Hayama Ambient 030

The Hokkaido-born musician Noah has changed her constantly seen her sound evolving since the release of her 2015 album Sivutie. While she described it as "a sonic vision of a daydream scene,” 2019’s Thirty contained a mysterious, vapor-wave-like atmosphere that functioned as a gateway to Tokyo’s urban world. While also incorporating the delicious minimalism of 80's Hong Kong pop, Noah finally realized what she really wanted to express in the last few years.

Her rebellion against tradition/authority and her awareness of deep emotions like anger and sadness powered the creation of fascinating collection of songs. The EP featured a varied palette of sounds such as classical instruments like harp and strings, cut-up piano shreds, simple breakbeats, and four on the floor rhythms, creating an admirable balance of gothic and solemnity. Through her music, she was able to create a sightline into her unique worldview that is desolate yet, elegant. The poetry and choruses used in Noah's music open the door to other worlds, culminating in a sound that is both shimmering and elegant.

Noah - Moonchild

Piano Diary (Klaviertagebuch) is the new piano solo album by Henning Schmiedt. Henning Schmiedt is a composer & pianist from Berlin. 
He grew up in former East Germany where working with art and music represented social freedom.
He played, arranged and produced for Mikis Theodorakis, a great Greek composer who passed away recently for many years.

During the pandemic, Henning started to do a ritual – every day, he recorded an instant composition on his upright piano, an acoustic piano diary / klaviertagebuch.
There were no 2nd takes, just a moment’s notice. Usually no longer than 3-4 minutes.
Since the piano is in his living room, the sounds from the street, passing cars, wind, and birds merge with the piano strings’ soft sound.

Henning developed some Instant Composing technics during the pandemic, musical algorithms, like slowly growing echoes. Sometimes his playing was like walking through an imaginary house, where the opening of a new door creates an unknown motive.

He could see his state of mind through the sound, and he felt connected to himself, like an inner dialogue. Since the lockdown was a time of limited communication, that internal dialogue became more critical.
But like in a real journal, when the thoughts and memories of the day become clearer through writing down, it felt that playing and recording the piano created order to issues and ideas.

Finally, he imagined playing for an audience, trying to connect to every single listener even from a distance, and to his surprise, it worked! He felt a genuinely remarkable and happy physical sensation, to experience connection through resonance.

Piano Diary is both: an inner dialogue and the result of a distant concert with his audience. When listening actively and conscious, every listener is sending back imagination, creating endless resonance and reflections. Becoming one through musical resonance is a state of mind that makes bliss for both the artist and the audience. And that is true even in times of physical isolation.

Henning Schmiedt - Midnight

cokiyu EP "荒野" 
release date: 11 Aug 2021

Download: https://cokiyu.bandcamp.com/album/kouya
Streaming: https://linkco.re/h5ts8Ydu

tracks
1. 旅人 ★
2. 酸素
3. まじない
4. 潮騒
5. 海の人と雪

All songs and lyrics written by cokiyu

Mastered by Yosi Horikawa
https://yosihorikawa.bandcamp.com/
---------------------------------------------

1. 旅人
Produced by cokiyu

Ambient guitar by masami.ueti
https://masamiueti-livinglabel.studio.site/


2. 酸素
Produced by cokiyu

Electric bass by Hirofumi Nakamura
http://hirofuminakamura.com/

Drums by HAMADAH(NETWORKS)
https://lit.link/hamadah


3. まじない
Produced by cokiyu


4. 潮騒
Produced by cokiyu


5. 海の人と雪
Composed and edited by cokiyu
Arranged and recorded by Ueda Takayasu at Singing Frog Studio
(Acoustic Guitar, Piano, Banjo, Harmonium, Percussion)
https://uedatakayasu.bandcamp.com/

*Special Piano version by Ueda Takayasu
https://uedatakayasu.bandcamp.com/album/leichtschnee-song-by-cokiyu

荒野

旅人 - Tabibito

Conceived as a commissioned work for Japanese integrated art brand WARA, Hiroshima-based composer Meitei created SHITSURAI as music to embody the collective’s ideology centered around age-old Japanese traditions and sensibilities. Meitei, whose real name is Daisuke Fujita, and WARA’s artistic director Eri searched for a new dialog with sounds reflecting the Japanese aesthetics of 24 sekki that mark nature’s perpetual cycle of ever-changing seasons. Meitei’s entrancing ode to the 24 sekki expresses Japanese lyricism through minimal piano, environmental and electronic sounds. 

