Love in Japan: oqbqbo and Scandinavian Star Drop Album on Tokyo Romance

There’s something about falling in love abroad that just hits different. The mystique of being somewhere alien. The feeling of moving in an unexpected direction, opening unseen possibilities. The hope of the unknown.

When Copenhagen-based music producers and artists oqbqbo and Scandinavian Star, real names Nastya Sipulina and Malthe Fischer, touched down in Tokyo ten years ago, they never expected to find a soul mate. Sipulina was invited to a Lust for Youth gig—a band that Fischer plays with—and decided to go along. “”It was my first time in Tokyo, I didn’t know the band,” she remembers. “I met Malthe afterwards, I didn’t even know what his role was as the stage was covered in smoke!”

Sipulina was living in Tokyo at the time, working as a model and musician. Fischer had just wrapped up a U.S. tour with LFY before playing Tokyo. “We had about ten days in Japan, which felt like a much-needed vacation,” he remembers. “I ended up spending most of the time with Nastya and revisited Tokyo twice that year to be with her.

Since then, Japan has played an integral role in both their life as a couple and their individual careers. “Our trip last year was my tenth visit,” says Fischer, while Sipulina—who was born in Russia, and now lives in Copenhagen—has lived in Tokyo and describes it as a “third home”.

‘In This Together’ channels ambient, trance and house to capture the sweet feelings of first love—tracks range from hopeful, euphoric, jittery, to peaceful elation. Tracks like ‘Text Me When You Wake Up’ and ‘Finally Made it Home’ are named after messages they exchanged during those first ten days together in Tokyo.

“It’s recreating a certain feeling,” says Fisher. “We went through our early conversations and photos and drew inspiration from that. When you look back, it seems like much simpler times.”

The pair list specific places integral to those hazy days. “We met in Harajuku at a venue called Astro Hall and the following day at a small venue called Mishuku Web (both closed now),” says Fischer. “The time we met was in the spring during the cherry blossom season. We spent a lot of time in and around Yoyogi Park.”

Sipulina, who lived in Tomigaya and Nishi-Azabu districts, recommends a stroll through Kichijōji neighbourhood and the Inokashira park nearby the Ghibli museum.

Listen to the full album here and fall in love beneath the sakura.