now, which is why she struggled during the pandemic. Other artists took to social media to offer live shows online via streams, but this just left her feeling cold and uninspired.

“As a solo artist, the sound of each space is so important. To me, they are like a second band member,” Hatis explains. “Each performance lends itself a different mood, atmosphere, and energy from the space and the audience too. It makes it interactive and an element I really wanted to put into my music.”

Many of the initial recordings for ‘Aura’ were made in Berlin but capturing the right tones for Hatis’ vocals proved challenging. The pandemic’s arrival meant she was forced to return to London and look for new ways to enhance what she’d recorded. An unlikely solution was to be subsequently found by stepping outside of the studio. 

Erased Tapes' Robert Raths was the producer and suggested we record in a church in Hackney,” Hatis states. “It’s a method he’d previously undertaken with Nil Frahms so we went with engineer Marta Salogni to find the right sound.”

“We brought recorded voice tracks into the church, then played them from an amplifier,” she continues. “We installed microphones in multiple positions to record, then brought what we’d captured back to the studio and mixed again.” Working in such unique surroundings with an experienced and adept team added unparalleled depth and vibrancy to the recordings and propelled Hatis on her way to completing the collection of songs that would become Aura.

“When I listened to that music captured in the church for the first time, I was like wow, this is what I wanted,” she says. “I was convinced I could finish making this album when we found this sound.” Two distinct sources - nature and memory - shimmer at the heart of the music on the record. As a child, she was raised near a beautiful forest and this continues to impress and inspire her. 

“The sensations created by nature are so strong to me, even tiny things like the sound of the wind, or leaves moving in the wind - these are beautiful enough to make me want to write,” she says. Memory - either her own or those belonging to another entity - are also factors in her process, where she embodies different elements of our natural world. The name Hatis Noit itself is taken from Japanese folklore, meaning the stem of the lotus flower.

“When I sing or make music, I try to connect to these memories, perhaps belonging to a tree or the soil as these are great sources of inspiration,” she explains. “Then once I have an idea, I keep singing and recording over and over again with just tiny snippets of melody or rhythm. Everything grows from there.”

A new chapter of Hatis’ musical career opened when she left Japan to move to London. Through relocating, she has met many of the artists she has called collaborators such as Kevin Martin (a.k.a The Bug) and the NYX Electronic Drone Choir. Working in partnership with these creatives has proved integral to Hatis building her confidence both as a person and artist. 

“I’m quite shy but at the time it was even worse when I first arrived here, I had no confidence speaking in English,” she recalls. “But these collaborators instantly got what I did by hearing how I sang - which was amazing to me. It really helped me establish my sense of self.” It was by living in London that she fell in with Erased Tapes, a record label she views as more “communal than commercial”. Hatis also immersed herself in the capital’s wealth of live music, taking in as many performances as she could.

“All of the conversations and meetings have very much shaped me and this album,” she explains. “While the city of London has given me so many influences since I’ve moved here, I’ve struggled to find my identity too. It’s so different from Japan as I have to ask myself who I am. But it’s still a very interesting process and a very big thing for me. I’m still searching for my own sound.”

Out of the eight tracks on Aura, only one - Inori - features sounds not performed by Hatis herself. This track is based around field recordings taken from Fukushima, a town looking to re-write its future following a nuclear power disaster caused by a tsunami back in 2011. Hati was invited to perform at a re-opening ceremony which is where the idea to capture the sound of the nearby ocean came from. 

“My initial concept was to make a piece of music exploring nuclear power and whether this technology is just too powerful to be handled by human beings,” she says. “But the organisers questioned the themes of this. There’s a great deal of stigma associated with Fukushima due to the tragic incident which many are trying to leave behind.”

Rather than looking back at the epicentre of the disaster and the technology that went wrong for inspiration, Hatis changed the concept to be one celebrating those who lived in the town and the positive stories to emerge from those who lived there. 

“If I’d stuck with my original ideas, then this might have reinforced this sense of Fukushima and its inhabitants being contaminated,” she says. “I felt this wasn’t right and I ended up changing the concept for the song. The concept has become more about synthesising local people’s grief and their sentiments for their home.”

This sense of rebirth and shifting perspectives are just some of many emotions running through an album that offers the listener an opportunity to step into a dream-like, wordless musical world. ‘Aura’ provides this via these recordings but Hatis will be back on stage again over the rest of the year including at an Erased Tapes Festival and dates in the Netherlands and Thailand. It’s an appropriate journey for her global, yet deeply individual sound. 

“The most essential thing is to connect to yourself and be honest and open,” she says when it comes to making music. “Anything that comes from inside, you can embrace - even if it’s angry or beautiful, then we can take it and make music from it. Treat yourself well and cherish yourself.”