Rainy Night above Tokyo

Most lofi channels look alike: a girl at a desk, a cup of coffee, a window. I wanted a place of my own – somewhere you would actually want to spend a rainy night.

The first attempts were close, but not there yet. A record cellar was cosy, but you couldn't see the city. A wooden balcony in Kyoto had the right mood, but the rain, the smoke and the perspective never quite worked. Then the two ideas came together: a small listening room high up in a tower, full of records, with one wide window – and the city's landmark glowing in the middle of it.

For a moment I thought about using the same room for every city. But a room that flies from Tokyo to Bangkok makes no sense. So every city gets its own room. The layout stays the same – the armchair on the left, the shelves, the window, the tape machine below it. The chair, the lamp and a few objects change with the city.

Kaya travels light: a backpack, her headphones and her cat Mikan. Some things about her never change – the blue-black hair in a loose bun with an orange hair tie, the jade earrings, the freckles, the old sneakers. Her clothes change with the weather. For a long time she also wore a conical straw hat. In the end it felt like a cliché, so it stayed behind.

Tokyo got a room like an old jazz café: a worn moss-green velvet armchair, a paper lamp, two big wooden speakers and a small cast-iron teapot. It took a while to get there. In one version it was raining inside the room – puddles on the wooden floor, right next to the tape machine.

The picture becomes ten seconds of movement, and only small movement: rain running down the glass, the reels turning, Kaya and Mikan breathing. Those ten seconds repeat for an hour, so the end has to melt back into the beginning. I checked the seam until it was as calm as any other moment in the loop. The animation comes out in 1080p; on a big TV that looks soft, so the clip was upscaled to 4K and checked frame by frame.

The rain had to match what you see on the window: soft, steady, a little distant. The first rain sounds were wrong – one was a heavy downpour, the next ones hummed and whistled. In the end I used a real recording and built it into a long, calm layer. The music is chosen and ordered by hand; every track plays twice in a row, so the mood doesn't change every two minutes. Music: Magnific Tunes (licensed).

The idea, the characters, the rooms, the music and every decision in between come from me. AI is my brush, not the artist.

Next stop: Bangkok.