Japanese electronic duo TEMPLIME envisioned its new album EMPT MILE as something like the project’s first impression.

“I saw this as an opportunity to make a ‘business card’ of sorts for TEMPLIME — a clear representation of who we are as a unit,” member KBSNK tells scrmbl from his home over a phone call the night the album officially came out.

The group itself, though, has been plenty active long before crafting this sonic business card. TEMPLIME officially started in 2019 between KBSNK (a vowel-less version of the words kabosu, a lime-like citrus, and nikki, Japanese for “diary”) and DJ Tempura, a pair who had connected several years earlier at university.

Bringing together the prior’s foundation in rock with the latter’s club-leaning tastes, the duo started working with artists from the then-nascent Virtual YouTuber scene, most notably the artist Hoshimiya Toto. With her vocals, TEMPLIME started getting attention with swift U.K. garage longing, skittering dance-pop with a touch of ennui and, on last year’s POP-AID, a fusion of rock with more jittery electronic sounds. Those helped attract wider looks, including the opportunity to remix J-pop star Vaundy’s “Tokyo Flash.” 

“The earlier works were heavily influenced by the presence of collaborators like Hoshimiya. While that was definitely a good thing overall, it made the projects feel more like their works rather than ours,” KBSNK says (DJ Tempura is unable to make the interview, as he’s “always super busy” his musical partner notes).

“EMPT MILE  is the first album where people can listen to TEMPLIME’s sound without any added flavors or influences.”

The resulting album is late 2024 highlight. TEMPLIME roots themselves in uptempo club sounds, ranging from Yasutaka-Nakata-indebted electro-pop on “Gomenne” to Jersey club on “LOVE TENNIS.” Yet they also allow themselves room to experiment, whether exploring vocal manipulation on the woozy rumbler “Dan Dab Hey” or utilizing space on the delicate “BEACH.” Throughout they are joined by guest vocalists, ranging from established names in Japan like Tota and Such, to an assortment of regular people using pseudonyms to sing on an album for the first time. Connecting it all is TEMPLIME’s eagerness to play around and create something affecting.

KBSNK spent the rare interview and his first for an English publication (“Honestly, I’m feeling kind of nervous about this!”) talking about the history of TEMPLIME, EMPT MILE and more. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

scrmbl: Could you tell me a little bit about where you are right now? What’s the room you are in like?

KBSNK: Of course. This is my workspace — it’s my home and my studio. I live alone, and I’ve set up a kind of miniature studio here with a vocal booth, synthesizers, my computer and assorted other equipment. Most of the new album was recorded here, and I’d have the vocalists come in and sing in here. I sleep on the couch here too [laughs].

Does it fold out, or do you just sleep on it as is?

[laughs] It does. It’s about the size of a single bed. I wanted something simple to keep everything in this one-room apartment compact.

You mentioned before we started that you haven’t done many interviews, let alone any for an English publication. So I wanted to learn more about your background. What sparked your interest in music? What music were you hearing while you were growing up?

My parents were really into music. They actually met at a university orchestra club. Our house was always filled with all kinds of musical instruments. We had classical guitars, electric guitars, bass, keyboards, and even a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.

Did your parents make music?

As a hobby, yes. But I didn’t hear much of it [laughs]. They were into Japanese fusion music, and especially bands like Casiopea. Actually, they were in a cover band! I grew up listening to a lot of Casiopea, and was especially interested in their drummer, Jimbo Akira. I started playing drums in elementary school after watching videos of his drum solos.

Like VHS tapes?

Yeah, they were like tapes where he taught you how to drum at a high level. I’d play along to that.

When I was little I’d just watch like, The Lion King on VHS over and over again, but your version was Jimbo Akira drum solo tapes. Incredible. When did you start developing your own tastes and preferences in music, not from what your parents listened to?

I actually have a playlist I made where I gathered a lot of the songs that I loved growing up. Let me pull it up…one of the first artists I discovered and loved on my own was PUFFY. I remember watching their cartoon Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi on Cartoon Network. They had a huge influence on me and my music.

From PUFFY, I got into Tamio Okuda and Shikao Suga. I loved the groovy feel coming out of their drums. Perfume was also a big one — that was my first exposure to electronic music.

It seems like you have a strong connection with Japanese music.

Yeah, a lot of it comes from there. When I was born and was little, my parents were listening to a fair amount of foreign music too, like The Beatles, The Bee-Gees and Chick Corea.

I wanted to talk more about your connection with dance music. Perfume was your introductory point, how did you go from there?

