“It’s all of my tastes and influences from my whole life”: Ninajirachi on building digital worlds, chasing nostalgia and creating her debut album
Ninajirachi. Photo credit: @passive.kneeling
Interview by Koady
With the release of her debut album I Love My Computer, out today, Ninajirachi weaves together the sounds, stories and digital worlds that have been quietly forming in the background for years. “I’ve always wanted to make an album, but I didn’t want to make it until I felt like I was skilled enough to put something together that felt very cohesive and had something to say,” she explains. “Finally I came up with the idea for what I wanted my first album to be and then made that.”
What began as experiments in production and lore building, from Discord community threads to the 4562.world website, has evolved into a cohesive, concept-driven project. “I wanted to make sure all of the tracks somehow linked back to the theme,” she says. “Once I had the first six or seven, I realised they were all kind of about my computer. That became my North Star.”
Anchored by themes of technology, nostalgia and the emotional weight of our online lives, the album draws from every corner of her creative identity: Nintendo soundtracks, cult sci-fi, and ARG-style storytelling. “In a way it’s a new part of myself, working with heaps of intention. But it’s also all of my tastes and influences from my whole life put together.”
Ninajirachi chats about the making of the ‘Infohazard’ music video, revisiting Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, and the inspirations that guided her during the project.
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Koady: Hi Nina, nice to meet you.
Ninajirachi: Nice to meet you. How are you going?
Koady: Yeah good, thank you. First of all, I'd like to offer a sincere congratulations on everything so far. Not just like an interview congratulations, I've been really liking everything you’ve put out so far.
Ninajirachi: Thank you so much, that really means a lot, thank you.
Koady: I want to start off with a question about the Infohazard music video, because it’s one of the coolest music videos I've seen in a long, long time, it's almost like ARG style.
Ninajirachi: Oh, thank you so much.
Koady: I was wondering how that sort of idea came to fruition? How much planning was involved in that?
Ninajirachi: Yeah, it was a fair bit of planning, and it also didn't work out the way we wanted it to originally. Now, I'm really happy that it didn't work out, but originally the plan was a little different. So I made it with my friend Aria, and she's like shot a bunch of my music videos before and taken heaps of my photos, and she really wanted to make a video for that song because it's her favourite from the album.
She told me, like I don't want to speak for her, but she told me that the like kind of web browsing idea came from seeing a Baauer show a few years ago, where Baauer’s show visuals were him watching YouTube, like a screen recording of him watching YouTube. So she wanted to do something like that, and we kind of already had a lot of album lore built up around the like 4562.world website that we've been making since like January. So we just kind of thought, well I should just like browse through that, and it's a good way to kind of show people who aren't in my Discord server like what's been going on. And then originally, so we did that, and it was just like hours of like screen recording, and then a lot of it is just like sped up like a hundred times, and then like webcam recording.
Originally we had this completely different idea for the end sequence, where we were meant to hire a drone, like and then when I lay down in front of the tower, it was going to like drone up and do a bunch of stuff with the sky, but then the drone didn't work [laughs]. So we were like, oh we need to do something else, and then a week or two later she came up with the images idea, which now I'm really happy that it was that instead. I think it's heaps cooler.
Koady: Yeah, I think it worked super well. I really enjoyed it. Were there any versions of yourself, like sound-wise, visually, ideologically, that you felt you were like letting go or growing into with this project?
Ninajirachi: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's my first album, so it's definitely the first time I've been so intentional about a body of work. I've always wanted to make an album, but I didn't want to make it until I felt like I was skilled enough to kind of put something together that felt very cohesive and had something to say and a bit of a narrative to it. And finally I kind of came up with the idea for what I wanted my first album to be and then made that. So in a way that's like a kind of a new part of myself, like working with heaps of intention. Like in the past, my projects have just been like the songs kind of put together with a title and that's fine, that's good. But yeah, that's kind of like a new thing. But in a way I've combed over like all of my tastes and influences from my whole life and put them all together. So yeah, it's not like it's definitely old versions of me in there too.
Koady: Yeah, I get what you're saying. Along those same lines, do you reckon when you were making a lot of the tracks, did you find you were caring about the genre you were creating or was it more modelled around a feeling or a time? Because I feel like a lot of this album, for me anyway, is pretty nostalgia-rooted.
Ninajirachi: Yeah, definitely. I think genre wise, I wasn't thinking about it too much, but I wanted to make sure there was a little bit of all the different types of music I make on there. I didn't want it to be all kind of like four to the floor DJable dance songs. Like there's one song on there that doesn't have any drums and it's more of a ballad. That was really important to have something like that on there. And then also like there's a song that's kind of more like half time like hip hop drums, which I really wanted to have on there as well. So I just kind of wanted to make sure it was like a little bit of a spread and a nice kind of resumé for different sounds that I like to make.
I really wanted to make sure all of the tracks somehow linked back to the theme. So once I kind of had like the first six or seven, I looked at them and I was like, okay, this seems to be what these are about. Like these are all kind of about my computer. So from there, that was like my kind of North Star in terms of picking the rest of the songs and then working the lyrics or reshaping lyrics to make sure they were all kind of around this one thing, if that makes sense.
