Absent Sounds: We're going to start from the very beginning with you and your work. You got your start in the classical sphere of music. For outsiders, the shift from classical to the sound you create now might seem drastic, but I’m sure there’s a connecting force between those two. What would you call that?

Hannah: I think it's mostly about expression and using music as an outlet. Even growing up in classical music, it was a way for me to pour my emotions into something or lean on it for support. And it still is now.

Absent Sounds: It's interesting that you mentioned expression, as there are so many different artistic expressions and ways to use art as a medium to express oneself. Are there other mediums you enjoy exploring?

Hannah: I have done a lot of carpentry. Most of it is practical work, but I like to make furniture for myself. I feel like that's another form of expression—creating something that brings a sense of peace and surrounding myself with it.

Absent Sounds: What's the piece you've created that you love the most?

Hannah: There's a piece of furniture I made that I love; it's a solid block of wood shaped like a cylinder—kind of an end table. It's very sturdy and has little round feet.

Absent Sounds: Very cool. To dive deeper into your EP *Circles*, which was released on September 20th, 2024, if you could place it on a Venn diagram of all Tanukichan's music, where would it fall? Does it signify a turning point or represent a chapter in your journey?

Hannah: I think it definitely ties into everything else I’ve done. It fits within the world of my previous work. I started collaborating with a new producer, and we had worked on a single before writing this EP together. This is the first time we’ve released a collection of music together, and I think we’re starting to work on more projects.

Absent Sounds: Collaboration comes up a lot in your work. I was listening to your TalkHouse interview about how you and Chaz are both pretty introverted. How do you find the ability to let go of that introverted nature when collaborating with others?

Hannah: Honestly, it’s largely about time and necessity. I love people, but sometimes it’s harder to go to a really personal place and discuss deeper feelings. Music forces me to make connections with others, rely on them, and open up. I think that's a cool aspect of the process. With this EP, working with Franco was easy; we could bounce ideas off each other while writing songs. It felt comfortable to talk about our experiences, which made the process of being open and vulnerable easier. Over time, it becomes more natural.

Absent Sounds: When music becomes a connecting force, it works that way for the listener too. I found that with your work in general, but especially with your single "NPC." It reminded me of a moment in high school when I wrote in my journal that I would just be a secondary character in everyone else's lives until I figured out how to be the main character in my own. It felt like a weight lifted, realizing I didn’t have to be a prominent figure. In the lyrics, you mention it’s “not a letdown.” To you, what does “not a letdown” mean? How did you allow yourself to disappear at certain points, and how did you work your way through that?

Hannah: I think the main feeling I was expressing in that song relates to the pressure we often place on ourselves. We expect to accomplish a lot, which can be a burden and make it hard to enjoy the little things. I wanted to convey the idea of taking that load off and embracing freedom. It’s about recognizing that you can just be yourself without worrying about what others think. I wrote that song after a lot of touring, where you’re constantly surrounded by people and in the spotlight. Coming back from tour, it felt really good to just return to my plain old self—Hannah, without the pressure to appear put together all the time. Coming back from tour. Felt really good to me to just be like, Oh, like it's going to be like plain old Hana like not have to worry about that or be in front of people So that was, yeah. It's coming from that,

Absent Sounds: Does that have anything to do with the decision to, have less shows on this tour? Or, a shorter run of shows?

Hannah: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, because last year I think I ended up touring for almost five months out of the year or something, right? Which was awesome, but I needed a break this year.

Absent Sounds: Is there anything at your shows that you're really looking forward to or that, you're planning like a little thing that, I'm really excited to do this thing on stage or something?

Hannah: Yeah, actually one of my really good friends, he's a sculptor and a visual artist and he's been sewing recently and made these curtains in front of his door. He's also Japanese and so there's like this thing in Japan you hang in an entryway, like a barrier. I'm gonna bring like a few of those for the stage. I haven't really done so much on stage before, like maybe projector thing, but I'm really excited about just like having that and bringing something physical.

Absent Sounds: Weajue and I saw La Dispute touring for Rooms of the House. They had couches on stage. Toast and a table, random things part of the house. It's cool to have different stuff on there.

Hannah: How did they bring a couch? I mean, They didn't go on tour with the couch.

Absent Sounds: Yeah, no, they weren't touring, They're doing one show in Europe, one in Grand Rapids, one in Australia. It's for their 10th anniversary and they're doing a limited amount of shows. I guess that's why they did so many random stuff for the show. All right to take a further step into the EP Circles, we'll start with its overarching theme of it. The title to start off. How did that connect to the project, or even just Tanukichan in general?

Hannah: I don't know if it directly relates to the project but I think well, maybe in some ways like, I don't know. I always talk about Incubus, but, they're a big influence and they have a song called circles or something like that also. So part of it is like a little bit it's funny, like making like this, intentional reference that maybe people will really get, but I think for the whole EP, a lot of the songs do have a sort of topics about just like cyclical events or like patterns or like just like emotional cycles or something like that. So that's kind of why I wanted to name the EP Circles. I felt like it pulled it all together.