Perfume and Capsule were my first introductions to that style. From there, I started to explore more dance genres over time. My foundation is definitely J-rock, but now I mentally process it into electronic forms.

When did you start making your own music?

I think it was the first year of junior high school. We had Garageband on the family computer, so I started just making random tracks without really knowing what I was doing [laughs]. I didn’t play in any bands. I had friends at school who also mostly made music at home, and we’d share our tracks with one another. That’s largely how I’ve worked for my whole career.

How did you meet Tempura?

We met in a university composition club. Like a Desktop Music club. Tempura seemed sociable and kind. It’s hard to recall exactly what our first conversation was about since it was so long ago. Maybe we talked about our favorite artists? But I don’t think we had many artists in common, just a few overlaps. Like RIP SLYME.

Originally we were in a band with two other people. They were also creating songs, and we performed together. Tempura-kun was on the keyboards, while I played the drums. It had no connection to the TEMPLIME you know now.

When did it become just the two of you?

At first, I was doing solo work under the name KBSNK, uploading songs to SoundCloud. Around that time, Tempura-kun said he wanted to support my music. Like, as a fan cheering me on [laughs]. He even helped me sell CDs at M3, an independent music event they hold a few times a year. We only sold about 20 copies, but Tempura-kun was frustrated about it, even though I wasn’t too bothered. That’s when he started thinking about how to promote the music better. He initially focused on supporting me rather than collaborating musically. He came up with ideas for promotion and other strategies, and from there, we started working together as TEMPLIME.

What were some of his strategies?

This started in the fall of 2018, and the Virtual YouTuber scene was just beginning to gain traction. He suggested collaborating with female vocalists from that space, which was something I hadn’t considered at all. He introduced me to that world. I didn’t know much about it at the time.

Tempura-kun also introduced me to future bass and other styles of electronic music I wasn’t familiar with. He would go to clubs and bring back new music to share with me. I’m more of a homebody [laughs].

Nothing wrong with that! You touched on how TEMPLIME has frequently worked with VTubers and virtual artists, and that’s something I definitely associate with the project. Yet EMPT MILE doesn’t really feature anyone from that world. Why that shift?

In the past, we collaborated a lot with Hoshimiya Toto, but this time I wanted to create something that stood on its own as a TEMPLIME album. The earlier works were heavily influenced by the presence of collaborators like Hoshimiya. While that was definitely a good thing overall, it made the projects feel more like their works rather than ours. EMPT MILE  is the first album where people can listen to TEMPLIME’s sound without any added flavors or influences. I saw this as an opportunity to make a “business card” of sorts for TEMPLIME — a clear representation of who we are as a unit.

The idea of a sonic “business card” is really interesting. Did you have to change anything musically as well?

I focused on simplifying the sound. I used Ableton Live’s built-in Wavetable synth extensively, which allowed me to create more straightforward music. I wanted listeners to focus on the vocals and songwriting.

Beyond that, I mostly stuck to my usual process. I usually begin by creating a demo with a simple melody, basic chords and drums. I record a temporary vocal track, then send it to the vocalist to build on. After recording the vocals, we really dive into the arrangement and refining the sound. We also experiment a lot with the presence of the vocalists' voices, often processing them significantly. It's a pretty free-flowing process.

So that was all the same on EMPT MILE?

Hmmm…it was essentially the same. But this time, we worked with a variety of vocalists, which required us to carefully consider everything before even starting the demos. For instance, Hiyori Kimura, Sayo Sasaoka and Mina Tajima were all friends of Zumochi, who made the music video for “Koe Ga Suru.” None of them were professional singers, and I hadn’t even met them before. Zumochi recommended them, saying they had great voices, and that’s how it started.

They went to karaoke, recorded their voices, and sent me the raw audio. Since I didn’t know what their voices sounded like initially, I spent about a month listening and figuring out what type of songs would suit them best. During that period, I couldn’t really communicate much with them. These people aren’t musical artists — they were just regular folks who were skilled at singing but worked jobs in, like, 3D modeling. [laughs] All the names for them on the album are made up.

OK, this explains why there is like zero information about half the people on the album [laughs]. I thought, is TEMPLIME discovering new talent?

[laughs] No, it’s more like I’m inventing new people. It’s the same situation with Neko Hasegawa on “Gomenne” and Mike Yoshida on “AIRSHIP.”

Did you think of all the names?

