Life between languages: Takeo.K's dreamlike debut album

‘Home Is Everywhere and Nowhere at Once’ is Takeo.K’s debut album, a blending of experimental textures and dream pop vocals which weave through English and Japanese. In this way, the record boasts a sound which is truly fitting for its label, Theory Therapy, while remaining distinctly the artist's own.

The Gadigal Land/Sydney-based label first released Takeo.K’s music in 2024 on ‘Out of Season Vol.3.’ Their track, ‘Solder Flower’ featuring Nadia Hannan, is fortuitous of Takeo.K’s work to come - echoed drum patterns and stories told through texture and lived experience.

Takeo.K appears on the compilation alongside truly exciting downtempo artists: James K, Conna Haraway and Stone, each harnessing big emotions through their music, some somber, without ever feeling unreasonably heavy or abstract, which seems to be Theory Therapy’s strength as a label.

Despite the synchronicity of all of its parts, ‘Home Is Everywhere and Nowhere at Once’ was initially created for another label, saved by Theory Therapy’s Gary Hunter and mastering engineer Ike Zwanikken, who nurtured the record into reality. “Gary’s a real yes man,” the artist beams, a process that set the bar high for Takeo.K, who speaks with a new, quiet confidence. “Every song feels like a bit of luck, like something just appears,” they tell me. “There’s also this emotional state I go into when I’m making music. It’s almost dissociative, like being in a bog or haze.”

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In the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and nuclear disaster, Takeo K’s family relocated to Perth from their home in Sendai, Japan, in just two months. While moving overseas was in the plan, the abruptness and worry of having a nuclear disaster take place in their backyard were difficult to make sense of. “Something that has grounded me throughout quite a destabilising upbringing is art, music and the internet, you know, those kinds of subcultures,” Takeo.K reflects.

We discuss this anecdotally, all the while hanging on the artist's words is a sense of grief for a past life, while holding an emboldened appreciation for home in the present.

Musically, ‘Home Is Everywhere and Nowhere at Once’ is paced beautifully, built through layers of instrumentation: guitar loops and the darker influence of experimental projects like Muslimgauze. Felt also is the influence of the late 80’s postrock group Bark Psychosis, with compositions that loop and layer, creating a sense of endlessness without ever feeling too long. ‘I’ll go Anywhere,’ and reminds me of Bark Psychosis’ 1994 album ‘Hex’ in particular, “I’m bad at remembering song names,” Takeo.K shares, but ‘Absent Friend’ appears to be our favourite on the record, an eight minute track complete with sparkling bridges and an outro that you never quite want to end. While Takeo.K’s track is half as long, you can hear remnants of this influence, deep dubby drums and magnetic guitar pulls, softened by melodies which loop over and over. Of course, though, it’s Takeo.K’s vocal arrangements make the work distinctly theirs.

Earlier this week Mixmag ANZ premiered Takeo.K’s ‘Same Grey,’ the record's busiest track, packed with scattered drums and improvised saxophone from collaborator Izzy Cocks. Some readers may also know Izzy as DJ Mum, a partnership that feels fitting for a record that embraces boundaryless creation so completely. ‘Same Grey’ is truly the album's wild card, a driving force of anarchic sound that pushes the record forward in and amongst Takeo.K’s dream-pop lullabies. An exploration of what lingers after devastation, when big events are declared ‘over.’ In the artist's words, “It’s less about the event itself and more about the aftermath, and how the effects linger inside people and across generations.” It’s a lived experience captured by Takeo K’s music, a theme which feels all the more important in the period of now.

A real sense of overcoming can be felt in the language of this record, too, particularly Takeo.K’s use of Japanese. “You know,” recalls the artist, “I thought I was going to be a writer at some point, but I needed to learn English to live and study here,” they continue; “it's been both really rewarding to write in Japanese, but also kind of frustrating,” they express, “because I know I was a better writer when I was, like, 12.” In the same breath, Takeo.K holds the experience of writing in their first language as their most ‘honest’ expression, “I think that's inherent to Japanese as a language,” they explain, “it feels a bit closer to my heart and more revealing.” This feeling comes off especially in ‘Land of My Dreams,’ a fragmented lullaby which tackles the disappointment of a failed reality, of being unable to connect with the present, despite how right it might seem.

At the core of Takeo.K’s process is texture, allowing patterns and feeling to guide their experimentations. “When it comes to making music, I'll start off with a texture or a soundscape,” they share, “then I can keep sculpting from there.” What is clear is that Takeo.K’s openness to art, by the book or otherwise, is their strength as a producer, a sense for creativity picked up in Japan, the ‘trancey’ anime soundtracks they spent time with as a child and an inherited creativity from their grandparents, who were both artists.

In Takeo.K’s experience, “people who learnt music, like, classically are sometimes so intimidated by experimentation… it just can be whatever sounds good for you, and there’s something nice about that.” They continue, “I think people make production too technical, almost to the point where it's inaccessible, and people lose confidence.” When asked about their favourite, more abstract way to make music Takeo.K chats to me about their sustainer, a piece of gear that has largely been a motif in many of the artist's early work, picked up at an Ultra Fog show close to home. “I don't have it here,” says the artist during our interview, “but the sustainer,” they explain, “it sustains the notes on your guitar and makes a kind of drone sound.”

Takeo.K’s debut album closes with the title track: ‘Home is Everywhere and Nowhere at Once,’ ending with a similar softness to its beginning. The song features a melody that flickers like a tape recorder, giving the sense of reflecting on the past ahead of something new. Takeo.K now lives in Naarm/Melbourne, a place that feels like now feels home to them, “More than ever, I think I've felt a sense of belonging in Melbourne,” they share, “you know, I'll visit home in Japan, and I'll come back to Melbourne, and you see the grey sky, and you feel, like, a little bit relieved by it… There’s something in that.”

Takeo.K will be hosting their live album launch at home in Naarm/Melbourne at Miscellania alongside friends and close collaborators: DJ Mum, Ike Zwanikken, Nū, Yunzero, Emelyne, Genie, Other Joe and YL Hooi.

‘Home Is Everywhere and Nowhere at Once’ will be available on Bandcamp via Theory Therapy on 30 January 2026.

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Lilly Grainger is a DJ, radio presenter and writer, contributing to Mixmag ANZ. You can find her on Instagram.