Absent Sounds: Do you feel like your life goes in circles? If you had to relate this point of your life back to another point in another past, what would you directly think of?

Hannah: I think even music, sometimes I feel I've changed so much and I'm a totally different person. But then I look back and I'm like, Oh man, I was trying to get good at music since I was a kid. Even carpentry, I was building. Stuff for my pets in middle school, I look back and feel I've been the same things.

Absent Sounds: Or even another round of trying to have mastery, sometimes I don't really think I'm mastering something. I'm just doing this something and trying, but yeah, the cyclical nature of things to come back to when you're a kid. With the first song, City Bus, we grew up in Toronto, so the idea of being on a bus is so prominent to us a fundamental part of your adolescence. Watching the music video for it, I really did think not only did it remind me of Patterson, just like the repetitive nature of everyday. Have you seen the movie?

Hannah: No.

Absent Sounds: He's a bus driver and nothing really happens the premise is boring, but the movie was pretty good. I think his wife is obsessed with circles in Patterson? Or black and white.

Hannah: I'm writing it down. Gotta check it out.

Absent Sounds: Yeah. But in a way, I thought that not only sitting on the bus it's like external things moving around you, pushing you forward without doing something yourself. Did that represent an internal thing emotionally with things happening around you? Where do you place it?

Hannah: It's more in the repetitive zone, like a daily routine, being on the bus the sound of the song is a little droney, like, when you're standing there and being pushed.

Absent Sounds: We had written down too, it was like being at a show where with everything happening around, you're standing there and being shuffled.

Hannah: Yeah. being surrounded by different types of people it was like a reflective moment

Absent Sounds: I love that. Do you enjoy bus rides? Did you enjoy bus rides when you were a kid? Has your perspective changed

Hannah: I do enjoy it. I haven't taken the bus in a long time where I live, it's hard to get around on public transit. I liked it as a kid cause I could go anywhere. I didn't have a license so yeah.

Absent Sounds: The freedom.

Hannah: Yeah

Absent Sounds: Now heading into the track circles, the title track. There's a notable shift in sound here. Franco wrote the initial riff back in 2020. And then you're able to bring it back into today and, transform it into something that you really liked. Could you tell us a little bit about that process of finding something that clicked for you. How do you take that for so long and work on it until you like it?

Hannah: I guess for me, it's sometimes if I have an idea, I can tell, I'm like, Oh, this is Ooh, it feels good, even if it's done. He wrote the riff and I had written the verse melodies and the chorus then he took it and the riff was the verse. It was on loop, a little guitar demo I sent him that and He changed it made it heavy for the chorus. It hit really good. We work on it until it's there.

Absent Sounds: Was there a time you thought I don't think you're ever going to finish this? Or is it just always I think we'll eventually get there. No rush or pressure on this song.

Hannah: This EP for me, it felt like it was going like faster. Like maybe I've written enough songs that now I know I can finish them. I think on Gizmo it was the pandemic, but there were more songs where I was like, will I ever finish this?

Absent Sounds: It's a nice surprise to see more work from you, right off the bat of Gizmo. We'll get into that later. As we go down to It Gets Easier I really love the idea or the lyrical themes of the song especially because you mentioned it feels easier to let go of situations or people that don't serve you. You don't have to dwell on the sadness or discomfort. A lot of times that's something we struggle with or, need help getting to. So it's a kind of this, it's an encouragement or a good little anthem of sorts too. Is there anything that prompted that realization for you? That, led to the song or that was something that kind of provoked that thought, it feels easier to let go of this or I can let go of this relationship

Hannah: Yeah, I think maybe it does also just have to do with time, it's like just being like, okay realizing stuff comes and goes and people come and go it's okay, to let it go. With practice, you know, it can be really hard to sort of not dwell on certain things, but I wanted to work on that over time, with practice it's all good. I've done this before and I can

Absent Sounds: And in that context, there's a line where you say "you can choose the love you take," which I think is a good side where you can decide which ones are worth holding on to. How do you figure that out or shift through to see which ones are worth it.

Hannah: Maybe it's just stuff. It feels constantly stressful, and it's not really helping And then it's okay, I guess this just isn't right, and trying to keep personal peace. The growth and inspiration, yeah.

Absent Sounds: If you really throw it back to yourself and our relationship with our own selves, how do you, know when to let go of something? The relationship you have with yourself, you can't necessarily. say I'm done with myself. How do you know what inner dialogues or emotions you want to accept and have in your life and or other ones that you think "this is not I guess no that's not serving me this whole thing this part of myself is not something I want to keep around."

