For over 15 years, Nisennenmondai have been ruthlessly distilling their music to its barest fundamentals. When Masako Takada (guitar), Yuri Zaikawa (bass) and Sayaka Himeno (drums) formed the group at university in 1999, they slotted comfortably into the lineage of post-punk and noise-rock bands plying the Tokyo live circuit. But the scrappy trio, who took their name from the Japanese term for the Millennium Bug and named its early songs after the artists they most resembled ("Sonic Youth," "This Heat," "Pop Group") has since morphed into a very different creature.

The swirling, motorik grooves of 2008 album Destination Tokyo were just a stepping stone towards 2013's monolithic N, which barely sounded like the work of a guitar band at all. The album's three tracks were so austere they could almost pass for minimal techno. When the band performs live—a formidable display of stamina and sustained concentration—the effect is even more startling.

On Nisennenmondai's latest album, N', they've taken the repetition even further, revisiting the grooves of N in a series of new recordings that are even more propulsive and tightly focused. The album also features a pair of polyrhythmic remixes by Shackleton, a longtime fan of the group. The Berlin-based producer joined the band recently for a live session at Soup, the intimate Tokyo venue that now doubles as Nisennenmondai's recording studio. A couple of days later, I sat down with Himeno, Takada and Zaikawa to hear how they came this far.

You've just returned from a fairly lengthy tour in Europe. How did it go this time around?

Himeno: It went really well—better than before, actually. There was a good turnout for a lot of the gigs.

You were playing at some festivals too, right?

Himeno: We played quite a few festivals, but we also did some headliner shows, which we haven't really done before. It used to depend a lot on where we were playing—sometimes lots of people turned up, sometimes they didn't—but there was steady interest this time. We're really grateful to have people come and watch us at every show.

I was surprised to see you playing alongside Shackleton at Soup the other night. It was announced at the last minute, but when did it all get decided?

Takada: It was around when he did the remixes last year.

Himeno: We started talking about it around last November.

How did those remixes come about?

Himeno: We'd met a few times before while we were on tour in Europe, at a festival in France and other places. Shackleton always said how much he liked our music, and we had some chances to talk, but we didn't know his contact details so we could never get in touch with him afterwards. While we were recording N', he happened to drop us an email, saying he was interested in collaborating, and the timing was just perfect. We asked if he'd be interested in doing some remixes, and he was available, so he was able to turn them around really quickly. Then we asked if he had any plans to come to Japan, and he said he'd be here in March, which was great timing, too. So everything fell into place.

The session you played together was really interesting. Given how tightly controlled your sound is now, how does it feel to have another person join in?

Zaikawa: Doing it together in real time like that, I had to concentrate even harder.

Takada: We've been playing the same songs for such a long time, so to have that kind of opportunity, and get some fresh input, it just felt really natural. Kind of like, "Oh, you can do it this way, too."

It felt like there was a lot of overlap between what he was doing and the sounds you're making yourself.

Takada: That's right. He was sampling my guitar sound and applying some kind of modulation to it, then playing it back.

Did it throw you at all, having someone else using the same kinds of frequencies as you?

Takada: Sure, but I think it was a good sensation—it ended up spurring me on. I'm always playing by myself, so it was fun.

I was going to ask how to pronounce the title of your new album, but you just told me.

Himeno: It's "N dash."

Zaikawa: They call it an "apostrophe" overseas, don't they?

Himeno: So we screwed that one up! We realised that while we were on tour, but it was too late to fix it.

I did a double take when I first saw that album title, and I did another one when I listened to it. You haven't tried something like this before—I'm not sure what to call it, actually. Variations? Remixes? Versions? What were you going for?

Himeno: Other people might not hear the difference when they listen, but as far as we're concerned, our songs have been steadily evolving. We've been playing the same songs for two or three years now, so they're pretty different to when we first started, especially the guitar loops, the feel of the guitar. We think the songs at this point are stronger than when we recorded N, so we wanted to capture them even better than we did last time. We looked for a better recording method than what we'd used before, and then we spent a really long time on the recording and mixing.

More than on N?

Himeno: Oh, totally.

Zaikawa: It must have been about four months.

Himeno: After we finished our summer tour, we were working on it for the rest of the year. Making records with decent sound has always been one of our main goals. We managed it this time, so I'm pretty happy.

With N, I understand you had each member record her track separately. Did you do that again this time?

Himeno: We recorded separately last time, but this time we recorded each of my drums individually too, just the kick, just the snare, just the hi-hat…

You're like Dave Grohl.

Himeno: Seriously, we separated everything, it was amazing. We've never broken things down so much when recording.

When I spoke to Shackleton he said that he'd always enjoyed your live shows, but felt that your albums up until Fan in 2009 still had a sort of rock quality to them. And then with N, you nailed the sound he'd been hoping for. Did it feel like that for you, too?

