Hikaru Utada’s BAD MODE couldn’t have come at a better time.

No one on the planet has been spared by the pandemic’s upheaval, but amidst difficult circumstances, Utada has been taking stock. The new record – their 8th studio album, released more than 3 years after 初恋 (Hatsukoi) – is not only a push towards new musical territory for the singer-songwriter, but also the fruit of a great deal of introspection.

“In the time I made the songs on the album, I was really focusing on working on the relationship with myself, self-love and just the whole,” Utada said in an interview with Billboard.

The previous year was especially momentous. At the end of Pride Month 2021, Utada went on Instagram Live, announcing that they are nonbinary. “I saw people with big platforms saying, ‘This is the least I can do. Visibility is so important.’ I was really feeling that,” Utada mused. 

The Japanese-American pop icon, also fondly known as Hikki by their fans, took a cue from global drag superstar RuPaul’s famous mantra, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?”

BAD MODE was released digitally on Utada’s birthday, 19 January, coinciding with the weekend-long streaming of a performance filmed at the storied AIR Studios in London, where they are currently based.

While many acts in these unprecedented times just try to replicate the concert experience with entire spectacles in virtual spaces, Utada’s move worked in their favour.

“I couldn’t do a proper show with people in the same space,” they said at the end of the show. “But this actually, I think, allowed me to share a way more private and intimate part of me that I actually don’t get to show in a full-on stage with loads of people.”

Utada has been used to putting on electrifying arena shows, from tours like the indelible United 2006 to the monumental Laughter in the Dark. But with crowds of thousands, they say, “I have to put on a bit of a [front]. I didn’t have that here. It was a really special feeling for me.”

The age-old adage, less is more, rings loud. Encapsulating the soul of that performance on video, and having to beam it around the planet is, however, indispensable. 

“Recording studios are always notoriously too small and difficult to work in, so I knew it will be a challenging environment to film in,” director David Barnard said in a technical featurette.

At the smaller Studio 1, cameras surrounding Utada and a full 7-piece band capture the nuances of sparse movements. Cinematographer Marcus Domleo’s lens work makes the most of such minute gestures: the clang of a cymbal, the graceful force of fingers hitting the keyboard, and even the ephemeral reflections on glass surfaces. Close-ups show the slightest quiver on Utada, and when need be, the shot lingers on exceptional moments.

Utada and the band coast through a set consisting of some of the new material on BAD MODE, including the title track as opener and live reworks of the theme tunes from the last two Evangelion films, ‘Beautiful World’ and ‘One Last Kiss.’ Two B-sides from 2004’s boundary-pushing Exodus (under the moniker Utada), ‘Hotel Lobby’ and ‘About Me,’ were even thrown in the mix.

It was very much like a jam, playing material that, too, was a product of co-productions with musicians like Nariaki Obukuro, hyperpop stalwart A.G. Cook, and prolific British producer Sam Shepherd, better known as Floating Points. In Utada’s words, as said to Dazed: “It was like having an amazing interior designer for a crude house I had built.”

Utada’s crystalline yet soulful voice still shines through, but they sing with a certain sort of candour that can only be seen in a concert like this. It feels like being taken inside their inner sanctum, for someone who has considered making music a “private” endeavour and their “safe space.”

“I loved the closer interaction I got with everyone involved in the project because it was a small team compared to a tour,” Utada told Billboard. “I think the great, warm vibe we had going from rehearsals allowed me to share more intimate sides of my creative process during the performance.”

BAD MODE is now out on all digital platforms, but will be available on CDs on 23 February and vinyl on 27 April.

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