Interview of Kalafina published by the magazine Vinyl Syndicate magazine. Thanks to ninetales for the translation
Interviewer: Today, Kalafina challenged the image they possess with quite different fashions, so what are you feelings on this clothing?
Wakana: When I try wearing it, I’m really pleased with it (laughs). I want all the clothes I’ve worn today! Even the ripped jeans, since till then I hadn’t worn jeans like that. In the past, when I liked old clothes, I’d personally tear old jeans; more and more, they seemed like “calm boys’ jeans”. Like today, them fitting with a one-piece dress over line pants (stockings?) is a fresh thing. The truth is I’m wearing clothes that for the first time give me happy feelings (laughs). Actually, I want to go buy them.
I: Please do so (laughs).
W: I think that even the necklace having a handcuffs motif is quite hard, but it’s cute and it can be a pop ornament too.
Hikaru:These are clothes that we wouldn’t wear very much for Kalafina’s clothes, so wearing them as a group is a new thing. Personally, I kinda like fashions like those we’ve been able to wear today. Like wearing a somewhat loose one-piece dress that hangs off only one shoulder, and a hat. I feel I could wear them even privately, and it wouldn’t be incompatible (with my style). In this season, I’m sort of preoccupied with wearing knitted clothes (laughs). But I think they’re good in this autumn too.
Keiko: Wakana’s character is depicted in the clothes she’s wearing, and I think it’s new! (laughs) Putting on a character……I think it’s not likely. So, while I thought you can still see a new side of Kalafina in this, I was also excited about it. It’s got freshness, and I think it’s great being able to wear clothes that match our individual personalities. The clothes I can wear nearly have a taste of what a girl would wear while a middle-school student or so. Actually, they were slightly nostalgic feelings. I had a red-checked (plaid) skirt, and I’m wearing a rock T-shirt even now. There’s really no resistance to it. It was really fun to wear these.
I: Kalafina is dressy, and has a darkness that’s the keynote of its image. What troubles do you have usually with those clothes?
W: We do have troubles respectively, but we tell the stylists who always make our clothes about the images, and they try to reduce our respective troubles. When they talk to me, for example about an asymmetrical skirt – long only in the back, feeling rather like a swallow’s tail – I wear one shoulder on the dress. (To balance it out?) We overlook the merits Kalafina’s live clothes, but it’s something I’ve realized. “Oh, I like such things.” They’re clothes I like, and I get excited about them. Conversely, I’m growing to like our new discoveries. I sometimes don’t wear the line of a long skirt, but I think I’d wear these clothes excepting that.
I: What do you think, Hikaru-san?
H: I have lots of no-sleeve (shirts). Considering the balance of us three, there are lots of clothes of the atmosphere in the middle of the other two. Later, it’s easy to move. Even the length of the skirt, not long and not short, seems to flow from your knees.
I: And Keiko-san?
K: Since there’s three of us, I think about our balance when we’re standing in a line. Yet, I also think about illumination in the lives, so when we use rhinestones that seem to shine in lives, I pick clothes that have brilliance. In short, I can sense a tidy atmosphere. This is a style that seems to move aggressively in lives, and I’m quite concerned about how you’d feel when you see it. With our chance to make a switch, our foundation is corsets.
I: Ah, it’s certainly the corset image! Plus, it’s classically elegant clothes.
W: Therefore, today’s fashions are calm, so it’s very fun (laughs).
I: As you’ve said, it’s important to discover new sides that continue your fashion.
W: We were recording the “Symphonia” video clip, the special part of our next album “After Eden”, and again I think you can see a new Kalafina. Even I don’t have a corset, wearing a belt instead; it’s very fresh, and we discovered something like detail-and-design Kalafina. Wearing various clothes, we studied what we could see.
I: Now, this is your new album “After Eden”, so please tell us how you put the finishing touches on something so long-awaited.
W: It’s our first new album in about a year and a half, and I think there were many fans awaiting it. Therefore, not wanting to betray those expectations, we were three people who wanted to create. After recording was over, our thoughts about facing the songs one by one, returned to careful thoughts (about the next one?), but I feel that we had deep thoughts about being ourselves this time. In the filming of the “Symphonia” video clip, we had very deep thougths.
I: Oh! What sort of thoughts?
H: It was filmed outside, in a day with very good weather. There were no buildings all around in the field where we were filming, so we could photograph the exact location for the image of “Symphonia”. And they could do the filming while we thought about all the great things we could do.
K: I think this is the brightest part from Kalafina’s past. “Symphonia”‘s music itself is such that it seems to sing facing the wonderfully bright sky, so I sing it thinking about breaking through the roof of wherever we’re singing live, until it resounds outside. On the CD, if you compare it to our second album “Red Moon”, I think there are a lot of pieces with bright imagery (in “After Eden”). The images of “Red Moon” are Gothic and Rias (??) and it has digital colors to it, but this time I feel a lively beat from all the pieces we recorded with the pure band’s performance.
W: Even our producer Kajiura (Yuki)-san, because there were feelings of lives in it, talked about whether there were compositions she could do, but the truth is they became awesome works. Of course, there were a lot of troubles, but I think this was an album that the staff was very good in. And it’s fun giving this report to everyone.
I: With your album out, I want to by all means see your lives, and you have a scheduled live at Tokyo Dome City Hall for your January 25th “After Eden Special LIVE 2011”.
K: That’s right. With the tunes in our new album, as they fit with our tunes till now, we want to go on any stage.
H: When we can do lives, I think even if we think about the people who listen differently from the CD, it doesn’t matter.
K: From now on, we’ll continue to transmit new things from us and create lives together with the fans. Everyone’s reactions are enjoyable.
I: Have fun in the live. And, please steadily challenge new music and fashions from now on!