Hiroyuki Nagashima on Dowser and Schema 1+2 

Transmission 381: Interview with Dowser

Hiroyuki Nagashima formed Dowser in the late 1980s, during Japan’s economic bubble, when a televised audition program had triggered a nationwide “band boom.” He was living near Osaka, in Nishinomiya, outside the indie mainstream and largely absent from public activity. His route into music ran through Hollywood film scores and the tokusatsu of Ultraman, then The Beatles at ten, then the synthesizer work of Isao Tomita and Wendy Carlos and the compositions of Stockhausen. Without musical training, he worked a monophonic synthesizer through reverse playback and tape loops. 

Title: Schema 1+2
Artist: Dowser
Release Date: 2026-06-01
Genres: Avant-garde, Electronica, Experimental Music, Industrial Music, No Wave, Noise Rock
Label: All Horned Animals
Description: Dowser interview on Schema 1+2, the double CD out 1 June 2026 on All Horned Animals, Buchla, EMS, noise and the unconscious.

Dowser began as a band Nagashima played in with friends, joined partway through by Masateru Terai. After Nagashima moved to Tokyo the group went quiet, until a commission to score Shozin Fukui’s 964 Pinocchio brought Terai back. Takashi Miyagawa joined around twenty years ago. Nagashima has scored films for Gakuryu Ishii, Katsuhiro Otomo and Shinji Aoyama, handled mixing on recent work by Phew, and teaches film sound design at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Schema 1+2, out on 1 June 2026 via All Horned Animals, is Dowser’s first label release in years. The two discs draw on tracks Nagashima has uploaded almost daily to SoundCloud for around fifteen years; Sarah and Sacha of the label proposed pairing the first two volumes as a double album.

What were some of the first artists or albums that caught your attention, and what motivated you to start making music yourselves?

At first, I was drawn to film scores from Hollywood movies and Japanese tokusatsu TV shows such as Ultraman. Later, at the age of 10, I was blown away by The Beatles, and around the same time, I became interested in synthesizer music by artists like Isao Tomita and Wendy Carlos, as well as contemporary music by composers such as Stockhausen. Eventually, I got my hands on a monophonic synthesizer, but since I had no musical training (and that still hasn’t changed), I naturally became absorbed in sound experimentation like reverse playback and tape loops. I was also really into the new wave and techno-pop that emerged in the late 1970s, but the artists who ultimately inspired me to start making music myself were artists such as Throbbing Gristle and SPK.

Dowser was formed in the late 1980s. What was the Japanese underground scene like at that moment, and what pushed you to start the project?

At the time, Japan was in the midst of the economic bubble, and not only major international acts but also numerous underground artists were coming to Japan. In Tokyo, a social phenomenon known as the “band boom” had erupted, sparked by a TV audition program for rock bands, and some of the artists involved had distinctly underground sensibilities. I was living in Osaka at the time (more precisely, in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, near Osaka). Unlike today, when the internet is ubiquitous, our sources of information were limited to magazines, CDs, and records. The “distance” between Tokyo and Osaka, and between Osaka and the rest of the world, felt far greater than it does now. At the same time, Osaka already had a vibrant underground scene, with artists such as Hijokaidan actively performing and creating work. However, I remained outside that movement. I never joined what might be called the mainstream of the indie scene, and I hardly engaged in any public activities.

The band has gone through numerous lineup changes over the decades. What has kept Dowser alive through all those transitions, and how did the current trio with Masateru Terai and Takashi Miyagawa come together?

I met Terai when we were at university. At the time, I was playing in a band with friends under the name “Dowser,” and Terai joined us partway through. After graduation, I moved to Tokyo, and the band went on hiatus for a while. Later, however, I was asked to compose the score for the film Pinocchio√964, and Terai continued to work with me from that point onward, leading to the present day. Miyagawa joined about 20 years ago; we met through my work outside of Dowser. For more details about Miyagawa, please refer to this profile article linked here:

https://hanatsubaki-archive.shiseido.com/jp/trip/652/

You describe yourselves as an “Unconscious Electronic Sound Collective.” What does the word “unconscious” mean to you in the context of making music?

For Dowser, the “unconscious” is an extremely important theme. “Does the ‘unconscious’ actually exist?” “If consciousness that cannot be accessed (i.e., made manifest) is considered the ‘unconscious,’ can AI possess it?” Or is the very idea of the “unconscious” nothing more than an elaborate fiction? We are also concerned with the possibility that the rise of AI may lead us to regard the unconscious as nothing more than an “error” or a “bug.” If that view is reflected back onto human beings, we too may eventually come to see ourselves as having no unconscious at all. Perhaps that is what the “AI-ization” of humanity would look like. These are the kinds of questions that inform our thinking about the music we make.

Your sound brings together Buchla and EMS synthesizers with virtual instruments. What draws you back to those vintage machines, and what can they do that modern software still cannot replicate?