Takada: We changed the way we recorded from N onwards—the place, the people who did the recording and mixing—to bring it more in line with how we wanted to do things. N was the first album we made that way; it's when we started to get really particular about our sound and recording techniques. But it was the first try; it was still a process of trial and error. We didn't know if it would work or not, so we just decided to give it a shot and hope for the best.

Zaikawa: We're experimenting a lot more now. When we went to the recording studio in the past, it's like there was an established way of doing things and we were working within that. With N, we were putting ourselves in the same position as the person doing the recording, so we could spend the whole day making fine adjustments: "What about if we did this? How about that?"

You were recording in Soup again this time, right? When you're doing it in a place where you've also played gigs, I guess it's less nerve-wracking than going into a regular studio.

Zaikawa: I think we were able to relax. We'd created a space of our own and could record there for days on end, so it slowly started to feel like home.

I feel like there's a real difference between the sound at Soup and what you get at conventional live music venues. It's much more immersive. Do you feel that when you're playing there?

Himeno: Yeah, you're really close to the audience. At a regular venue like O-Nest [in Shibuya], we're listening from behind the speakers, so you get the reverberations, or sometimes just the sound from the monitors. It sounds pretty poor from the stage.

Zaikawa: You just have to hope it sounds better out there.

Himeno: Right. But at Soup, we're listening through the same speakers as the audience, and I can hear the sound from the amps directly. Everything feels really close.

Zaikawa: It's like a sense of unity.

One thing I noticed when I listened to N' is that I don't think there's a single moment when you hear a readily identifiable guitar sound.

Takada: What, really?

In "A-1" on N, there's a proper power chord in there, but I don't think it happens at all this time.

Takada: That's probably true. I've completely forgotten! I stopped playing like that. I think my approach gradually changed, as I stripped things down and made them sound more minimal. That kind of "jaaaang!" sound—the sound in my head gradually changed. I wanted to make something with more of a sense of tension, a bit more like straight-up noise.

How do you work on your guitar parts? Are you practising a lot by yourself, or do you mostly do it in session with the band?

Takada: With the band. I'm kind of improvising when we practise in the studio together, seeing what fits. Once I've figured something out, I'll add it to the mix and see how it works. I'll be gradually working on stuff like that as we're practising.

Your 2011 live album featured a bunch of staple tracks like "Ikkyokume" and "Mirrorball," which you no longer play now. Was there a point where you consciously decided to jettison that material?

Zaikawa: That's right. We'd been playing those songs for years, and they'd developed over time, so we wanted to capture them as they sounded at that point, live, and then move on to the next stage. We've moved on now. We can't perform those songs any more.

Was there any particular inspiration for the music you're making now?

Takada: Around the end of 2011, we'd started listening to DJ mixes and online streams, to "dance music," I guess.

You'd never listened to it before?

Takada: I hadn't really listened to much, no. I'd been listening to other types of music. So when we started listening to dance music, that was one factor. Also, just speaking personally, when we were working on songs, I wasn't happy with how "rock" it sounded. Anything that hinted at a melody, I'd be thinking, "What's this?" I found that I was enjoying playing along with loops, and then combined with listening to dance music… it changed the way I think, my position within the band.

Zaikawa: I don't think there's been a fundamental change in terms of rhythm. We can't cheat any more. Back when we still had that rock element, we could cheat a bit. The rhythm might be a bit off, or sped up, and there was a kind of rock feel to everything. When we played live, we'd sometimes get through it all just by brute force. But as we've got more minimal, and the loops have got more precise, we've lost that "jaaaang!" sound. There's nowhere to hide any more. Playing the rhythm, I've got to stay on the beat or the whole thing will fall flat.

I've been checking your live performances since the mid-'00s, and from a technical perspective, at that stage, you wouldn't have been able to play the music you're doing now. Was there a point when you realised you could do it?

Zaikawa: For me, it was actually really recent. When we first started playing like this, it didn't sound like something we should be performing live. [Himeno and I] would be thinking, "This is awful, this is awful." [We were worried] people who came to our shows would be like, "What are they playing at?"

Himeno: It's incredibly hard to play live. Keeping time with the loops is really difficult, especially the ones that go like "gata gata gata gata." The sound changes depending on how the monitors are set up, or what the venue is like. Even now, I'm constantly reminded how difficult it is.

Nesennenmondai

I noticed you were using a digital metronome at the gig the other day.

Himeno: I'm always checking a metronome. There have been loads of times where I've lost the beat. Early on, there were quite a few occasions when I sped up because the sound I was playing along with was actually the wrong one, so I use the metronome as a rough guideline to make sure that doesn't happen.

You see a lot of bands where the drummer is playing along to a click track through headphones, but did you decide not to go down that route?

Himeno: When you play along to a click, the loop itself still sounds a little off. I can decide for myself when to come in, what to latch on to, depending on the loop. Mmm, this is hard to explain.

Zaikawa: Sometimes it's not a programmed loop. You have to have some human input then, too. There are some loops that only people can play.

At the Soup gig, the first track started with the bass, didn't it? How were you keeping time?