Hannah: I think that song too, it was definitely like, like with music, I can have be like super perfectionist about it or feel like something has to have a lot of weight or a lot of like meaning, and yeah, I guess I feel like maybe you just have to experiment. Perfectionism can serve me well, but sometimes it's too much. For It Gets Easier, I just like just saying something. I was kind of like, oh like this is kind of cool. I didn't have a strong connection to it. But for this EP, I wanted to be more lighthearted and free with it just try that, not an experiment, but a bit, Franco's like, I love this one. I'm like, okay. Listening back now, I'm like, oh yeah, cool. I do like it. You just have to try, see, give it a shot. Maybe try letting it go. If it didn't help, rethink it. But maybe it will help.

Absent Sounds: As you're looking forward to doing things further in the future, are you going to replicate the same process you used for this?

Hannah: It'll be similar. I want to blend demo stuff myself, work with Franco use other ideas I've been doing more songs with other people, like collaborations. I just put out this song with R. I. P. Swirl, who I'm a huge fan of. iI don't know, I guess I want to keep just trying to expand out and yeah, just even working with other people and having fun with that.

Absent Sounds: that's really exciting. Just to see where you will grow and flourish I always love seeing what artists, where an artist will pop up next in a different genre or project. To go into the next track, we have Low. The ending sounds warpy, like waves it's really nice and satisfying. Could you tell us a little bit about what's going on there?

Hannah: That's some keyboard. It's like a, really peaceful, ambient keyboard. Then we reversed it and warped it. It sounded cool.

Absent Sounds: Do you think you'd make ambient music?

Hannah: I would love to. I don't know if I will, but I love ambient music.

Absent Sounds: We demand an ambient album. I know a lot of people listen to ambient music when they sleep. The next track is In a Dream, in a dream, we embody different versions of ourselves or different people than who we really are. So in your own life or dreams, what version of yourself has been coming up, or, something that's been prominent in your dreams?

Hannah: Oh, that's interesting. I'm trying to think of my dream self. I guess I usually think about if other people show up in the dream but I don't know if I have an answer for you,

Absent Sounds: What about reoccurring dreams since you were a kid?

Hannah: Luckily I don't have them anymore, but I used to have recurring nightmares. There was one, it's a little intense. I used to have this one where I was climbing up this like super steep mountain with my whole family. Just really scary, scrambling at the top the ledge was like a super thin part that my family would start climbing over. But then when me and my mom got to the top, it would split open in the middle and me and my mom would drop into the abyss. I don't know exactly what it means but sorry I guess that's the first thing I thought it was

Absent Sounds: Thats terrifying. You also have another song where you talk about dreams or a bad dream in Gizmo. Are they connected

Hannah: Not really connected.

Absent Sounds: What's the bad dream? What does that one tie into?

Hannah: I feel like there's stuff from my childhood, that felt intense. I thought I had gotten over it but years later, I started seeing people from that time all of a sudden and then one of my jobs was like right near this one spot I used to go to all the time and it was like everywhere. It was about that stuff coming back again. And the letting go theme. And then also just feeling like, maybe those people will always be distant, there's just this unbridgeable gap, like a bad dream everything just kept coming back again like a recurring, nightmare

Absent Sounds:That's the trapped feeling too. We're going to finish off with a couple of questions from Gizmo because we did love Gizmo, it was one of our most played tracks, albums, but specifically, there's a track on it that's like the most played track of last year for us. Could talk about the process between Gizmo and Circles?

Hannah: Which song was it?

Absent Sounds: Don't Give Up. I needed that affirmation. Every time we were biking to class we'd be playing Don't Give Up.

Hannah: Awesome. Gizmo was during the pandemic, and I, did feel stuck it took a long time to write some songs I had sitting around for a year or two , that time was crazy. Everyone was isolated, it felt like a push to get it done or something. And then circles, I guess I was burnt out from this other tour I had done, but now it feels a lot lighter and different. I just wanted to keep it lighter and have more fun with it.

Absent Sounds: Make Believe is one of our favorites, really high up there on, the songs I really love from the album. And there's almost this contradiction between, I think, the, kind of the way that you, some of the lyrics and also the song. It's the title, Make Believe, because it almost makes you feel like, oh yeah, it's inviting you to make believe, but then in the lyrics it's saying, don't believe in anything, which I thought was funny. Throwing it back to being a kid, is there anything you used to really believe in and then felt yourself drifting away from as you get older?

Hannah: I grew up pretty religious, my parents are super religious. I was surrounded by that a lot. And yeah, I think the song that kind of relates to that, where it's I don't know, I don't have that, I don't like these things. I almost believe in not believing or something.

Absent Sounds: Oh, that makes sense. Like the dialect, I don't know if it's necessarily dialectic but holding both. Holding both.

Hannah: Yeah. I don't know if it's make believe, I'm not trying to say religion is make believe.

Absent Sounds: I get what you're saying. I feel like you explained it when you said believe in the mystery of the song. And that is a wrap for all our questions. Thank you. for joining us and chatting. We love your stuff and are grateful you're here.

Hannah: It was fun, thanks!