In Japan, each of the four seasons of the year is experienced in six phases and all have their own distinct characters. Unveiling a reverence for the Japanese passage of time, the 4-track EP explores the ebb and flow through the twenty-four seasons of Japan as nature awakens, blossoms, matures and settles into a slum from the beginning of spring (Risshun), the first day of summer (Rikka), the first day of autumn (Risshū) to the beginning of winter (Rittō). 

Symbolizing the Japanese concept of shitsurai (to arrange) with an emphasis on ma (the sound of silence), the compositions were designed as a collage of delicate piano sounds that the composer played, recorded and subsequently meticulously cut and rearranged. The piano serves as a metaphor for the artist’s individual existence in the shifting landscape of time throughout the record. With each passing season, surrounded by new environments and colors, various textures were drawn with subtle glitchy electronics embedded within natural sounds, gradually unfolding as the album unravels. Transient, sparse and boundless at once, for fifteen minutes, the four tracks cycle through small variations, the album paradoxically, expands with each listening loop: it’s one that can be listened to endlessly.

With this album, Meitei’s unique sound universe is observed from yet another new perspective, as the artist has demonstrated in prior albums. SHITSURAI exemplifies Meitei’s brilliance with motifs, minimalism and movement as he seeks to meet a new realm of sonic romanticism in his never-ending quest to reinterpret and recapture lost Japanese moods.

Meitei releases SHITSURAI at the beginning of spring, 4 February 2023, on all digital formats. Gen Tanabe mastered this record at Studio Camel House in Japan.

Meitei - Rittō (SHITSURAI, 2023)

Meitei - Risshū (SHITSURAI, 2023)

Meitei - Rikka (SHITSURAI, 2023)

Rayons - A Fragment Of Summer

From Album "light and waves" (epcd 087)
2015/9/16 on sale

more info & order : www.7ep.net/item/epcd087/

I Am Robot And Proud / Kira Kira Zig Zag

we'll see part 2 11.7.25temp

Tracklist:
01. EVENFALL
02. OBSCURE DUSK
03. SINUSOIDAL PIRR
04. SOLEMN SOLACE
05. NIGHTFALL
06. INTERMISSION I : HÆTU
07. ETHEREAL COSMOS (ft. Okamotonoriaki, Kent Lee)
08. ANDROMEDIDS
09. COSMIC INFLATION (ft. Flica)
10. INTERMISSION II : ARÊTE
11. DAWNFALL

EVERY SINGLE DAY, OUR LIVES REVOLVES AROUND A SPIRAL OF SYSTEMATICAL LOOPS OF ACTIVITIES THAT SEEMS TO STATE OUR EXISTENCE IN THIS EARTH. THE MUNDANE DAYS AND ROUTINES THAT WE ENDURE AWAITS THE ARRIVAL OF THE WEEKENDS, WHERE WE SEEK COMFORT AND REST. THE CYCLE REPEATS TO FULFIL ONE GOAL AFTER ANOTHER, WHICH WILL LAST THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. WE CONSTANTLY SEEK FOR LOVE, FILLING THE EMPTINESS INSIDE WHENEVER IT COLLIDES WITH SOLITUDE. IN THIS DAY AND AGE, IT IS INEVITABLE THAT SOCIAL MEDIA AND MATERIALISM HAS OFTEN PLAYED A PART IN THIS FACADE TO SHELTER OURSELVES FROM THE ABYSS OF THE INSECURITIES SCREAMING FROM WITHIN. AMONG ALL OF THESE CATASTROPHIC SELF-SEARCHING EVENTS, YET IRONICALLY AT TIMES A BLESSING IN DISGUISE, WE FIND OURSELVES SEEKING FOR SOLACE