[laughs] Yep. I suggested names like, “How about this?” and they liked them, so the names stuck. It was pretty casual. I tried to base them off how their vocals sounded or just the general sound image they gave off. For instance, Hiyori Kimura gave off a “model student” vibe, while Mina Tajima, had a more flashy image, and was way more like a “gyaru.” We also considered the balance of the letters and how the names looked visually. Each song has a character, and each character has their own story. It’s like drawing from their personalities, but sometimes it’s also just me expressing my thoughts. It’s a mix.

Among the collaborations that stood out to me was song number two, “Dan Dab Hey.” It features vocals sung partially in Korean and, at one point, Hatsune Miku. How did that one come together?

That one was actually the only track not recorded here in my home studio. We recorded the vocals and piano sound at a Studio Noah rental studio. I actually sampled a lot of piano playing from that session and played around with it on other songs throughout the album.

I have a Korean-Japanese friend, Bandalgom, who sang on the song. I thought it would be fun to include a song sung in Korean. Another friend of mine is the artist gaze//he’s me, and he had actually never used Vocaloid before to create music. I wanted to challenge him and asked him to create something using Hatsune Miku.

Seems like you’re encouraging people to try new things with EMPT MILE.

[laughs] Oh, I forgot to mention…for this album, we talked with someone who we know, about how to make EMPT MILE feel special. The idea was to have animations for every track and use them to help promote the album. It was a parallel process. While the animation was being developed, I was also composing the songs. So, while the music wasn’t necessarily perfectly synchronized with the animation, they were developed alongside each other.

I have a document with the initial animation concepts. Let me find it… here it is. Initially, we divided nine tracks among three animators, with each animator working on three tracks. We discussed creating an overarching story for the album and assigned each part accordingly.

So there’s a story running through EMPT MILE?

Yes, they’re connected in groups of three. Tracks one through three and four through six follow themes of daily life in various seasons. Tracks five through seven are more surreal and funny, involving something like being overly confident and ending up in space on “Moon.” Tracks eight through 10 are  food-themed but aren’t as tightly connected.

This sounds like a lot to juggle at once.

Oh yeah, there were many moving parts, but I felt that having so many elements gave us more creative freedom. For example, I didn’t feel restricted to make something a certain way just because it featured Hatsune Miku or because of the animation’s storyline. It was a very open and experimental process.

What new sounds or styles did you want to play with on EMPT MILE?

Sonically, since TEMPLIME started in 2019, we’ve gained attention from playing at venues like Club Asia. That’s where we began incorporating dance music elements more intentionally. While POP-AID had a lot of band-like tracks, this time I focused on genres like house, Jersey club and liquid funk to make it more rooted in club music.

Did your experiences at Club Asia or other venues make you enjoy going out for fun more, like Tempura does?

[laughs] Not really. It still ultimately feels like work for me. But seeing everyone’s excitement at the club is incredible. It makes me think about what kind of music creates that energy, and I reflect on that at home.

Did you shift to more dance sounds on this album because of that popularity in clubs?

Yes, that’s part of it. This year, we started performing at clubs again. For a while, I preferred staying home and turned down offers, but recently we’ve received many DJ requests. I thought it would be nice to have more tracks that are easier to play in a club setting since some of our existing music isn’t quite suited for that.

What do you do at home when you aren’t recording?

I mostly watch YouTube [laughs]. Nothing special. I like things that are almost like variety shows, like things the comedians Nagano and Garuma do.

You seem very laid back.

I’m just living a slow-paced life. [laughs]

For TEMPLIME or just yourself, do you have any goals or ambitions?

Surprisingly not really. I just want to keep enjoying it. A big goal for me is to keep making music consistently. I feel like not many people stick with it, so I want to continue.

Is there anything else you’d like to share, especially for readers in English-speaking countries?

I’d love to know what kind of music makes people in America happy — what they enjoy. It’d help me do more research [laughs]. Some of my solo tracks as Limre were included in Porter Robinson’s playlist, which was really exciting. I hope people from all over the world, not just Japan, listen to my music.

You mentioned your more rock-centered, sometimes downright shoegaze project Limre. How do you balance that with TEMPLIME?

It’s tough, to be honest. I also create as KBSNK, so I feel like I’m working three times as hard as most people [laughs]. But I have so many types of music I want to create, so I’ve decided to divide them into different projects.

Limre reflects my roots in J-rock, while TEMPLIME focuses on how to adapt that for a club setting.

What about KBSNK?

That’s my space for complete freedom. It’s like my personal diary—no rules or restrictions. [laughs]