Behind the Music of Multi-Hyphenate Artist James Takateru
Christyn Refuerzo ‘26
Their dorm set-up
I sat down to chat with James Takateru ‘26 –an Orange Cap Studios artist and full-time student –to talk about their process, balancing a music career and student life, and some exciting new releases.
(CHRISTYN REFUERZO): What is your musical process at Sarah Lawrence?
(JAMES TAKATERU): Most of my process happens naturally. It sounds silly to say but it comes to me at certain times. I’ve learned that the best music I’ve made isn’t stuff where I’ve thought of a song idea and I have to do this song right now – which happens sometimes, rarely even – but it’s when I’m sitting down, I’m bored, and I’ll open Ableton [a popular music creation software], mess around, and something will come out of that. Or one of my friends will play me a song they’re working on or I’ll hear something and I’ll say, “Can you send me that?”
After that, my process is exponential in a way where I just keep on working and working and working. Most of the songs that I think the best of and are most proud of, I’ll just sit down and work on for five hours and then it’ll be 4 A.M. and I’ll go to bed. Then it’ll be the next day and I’ll work on it for another three to four hours and then it’s basically done. It doesn’t happen every other day but right now I’m not really focused on building a lot of different songs. When I make things, I want them to be as good as they can be.
(CR): So, you’re more focused on the purpose and intentionality rather than chugging out a ton of music all at once, so to speak.
(JT): Yeah, at least for the stuff I want to make right now, that doesn’t really work. I’ll produce, make beats for people or if someone asks if I could work on their project, I can do that and churn those out relatively quickly. At least for my own art, I’m a lot more picky, for lack of a better word.
(CR): You mentioned how you’re picky when it comes to your work. In your music, is there a level of distance there or is it much closer to your heart?
(JT): The stuff I’m doing right now is really personal. I’ve gotten a lot better at songwriting. I do write from my own perspective, which might seem obvious. A lot of my music is very personal and there is meaning behind everything I make.
When I’m working on other people’s stuff, the reason why I can do it quicker is because I can clearly see from an outside perspective what they want and how I can fit into that. With my own music, it can be difficult to make it feel naturally myself which is why it takes a while. When I hear something or I make something and I know that it’s what I need, it will naturally end up building into something. When I work on other people’s stuff, I listen to it, find the pocket where I can add to it and it ends up working out pretty seamlessly.
For most of the people I work with – ABBATIA is a group I’ve been working with a lot recently – their Red Room EP they released in November, I produced on every single song except for the last one and that was a process where the main producer and I will just send each other stuff back and forth that we think where the other can work into. And it ends up coalescing into a product that is really collaborative.
(CR): You recently had a show in Philadelphia. What is it like doing shows in college?
(JT): The closest I’ve gotten to performing was when we did an event where all of the members in Orange Cap, our group, were all on stage together and passing mics around. That was the most where I was actually involved.
But for the most part, I’ve taken a backseat and partially it’s because taking the three-hour trip each way to Philadelphia is a commitment. It’s hard. We’re trying to make ourselves less centralized to Philadelphia so that we have shows in New York, which would make it a lot easier. Thankfully, I’ve tried to organize my work in time where I can get everything done but for rehearsals, I’ve only gone to the last one we’ve done for the show the night before when I was already in the city.
It’s difficult for me because I want to drop everything and go to Philadelphia every weekend to rehearse. It’s a push and pull but I think because my involvement has been lesser for these past shows, it hasn’t come up in the way right now but it will probably be something in the future to weigh a bit more.
(CR): Who inspires you musically?
(JT): That’s going to be a long answer. I listen to a lot of music and I get inspired by a lot of things. I think the first answer is just my friends, everyone I know in Orange Cap – ABBATIA, in particular because they push the boundaries. I know it sounds self-congratulatory to say, “Oh wow, we’re all so great,” but it’s true. I hear this stuff and no one is doing like they are.
When it comes to other music, recently, I’ve been a lot more inspired by rock and folk music. I’ve been listening to a lot of emo revival stuff, like Marietta, The Front Bottoms, Empire Empire. The Cabs is another band I love – like J-rock.
But I can’t play the guitar which comes at a difficulty because I love the way it sounds. There’s something about it that’s just so perfect in a lot of ways, such a versatility, such an emotion. You can’t do that digitally. Because all of my music is digital – even strings and orchestras you can kind of push into sounding good when they’re MIDI but you can’t do that with guitar. And I’ve been listening to a lot more guitar music so I’m trying harder to collaborate and incorporate that.
(CR): Are there any projects you are particularly excited about?
(JT): I released a bunch of singles last year and at the beginning of this year. I have a full EP – basically an EP – and I have a few more that I plan on releasing. Those songs are pretty old now. I don’t think a lot of artists talk about the fact that unless you are releasing often, a lot of the music that you hear from artists is relatively old. At this point, I really like the songs I’ve made but I’ve grown so quickly and so far since I made them that the stuff I’m making now I’m really excited for. The project I’m working on now is something that I’m truly proud of.
Follow james takateru on their social media and visit https://takateru.xyz/ to learn more. Their EP, ghost Circles, is available to stream on all platforms April 19.