HIMOROGI is the tenth album by ironomi. Divining Japanese mythology and its relationship with nature, the new album is an aural pastorale that fosters deeper territory in the realm of spiritual searching through dreamy, drifting piano, 17-string koto (jūshichi-gensō) and new form electronic processing. 

ironomi’s desire to commune with mother Earth and its season’s colors has always served as a continual inspiration for their music. In HIMOROGI, the duo delves into a more spiritual focus in their journey towards musical impressionism. Japanese culture has long held the idea that heavenly spirits live in many elements of the natural world, such as mountains, rocks, trees, and the sea. The album title comes from the Japanese word Himorogi (神籬), which in Shinto terminology is translated as "divine fence," which refers to sacred areas that a celestial spirit enters.

Six songs were created in chronological order, ama-saki (Bloom in the Sky), yume-asobi (Playing in Dream), sakura-ame (Cherry Blossom Rain), hibiki-sora (Echoing Sky), ama-yadori (Rain Shelter), chumu (Abstract Nil Space). On each, they move organically in the nature they were recorded, as rain connects the sky with the Earth, giving life to it with blossoming flowers. Once the hues of autumn bid their farewell, another life cycle begins. Rather than arriving at a state of tranquility, the idea is to reach a state of ‘nothingness’ as suggested in the zazen-inspired chumu. 

Junya Yanagidaira’s sublime, elegant phrasing of subtle polyphony and melodic piano lines fall like rain through a picturesque blue horizon over calming koto sways by multi-instrumentalist Yu Isobe. Flashes of sunlight momentarily refract through the water’s surface in the form of bright starlit keyboards, at times weaving child-like melodies of enchantment. The lightest touch of koto strings seems to hover and balance the murmur of a garden stream. It beckons you closer as the gentle caress of the music awakens your inner senses. HIMOROGI will remain timeless because the duo created music that absconded with time and place with their endless visions of beauty. 

ironomi releases HIMOROGI on 24 February 2023 via KITCHEN. LABEL. Available on clear vinyl LP, CD and digital formats, with artwork by Japanese photographer Kisei Kobayashi and design by KITCHEN. LABEL founder Ricks Ang. Katsunori Fukuoka mastered this record at Flysound in Japan.

ironomi - 桜雨 (himorogi, 2023)

ironomi - 天咲 (himorogi, 2023)

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 - Rikka (SHITSURAI, 2023)

Meitei - Risshun (SHITSURAI, 2023)

津田貴司『湿度計』2020年度リイシュー盤。

リリース元：PNdB atelier
定価：￥2,420（税込み）
品番：hoflicd14

ⓒ 2008 Takashi Tsuda All Rights Reserved
originally released by STARNET MUZIK as STARNET MUZIK 014
executive producer : Kohshi Baba
reissued by PNdB atelier
jacket design : Kaname Kawamoto
ⓟ 2020 Takashi Tsuda All Rights Reserved

湿度計 trailer

blackbird

blue chapel

Radicalfashion - Pointillism

Schöneweide 

Henning Schmiedt - Mondlied

Hayama Ambient 001

from : Piano Suite For Shortfall Weather Forecast Vol.1
http://shortfoal.org/sost1/index.html#b

RADIOSONDE'

Piano Tape

"By deathly pale light, silent is the night."

Established within the cultural nexus of Tokyo and tracing its origins to Singapore, KITCHEN. LABEL stands as the home for artists traversing the realms of ambient and transcendent musical expressions.

Founded by Ricks Ang in 2008 and named with an essence drawn from the magic realism of Banana Yoshimoto's novel "Kitchen," the independent label has gone on to release music by haruka nakamura, ASPIDISTRAFLY, ironomi, Meitei, sonicbrat, Kin Leonn, Hiroshi Ebina and more.

ironomi - 桜雨 (himorogi, 2023)

KITCHEN. LABEL

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