From an interview with Ikue Mori at newmusicbox.org. Always intriguing when matters as practical as one’s living conditions so directly impact’s one’s creative output, especially when the intensity and thoroughness of the creative output, as is the case with Mori’s music, thoroughly mask the equipment choice (in her case laptop) as being anything other than an entirely artistic decision:
FJO: Eventually you decided to stop using drum machines and just use computers for everything. And that’s been about ten years now.
IM: I started [doing that] in 2000.
FJO: It’s obviously way more portable to bring one laptop than it is to lug several drum machines.
IM: That’s really the main reason. I started realizing that what I was doing with all the equipment and cables that I was carrying, I could just program it on a computer. That was my liberation.
FJO: So, in a way, it’s been a progression towards more and more portability. First you had the drum kit, and then the drum machines which took up considerably less room. And finally, the laptop.
IM: Living in this city on the sixth floor with no elevator, you have to think about equipment. But also I’ve always liked to take small compact things and make something maximum out of it.
Interview conducted by Frank J. Oteri.