It’s not a matter of nostalgia; both Terai and I have been using this equipment for decades. There are virtual instruments that emulate vintage synthesizers, and many of them are exceptionally well made. However, there are still definite differences between them and the original hardware. I feel that many of those differences have been eliminated because, from a commercial standpoint, they are considered unnecessary or undesirable elements. This connects to what I was saying earlier about the unconscious: it is precisely those excluded elements that interest me. With Buchla or EMS systems, there are countless moments when something occurs beyond your intentions, even when you think you are fully in control. Normally, that would be regarded as an “error.” Yet I think it is precisely this quality that gives analog synthesizers like Buchla and EMS a sense of “otherness.” At present, however faithfully they may be modeled, virtual instruments are still incapable of becoming that “other,” an independent presence.

One of Dowser’s earliest releases was the soundtrack for Shozin Fukui’s 964 Pinocchio. Looking back, how did that cyberpunk film shape the identity of the band?

My first opportunity to compose a film score came with Director Gakuryu Ishii‘s The Master of Shiatsu (read our interview with Gakuryu Ishii/Sogo Ishii). Around that time, I had begun thinking about creating film scores composed entirely of concrete sounds and noise, and I regard Pinocchio√964 as a continuation of that line of exploration.

Hiroyuki, you have scored films for Gakuryu Ishii, Katsuhiro Otomo, and Shinji Aoyama. How does writing for someone else’s images compare to writing for Dowser, where the music itself is the world?

I don’t feel there is any essential difference between composing for Dowser and providing a film score for a movie. Of course, the conditions differ, the director’s intentions, the kind of music required by the film, restrictions on duration, and so on. But both are alike in that they involve the presence of something other than oneself. Dowser‘s music emerges from the encounter between myself, Terai, Miyagawa, and the analog electronic instruments, each of them a distinct other presence.

Does cinema still feed into how you compose for the band? Are there scenes, frames, or filmmakers that haunt Schema 1+2?

I teach film sound at a university, but lately I find myself hesitating to watch or discuss movies. The reason is that, in today’s mad world, the humanism of the late 20th century is undeniably heading toward self-destruction. Many films, part of one of the defining forms of expression of the twentieth century, were also built upon the values of that humanism. Even if those values ultimately proved to be a convenient fiction serving the interests of political leaders and capitalists. As we’ve entered the 21st century, many “nations” have even become less hesitant to shed that “mask.” Cinema still offers me much, but I can no longer approach it without a profound sense of ambivalence.

The two CDs are titled Schema 1 and Schema 2, each almost exactly 39 minutes 59 seconds. Is there a conceptual relationship between the two halves, or are they two angles on the same idea?

Originally, Schema was compiled from selections of tracks I have been uploading to SoundCloud almost every day for the past fifteen years or so. The series currently extends to Volume 10. For this release, Sarah and Sacha of All Horned Animals approached us with the idea of releasing Volumes 1 and 2 together as a double album. In many cases, the tracks I upload to SoundCloud are completed by adding my own performance to material sent by Terai, editing it, and then selecting an image sent by Miyagawa. As a rule, once I open the data Terai has sent me, I try to finish the entire process within two hours. (I have a free SoundCloud account, so older uploads gradually disappear.)

https://soundcloud.com/dowsermagicmemo

The word “schema” suggests structure, blueprint, mental model. How literal is that title for the way the album was conceived?

This idea is inspired by Jacques Lacan‘s diagram of the Schema L. I was also intrigued by the differences in nuance that arise across languages: in English it is pronounced “skēma,” in French “shéma,” while in Japanese it can sound like “shema” or even “sukima.” I found those shifts in linguistic texture quite interesting.

Beyond music, what has been shaping your thinking lately; books, philosophy, current events, visual art?

Recently, I have been writing scripts and composing music for spoken-word performances presented in immersive multichannel sound. The works are adaptations of stories by Japanese authors such as Junichiro Tanizaki and Kyoka Izumi.

https://rittorbase.jp/event/1197/ , https://rittorbase.jp/event/1407/

Japan, and the world more broadly, has changed enormously since Dowser began in the late 1980s. Do you feel the band carries any kind of political or social charge, even when the music has no words?

Naturally, I believe it does. Life consists of encounters with and separations from “the Other.” Within that dynamic, arise society, and with it politics. For that reason, whether anyone undertakes explicit political action, and regardless of how large or small the resulting effects are. Music is political even when musicians are not consciously trying to make political statements. I see a continual feedback loop in which these forces always influence music, and music in turn influences society.

You teach film sound design at Tokyo University of the Arts. Does working with younger artists change how you listen to your own music?

I don’t think it has had any effect on my listening.

What comes next for Dowser?

We don’t have any specific plans, but as I mentioned earlier, we will continue uploading to SoundCloud. I’m also continuing my “Sound Diary” series in the web magazine boid Magazine.

https://note.com/boid_magazine/m/m826f48921b34

The only thing that’s certain for Dowser is that we’ll keep making music and drawing until all of us are gone.

Photos courtesy of © Dowser

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others