And like anyone of us, a Korean born musician, Dae Kim fnds his comfort in his frst LP, entitled Solace. In the midst of his soul-searching voyage, it has occurred to Dae that there is no other way to fnd comfort in life than fulflling one’s mandate, which in this case for him is by making music. Just like the mechanism of nature in this earth, every element took place to serve its core purpose. Hence, throughout this album, Dae was able to portray his perspective of this expedition through a soundscape of the living world. The three main themes entitled “Evenfall”, “Nightfall” and “Dawnfall” acts as a mould to the album with it’s looping melody lines and thematic structure.

Working for more than two years for his album, Dae Kim has took the approach of combining acoustic instruments from rhodes, piano, guitars, accordion to analogue synthesisers and turntables to create sounds of many colours. After spending countless nights in his bedroom drafting from one melody line to an ensemble track, he was fearless in trying new sounds and arrangements. With a mixture of electronica, ambient and acoustic, he was able to create songs that carries strong messages with a heartfelt innocence. As you could find the profound usage of these instruments throughout the album, it is hard to deny that Dae’s core inspirations such as Vangelis, Ennio Moricone and A winged victory of the Sullen (just to name a few), has played a part in shaping the overall soundscape of this production.

Playing a signifcant part in bringing this album to its fruition, is a strong line-up of musician collaborators. Bassist Kent Lee has showed his ability as a versatile musician through songs like “Obscure Dusk”, “Solemn Solace” and “Hætu” which carries the weight of the album’s theme between its heartwarming bass lines. He also did an additional composition for the seventh track, providing the drive and thrust for the song. Besides that, renowned ambient/electonica musician, Flica added an eccentric touch to the track “Cosmic Inﬂation” with his overdrived keys and alluring melody lines. It is as though in the midst of these indentation, there is peace and calmness. Last but not least on the featured artist is the Japanese born composer, Okamotonoriaki. Through his simple and benign repetition of vocal and harmonies, Okamotonoriaki was able to bring forth a sense of resolution through his work on the track “Ethereal Cosmos”. The album was mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama from Tokyo, who brought the entire album to it’s life and fruition.

“Solace” is Dae Kim’s journey of fnding his comfort amongst his vagrancy and it has been a rewarding one thus far. In this 52 reminiscing minutes of music, it stands for something more for the listeners. A time to reﬂect or a moment of catharsis, it is Dae Kim’s biggest hope for everyone who stumble upon this album to fnd their own solace amidst the pandemonium of our generation.

Solace

mnc018

Solace / Dae Kim (album sample mix)

FLAU is a record label based in Tokyo, Japan.

general inquires: flau@flau.jp
press: press@flau.jp

Motohiro Nakashima/Kumi Takahara/Seigen Tokuzawa & Masaki Hayashi/Kazumichi Komatsu/FEM/Spring In A Small Town/The Future Eve feat. Robert Wyatt/Same Waves/Cicada/Madegg/Henning Schmiedt/CRYSTAL/Rayons/Nemui PJ (kidkanevil & noah)/Noah/Submerse/Radicalfashion/Stefan Jós/Cuushe/Rima Kato/Machinone/Ulises Conti/Danny Norbury/Sparrows/IKEBANA/Ensemble 0/Masayoshi Fujita/El Fog/Liz Christine/Twigs & Yarn/MayMay/Cokiyu/Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven/Kanazu Tomoyuki/The Boats/Kumisolo/Novisad/aus/Dale Berning/Part Timer/Colophon(Jefre-Cantu Ledesma)/Geskia/Orla Wren/Sylvain Chauveau

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