I suppose that technically, I already shared this performance from For Tracy Hyde‘s farewell show in Tokyo from this past March, but as good quality as that footage was, it was still pretty raw in terms of production values. They’ve since gussied up the footage – “remixed from multi-track, added unused footage and greatly powered it from the live broadcast on the day” – and are making the entire polished version available to fans who donate and to give you taste of what you get, they’ve released a clip of Hotel Insomnia‘s “Estuary” which looks and sounds great. Certainly worth your yen.

And in additional FTH news, Make Believe Melodies has published what is probably the band’s final interview, conducted a month after the dust had settled from that final show. And amongst other topics, there’s the inevitable, “why?”

The reason for disbanding…well, it was mainly because of the differences in our motivation towards music. There was a discrepancy between people who wanted to make a living from music, and those that saw music as more of a hobby. I personally want to make a living with music, so when I thought about getting myself to the point where I can quit my company job as soon as possible, I thought it’d be a little difficult unless I do it with people sharing the same energy. From there, we started to have discussions, and decided to end it. I don’t know. I’m sure everyone has their own reasons but that was the case for me.

Suga, For Tracy Hyde
Make Believe Mailer 84: For Tracy Hyde

And about the Pitchfork shout-out the day they announced they were splitting:

Something I am curious about with the album is, you made your announcement… when was it? January 5th? So, that was the same day the album was picked up by Pitchfork. First off, I know you’ve already said “we didn’t quit because we thought we were on Pitchfork”. But what were your reactions to that? Especially to get a good score from Pitchfork. When you saw that, were you like…what are we doing?

SUGA: Well, honestly, just because we were featured on Pitchfork…of course, we were super happy and honored to be picked up, but despite that, we didn’t think to take back our decision. Also, my personal feeling, is that we were featured on Pitchfork by an Asian writer so, in that sense, it didn’t feel like we had the support of the “white indie base”—I know it sounds awkward but—as a Japanese band, that felt a bit disappointing.MAV: Like you were featured by the Asian branch?SUGA: Yeah, like getting on NME Asia but not NME.

That’s very interesting. I do think from that I started seeing your music pop up on more publications and playlists. I don’t want to sound weird3, but the person who founded Pitchfork like 25 years ago, he has a Spotify playlist. He suddenly put like four of your songs on it because he saw you on Pitchfork. I saw your music spread further. It was interesting because before that, how much press did you get… like, excluding from me? You weren’t picked up by many international outlets, were you?

SUGA: Not many but… there were a few loose indie music blogs spread out across the world, and a few news sites based in Asia like Bandwagon. That’s pretty much it. At least nothing much happened in the Americas and Europe.

Make Believe Mailer 84: For Tracy Hyde

And so while that might be all the new FTH content to share, don’t forget that there were four terrific albums pre-Hotel Insomnia to dig into. Which i will.