Zaikawa: I'm always using a metronome, too. It's set to the same tempo that the loop will be, and when the loop comes in I'll fit in with that instead. I'm flicking a switch in my head.

How does it feel when you're playing live? When you're constantly focussed on playing the same thing again and again. I was wondering if you end up almost in a state of meditation.

Himeno: As much as possible, I'm just concentrating on the sound. If I think about anything else, I'll probably lose the beat. It's life or death, every time.

Zaikawa: I'm the same. I'm constantly looking at the metronome. If I look away for a moment I'm afraid I might lose the beat, so I'll be in a state of trance, just thinking about the metronome. As the song goes on, there'll be times when I don't stick to the loop, when the guitar comes in or something, and then I might begin to have other ideas, too. I'll think about which part to listen to or what to play next.

Takada: When everything's going well, and I can hear everything properly, I think my mind probably goes empty. I'll just be enjoying the experience, not thinking about anything. But at other times, it's a struggle. "I'm dying up here."

Do you still get that now?

Takada: Yeah, it happens all the time. It's difficult.

The foreign music press often bills you as a conventional band that plays techno. How do you feel about that?

Takada: Getting labelled a band that plays techno? [Long pause] It's true up to a point. I don't have anything against being categorised that way, but I also don't want to limit it to that.

Zaikawa: Everyone's got their own way of interpreting things. I'm not uncomfortable with the label, but I'll be thinking, "It's not really techno, is it?" It's not like we're using techno as a blueprint for what we do.

Takada: What do you think?

I've thought the same thing at times. If you're just listening to the album, it doesn't sound all that different from something like Factory Floor, but I think you have to take into account how the music's being created. You're playing everything yourselves—that's a big difference.

Zaikawa: Everything's done through human power.

Takada: That's the most interesting point.

If you were going to recreate your tracks using a sequencer, do you think it would be less interesting?

Himeno: Yeah, I think it would be boring.

When you said earlier that you'd started listening to dance music, was there anyone in particular that you liked?

Takada: Himeno introduced me to some mixes that I listened to a lot, like James Murphy. That's about all I remember, but I listen to other stuff, too.

Himeno: I listened a lot to some of the mixes Factory Floor did, then if there were particular tracks I liked, I'd investigate those, and it kind of spread from there.

Did you write "Appointment" before or after you started listening to DFA? It sounds like it was inspired by the label.

Takada: I think that was made before, actually. When was it, 2009? 2008? The others came up with the rhythm first, and for my part, I was inspired by—what was it called? The song from Beverly Hills Cop.

What, "Axel F"?

Takada: "Axel F," right! That's what I was going for. It's cool, isn't it? I tried it on guitar first but it didn't feel right, so I did it on keyboard instead.

Have there been other cases like that more recently, where a song was inspired by a particular artist?

Takada: It's usually a case of me doing something in the studio and liking the way it sounds. But the methodology… When I was making things more minimal, or deciding that it was OK just to play noise, I think that listening to how dance music is put together was probably pivotal for me. "Oh, that sounds good." "Yeah, that's all it needs." There are probably lots of things I've copied in that way. Recently I've been really digging [Russian psytrance duo] Parasense. They get some really bizarre noises.

Right, you included them in that recent mix you did for Red Bull Music Academy.

Takada: Right. I was intrigued by their sound, so I thought I'd try something along those lines myself. I'll sometimes attempt things like that, but I'm really trying to use it as a springboard for creating my own sound.

You shared a bill with Carter Tutti Void when you played in Berlin recently. Do you feel like you've got anything in common with their approach?

Himeno: We're huge Throbbing Gristle fans. We really like Carter Tutti Void, too. We've listened to them, so their influence has probably rubbed off on us. The tracks they make are really detailed, though—and then they're blending those with guitars and noise and stuff. Do we sound alike? Well, we like them, so in some respects, maybe we do.

Zaikawa: In our outlook, maybe.

Himeno: Seriously, they're great though. Their live show was really cool.

Zaikawa: In Japan, another group that's playing everything by themselves is goat. I feel like the guys from goat have the same goal as us. They're much better, of course, but…

And that goal would be?

Zaikawa: Being stoic, seeing how far you can get through human effort alone.

And how far do you feel you can go, as a band?

Himeno: What, you mean like performance time?

That's probably the easiest way of gauging it.

Zaikawa: It's a question of concentration? [To Himeno] How long can you play for? How long can you keep playing the same phrase?

Himeno: I think we've taken it as far as we can. It's really tough at the moment, it's so fast. If we slowed it down, I could keep going for a little longer.

What BPM is it at the moment?

Himeno: "B" is around 149. It's seriously fast. When you have to play that in the morning, it's intense.

There are a lot of bands on the Tokyo scene that formed at university, but not so many that are still going over 15 years later. How do you explain your longevity?

Himeno: I think it's just that we're earnest! Everyone's earnest.

Zaikawa: We always turn up to practice on time.