A new creator trio, NOILION made their debut this January from anisong label Lantis. Produced by TeddyLoid, their powerful, energetic debut song 3 was written to serve as the opening theme for the second season
of Netflix's "ULTRAMAN" anime, which allowed the group to quickly grab the attention of fans both in Japan and overseas. Building on this momentum, they released their first EP Digital Mask in April,
and soon after, we had the opportunity to ask LIO, the vocalist of this up-and-coming trio, about their unique concept, their feelings about anime, potential overseas performances, and more.
It has been mentioned that NOILION’s concept is “Live On in the Noisy World”, referring to “living on as a human through the noise and distortion of the digital age”. Could you please elaborate a bit on how that is reflected in your music and visuals?
LIO: Thank you for asking! In the current digitalized era, technology has advanced and many things have become virtualized and convenient. Although there are obvious advantages to this, the fact that we mainly communicate through texts on smartphones
and computer screens can create a feeling that we’ve lost a sense of truth. For example, our social media is filled with disturbing fake news and gossip that is essentially very insignificant to our everyday life. This is the “noise” in our concept “Live
On in the Noisy World”. And we have built on this concept in each of the songs in the EP.
Your debut single 3 is the theme song for the second season of the “ULTRAMAN” anime. Is there anything in particular you would like fans to notice about this song?
LIO: Some people have asked why the song is called 3, and here are three meanings behind the title of the song. Firstly, Ultraman can only fight for three minutes. Secondly, the anime “ULTRAMAN” uses 3D animation and
NOILION also portrays the sense of 3D through the use of XR filming. And lastly, NOILION has three members. This song also happens to be precisely three minutes long.
Are you fans of “ULTRAMAN” or anime yourself? How did you feel seeing your music attached to such a beloved franchise?
LIO: We all love anime! I had an "ULTRAMAN" phase during my childhood, and loved "ULTRAMAN Season 1" as well. And so it is a great honour for us to be a part of "ULTRAMAN Season 2" as the opening theme song. Our wish is that this song will become
a tailwind to support "ULTRAMAN Season 2" in giving hope to people living in the present era.
TeddyLoid served as the sound producer for a number of your songs. What was it like working with him, and what do you think he has brought to NOILION’s music?
LIO:TeddyLoid brought NOILION to life. He has a wide range of musical expression and has inspired me to expand my own range, from powerful songs like 3 to slightly melancholic songs like Orb.
I’m always in deep awe because he is very professional and fast with his work too.
You’ve been releasing tracks from your upcoming EP Digital Mask online each week. Why did you choose Digital Mask as the title track for this release, and what do you want to convey with this song?
LIO:Digital Mask was
actually the first song that we created as NOILION, and we named our first EP after this song because it matches the symbolic theme of the EP. This song is about how we can lose our true selves in social media, for example, by putting
on deceiving face filters, aka “digital masks”, perhaps out of vanity. But the ideal image of oneself portrayed in social media could potentially become a goal for self-improvement (hence the lyric “breaking through inside of me”) as we shorten the distance
between the ideal self and the real self.
As you have a VJ as part of your regular line-up, it seems like visuals will be an important component of NOILION. What can you tell us about your first music video?
LIO: The music video director, Atsunori Toshi,
said that he wanted to express “LIO getting lost in a digital cyberpunk city. The idea is to change the various worlds reflected in the crystal-like balls with music.” We actually combined two videos to create this final music video.
The first version was shot by REAK back in July 2021 when I still had a fringe. I was going for an inorganic and robotic figure for that one. In the second version, I attempted to embody anguish and desperation to find the “truth”.
Do you have plans to perform outside of Japan in the future? Assuming you could perform live anywhere in the world (and it was safe to do so), where would you want to go?
LIO: Of course! We would like to reach out to as
many of our international listeners all over the world as possible! And I personally would love to perform a gig in France. It has always been my dream... J’adore la France!
Please leave a message for our readers.
LIO: Thank
you everyone for reading this interview! Stay tuned to our latest music and videos, and we hope to see you very soon in France! Merci beaucoup et à bientôt!
JaME would like to thank LIO, NOILION and qdopp, Inc. for making this interview possible.
Links
to download and stream Digital Mask on various online music platforms are available here, and fans can keep up with NOILION via their official website, Twitter,
Instagram and Facebook accounts.
