Hakushi Hasegawa Shares New Song and Video 'Suffocation Diary' From Upcoming Album
Hakushi Hasegawa released a new video for 'Suffocation Diary,' the latest preview of their forthcoming album 'Honest Feeling Album' on Brainfeeder, featuring shout-outs t
Hakushi Hasegawa has released a new song and video, 'Suffocation Diary,' the latest preview of their forthcoming album HONEST FEELING ALBUM, due out August 28 via Brainfeeder. The track follows an earlier single, 'The Owner Of Sweetness,' which accompanied the album announcement. Where that lead single leaned into power pop, 'Suffocation Diary' takes a quieter, more understated direction while retaining the same vocal style.
Credit: George Asakura
'Suffocation Diary,' with its bouncy beat, takes a bit of a pivot from the power pop of lead single 'The Owner Of Sweetness.' While both songs share the same cutesy vocals, 'Suffocation Diary' is less bombast and more twee, a track that would sound at home on Ryan Hemsworth's Secret Songs page. Shout-outs abound, with Hakushi namedropping SOPHIE, Arca, Mykki Blanco, and Hudson Mohawke among many others; Hakushi, to them, is 'like a pickpocket,' drawing from their styles to construct the singular artist that we know today as Hakushi Hasegawa, a product of their own interests.
Hasegawa shared their inspiration behind the track: 'Within the album—and indeed, among my own works—the lyrics of this song are arguably the most aggressive. In this era of 'legitimacy', it feels as though people naively believe that through the appropriate learning and the discovery of abundance, anyone can move on to the next stage clean-cut and unscathed. In reality, that is wrong. When we try to incorporate something different into ourselves—especially into areas related to life itself—we suffocate under a desire for negation, violent impulses, rebellion against authority, or even a 'physiological' sense of revulsion. In my view, the glorification of the archive itself stems from an escape from this suffocation… um, it's trendy. It's just too extreme. And what's more, it's an extreme that harms others. The fact that I reveal my love for many things—or my places of escape—in the first half is a cowardly tactic that combines payback with daydreaming.'
The official music video, directed by filmmaker Kotaro Saito, features striking imagery of carnivorous plants, depicting a series of events unfolding around plants displayed in handcrafted metal kettles and vessels. Plant supervision was provided by CherryRadishPlants, while the metalwork featured in the video was created by Yumi Nakamura.
Following their previous release on Brainfeeder, HONEST FEELING ALBUM sees Hasegawa joined by their newly formed band, HaHa and The Hairpins, pushing their music into bold new territory while embracing a more expansive live-band sound. The album also features a diverse cast of collaborators including Mito Tsukino, tofubeats, Accorinrin (Otoboke Beaver), and Lee Lang, creating a series of unexpected and distinctive musical encounters. Each track flows seamlessly into the next, forming a continuous narrative that unfolds across the entire album. Hasegawa even makes note of their stylistic choices and evolution in tracks like 'Boss Moire,' where the stream-of-consciousness lyrics demonstrate the artist's own excitement and awe at the possibilities of music.
HONEST FEELING ALBUM's narrative comes alive through Hasegawa's trademark style, where disparate sounds coalesce into songs that range from big band jazz to J-pop to industrial noise. With a band behind them, their music resounds that much more mightily than ever before, and it still retains its frenetic energy, exemplified early on in Track 2's lyrics: 'The season of flutter, yes, has come (translated).'
This time around, the bombast that's typical of Hasegawa's work is also balanced out with more understated moments, where listeners will pick up influences from bossa nova as well as softer, sensitive electropop akin to Imogen Heap. Like 'The Owner of Sweetness,' HONEST FEELING ALBUM occupies these various, oftentimes disparate, elements, bringing them together under Hasegawa's singular vision.
HONEST FEELING ALBUM's artwork and new artist visuals were specially illustrated by acclaimed manga artist George Asakura, a longtime creative inspiration for Hasegawa. Centered around the image of someone cooking okonomiyaki, the artwork presents a new portrait of Hasegawa grounded in the textures of everyday life.
Hasegawa's previous album, Mahōgakkō/魔法学校 or 'The Magic School,' marked their first release on the famed Brainfeeder label in 2024; since then, fans can tide themselves over with some 'unofficial' material from Hasegawa by tuning into the fashion shows of Noir Kei Ninomiya, who have commissioned the artist for their seasonal showcases over the last few years.
About Hakushi Hasegawa
Consistent with Brainfeeder's ethos of seeking out artists operating outside the confines of genre, Hakushi Hasegawa (they/them) is a Japanese musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist whose work defies easy categorization. Drawing from an eclectic range of influences spanning classical music, electronic production, jazz, and J-pop, Hasegawa constructs dense, layered soundscapes that are as intellectually rigorous as they are emotionally resonant.
