sphontik - Good Day   2021/04/14 Relase!!

---- Track -----
0:00 1. Good Day
1:12 2. Road to the Sea
2:04 3. Be Simple, Be Free, Be You
2:53 4. Late Summer Blue (short version)
3:47 5. Under the Sunny Time
4:47 6. Into the Forrest
5:52 7. High Looking Sky
7:09 8. Twilight
8:16 9. Daydreaming of Summer

----- Credit -----
Produce by Kenji Kihara   https://sphontik.com/​
Art Direction and Design by Toshiki Okada
Photos by Nozomi Wakabayashi

今回は「sphontik」名義として、少し陽気で気持ちの良いインストゥルメントアルバム「Good Day」をリリース。
2012年 Rallye Label からリリースした、1stアルバム「Life Flows Slowly」の続編を感じさせ、海のそばに住む彼らしく、波の音や潮の香り・心地の良い風を感じるようなサウンドとなっています。
2018年に自主リリースした「Late Summer Blue」のshort edit バージョンも収録。

「なんでもない日、なんだか良い日、このちょっぴり心地の良い音楽を」

sphontik - GoodDay (Album Preview)

Originally released in 2011, Janis Crunch & haruka nakamura’s collaboration album “12 & 1 SONG” is now reissued on vinyl for the first time. 

On a wintery night in 2007, the duo were in a recording session for haruka nakamura’s solo album “grace”. Instinctively, they decided to venture off the album recording and to compose a Christmas carol of their own. The track was christened “12 & 1 song” and then published online on a time-limited basis during the Christmas season. The spontaneous sessions spawned a few more winter-themed compositions and quickly became favourites among fans of both haruka nakamura and Janis Crunch. Even as the two ventured apart on other projects, their creative bond sustained this year-end tradition till a substantial collection of winter-themed songs, recorded between 2007-2011, was borne.

Janis Crunch’s warm, sonorous vocals ring bright and true above haruka nakamura’s placid classical guitar and soundscape arrangements. The former reveals the heart of her compositional skills of her primary instrument, in particular her solo piano performances on “SOLITUDE” and “Reqiuem”. “12 & 1 song”, “nuit” and “prayer” promptly bring to mind the early signature sounds of haruka nakamura. ARAKI Shin, who has been featured prominently on haruka nakamura 2nd album “twilight”, collaborates with the flute on “insincere love”. A treasury of 13 compositions themed with hazy childhood memories and the phenomena of the winter solstice, at times tender and childlike, yet at others, imbued with a sense of humanity and world-weariness, glow with the warmth of a log fire. 

The vinyl edition will be released on December 16, 2022 via KITCHEN. LABEL. Remastered by Gen Tanabe in Japan, the reissue is presented in a 12” outer sleeve and 4-page insert, printed on premium paper stock with artwork faithful to the design on the original first press edition. The package also comes with a digital download card that contains six bonus tracks that were recorded during the original sessions, five of which were previously made available as digital downloads on earlier editions and one of which, "A graca economica de Deus," has not yet been released.

Janis Crunch & haruka nakamura - Prayer (12 & 1 SONG, 2022)

Janis Crunch & haruka nakamura - forche (12 & 1 SONG, 2022)

Janis Crunch & haruka nakamura - カノン (12 & 1 SONG, 2022)

Janis Crunch & haruka nakamura - SOLITUDE (12 & 1 SONG, 2022)

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)

Meitei - Risshun (SHITSURAI, 2023)

Marking the 5th year anniversary of his seminal debut album, Hiroshima-based artist Meitei announces his Kwaidan Anniversary Japan Tour beginning from 22nd July in Tokyo, with more dates to be added. This is the first time the ghostly masterpieces from Kwaidan are being played live in a thematic-specific show. 

A collaboration between 2 Singaporean labels – KITCHEN. LABEL (Kofu I & II) Evening Chants (Kwaidan), the anniversary also sees the highly anticipated special 5th Anniversary Edition of Kwaidan with 2 unreleased bonus tracks. This will come in the long out-of-print vinyl format, with obi strip, 8-panel insert, new colour variant and the first ever CD version. 

In 2018, Meitei shook the ambient world with the release of his debut album “Kwaidan”, a transposition of Japanese folklore into intricate compositions, capturing what he would coin as the “lost Japanese mood”. The album almost instantly received critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, where it was included in their Best Experimental Albums of 2018, Bandcamp, calling it “different than some of the ambient music that has been coming from Japan in recent years”, The Wire and more. Outside of press, he has also received nods from the likes of Rosalía and has collaborated with contemporaries Anthony Naples, DJ Python, Tourist, Chitose Hajime and more. 
Cementing his name in the ambient and experimental world, Meitei has since continued to cultivate devoted fans globally, with monumental follow-up albums as part of his unique musical canon – Komachi, Kofu I and Kofu II, showcasing his immense musicianship in building a unique sonic world of his own. 

Mastered by Taylor Deupree, Kwaidan’s 5th Anniversary Edition will be released with 2 bonus tracks on a smoke haze variant LP, CD and digital formats, released via KITCHEN. LABEL and Evening Chants.

Meitei - Sankai (Kwaidan, 2023)

Drelia Nocturne

"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.

Meitei - Rikka (SHITSURAI, 2023)

KITCHEN. LABEL

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