Koady: Yeah, awesome. You've spoken before about how Nintendo games have influenced your music, time signature and texture wise. Along that line, were there any video games you were playing during the time period that directly inspired this era?
Ninajirachi: Oh my God, if only. I haven't had time to play any games in like over a year. Like I really haven't, which is so, so devastating because it's been such a big part of my life since I was little. So I would say like the games that have influenced this album, if anything, are like the same ones that… it's just like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon again, pretty much. Yeah, I remember the first time I replayed that game like so many times, like just reset the game card and like played it again from the start. And I remember the first time I did that after I started making music, I was like “oh wow, this really sounds like the music I make.” Or maybe not, you know, it doesn't sound like this album necessarily. But even in like 2017 or 2018, I remember being like, “oh wow, there's some like I'm making music and it kind of sounds like this game a bit.” So yeah, that one is really special to me. I know, sorry, that's probably a boring answer because I say it all the time, but that one just is, yeah, it's that one's huge for me.
Koady: I was a Pokemon Pearl player. I don't actually think I know… what was the game that you said?
Ninajirachi: Oh, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Explorers of Time and Darkness, but it's the same generation as Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
Koady: Is it played the same? Is it sort of like the same bird's eye sort view where you go around getting Pokemon?
Ninajirachi: No, it's totally different. It's so cool. You're playing as Pokemon and it's more of like a… Yeah, it's a totally different format and it's really narrative based. Like there's like a really deep plot and like plot twists and like backstabbing and like heartbreak and oh my god, it's yeah, it made me cry when I first played it when I was like eight years old. It's such a beautiful game.
Koady: All right, I'm gonna have to check it out. I remember I had Pearl, I had Pearl and Diamond and they're on like an R4 card and my sister reset my R4 card and I lost all the progress and it was at the start of this long road trip and I was just like bawling my eyes out.
Ninajirachi: Oh my god, that's horrible. I'm so sorry.
Ninajirachi. Photo credit: Billy Zammit
Koady: Thank you [laughs]. Have you surprised yourself with anything that you made on this album? Were there any songs that you didn't think were going to go on the album but you were like wow that actually sort of fits?
Ninajirachi: That's a really good question. Maybe the song ‘Delete’ only because the lyrics are a little bit embarrassing. I mean I love the song, it's actually one of my favourites on the album but it is kind of like an embarrassing thing to have written and then like shown people but I also think maybe a lot of people might be able to relate to it. Yeah so I don't know if I'm surprised like… because I love the song so like I'm not necessarily surprised that I put it on there but I think maybe a few years ago it's the kind of thing that I would be like oh I don't really want to show that to people I guess. But I guess it's also like when I first recorded that or when I first wrote that song as a voice memo it was literally just voice and like piano like in a voice memo but now that it's kind of dressed up with all of the dance production it's less of an obvious kind of hard on your sleeve thing.
Koady: Yeah I get what you're saying. Awesome. Alright, last question. I'm just like a bit of a movie buff, I don't know if you are, but were there any like movies for this album in particular or maybe YouTube videos or online cult media that directly inspired it?
Ninajirachi: Oh that's such a good question. Oh this isn't a movie, but The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. It's a short science fiction story. It was one of the things that was linked in the ARG website and it's not a super long read like it's pretty short but it's kind of about like a super computer that kind of like becomes god and stuff and it's like a universe kind of birth theory or concept and I've just always thought it was really cool.
So maybe that, I'm trying to think, oh Serial Experiments Lane aesthetically was definitely a huge influence and I've seen heaps of people commenting on my post of the album cover being like, I see it like you kind of thing. So that maybe, I'm trying to think, there's definitely so much like visual media that's been huge or like stories and stuff. Those two off the top of my head definitely.
Koady: Have you got any favourite movies not even related to the album?
Ninajirachi: Oh so many, oh my god. Off the top of my head, Fantastic Mr Fox, Interstellar and American Beauty. And yeah that's three.
Oh maybe Neuromancer as well. I wasn't really thinking about it super consciously when I was making this album, but it's like one of the kind of like a canon sci-fi novels from I think the 80s. I read it when I was in high school and it always kind of stayed with me because it was kind of like someone's idea of like the internet before the internet existed like they were kind of hypothesizing about this thing that was what the internet ended up being but it was before like it was written before the internet so I just always thought it was really interesting and it had like sentient kind of like AI computers in it and stuff but it's a little it's also a little uncanny and like a bit of a hard read because it's like reading it now it's like we know what these things are but he was kind of making them up before they exist. Yeah it's interesting yeah maybe not a super direct influence but just something that always kind of stayed with me and maybe is relevant to the themes and stuff.
Koady: Yeah awesome. Well thank you so much for talking to me today.
Ninajirachi: Thank you so much for having me.
Koady: I'm super excited to have a listen to the album fully when it comes out and congratulations again on everything.
Ninajirachi: Thank you, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for the support.
Listen to I Love My Computer below.