Read about your tracks for this project. Very interesting. Your a sick producer. Keep going 

Release Date:
CD, Digital - 10 Dec 2021
LP - 28 Jan 2022

Ⓟ & © 2021 KITCHEN. LABEL

Meitei’s 2020 album 'Kofū' was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s 'Kwaidan' and 2019’s 'Komachi'. 

All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being washed away – not least by the unforgiving sands of time – through wistful compositions that stretched across ambient music, hauntology, and musique concrete.

When it came to finalizing 'Kofū', Meitei found he was left with over 60 fully realized tracks, bursting with ideas that fired in divergent, curious directions. Meitei was content with the 13 tracks he had selected. But when it came time to begin his next album, he found that it had been sitting in front of him all along.  He realized his work wasn’t over yet. 

Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in its first two tracks of 'Kofū II' – a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds and flutes, all united in bustling harmony.

'Happyaku-yachō' is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field. “My image of this music is that it expresses the vibrant mood of Edo's merchant culture,” says Meitei, “where old Japanese dwellings were densely packed together in a vast expanse of land.” The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate 'Kaworu', a compositional piece lifted from his 'Komachi' sessions – a final requiem to his late grandmother.

The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, even a vengeful assassin ('Shura Yukihime', known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snowblood’). 

'Saryō' is as elegant and refined as you would expect. It induces stillness in its repetition, with each synth note a brushstroke. It was inspired by a Sengoku-era tea house he once visited, designed by national icon Sen no Rikyū. Meitei tied it to the reaction he felt while poring over the ink paintings in his grandmother’s house. “The decayed earthen walls and faded tatami mats gave me an emotional impression,” he says. “And the cosmic flow of time drifting in the small room. I decided to put my impression of this into music.”

In 'Akira Kurosawa', an appropriately thunderous track, Meitei finds deep resonance in his vast filmography, which drew equally from Japan’s rich heritage and troubled circumstances post-WWII. 

'Kofū II' is not a leftovers album, nor is it a straightforward companion piece. In this album, Meitei has his biggest reckoning with the Japanese identity yet. Over the years, he has attempted to peel back what he believes has defined Japan and its people. After seeking answers with three full-length albums, his fourth poses more questions. 

If his first three albums inspired a sense of longing – or, perhaps inevitably, fed an irreparable nostalgia doomed to history – Kofū II compels us to reassess our relationship with the past.  

By constantly looking back, are we ever afforded a clearer present? After capturing the “lost Japanese mood”, where does that leave its country in the modern world? Meitei offers no immediate answers with 'Kofū II'. It forces you to sit with its disparate moods, to meditate amidst the textured fragments. 

'Kofū II' will be released in 180g LP, CD and digital format on December 10, 2021 (LP expected to land January 28, 2022) via KITCHEN. LABEL. Both LP and CD format are presented in a debossed sleeve with obi strip and include a 16-page insert with words in Japanese and English from Meitei, printed on premium paper stock with design by KITCHEN. LABEL founder Ricks Ang, and is mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama in Tokyo, Japan.

Kofū II

Meitei - 忍 / Shinobi (Kofū II, 2021)

Taken from album "Bite the Mountain" released on 15th October 2011 from Sweet Dreams Press, Tokyo.

Rachael Dadd - Rice Triangle

たゆたう（tayutau）/ つきにうたかた(Tukiniutakata）

Taken from 7" single "一週間歌（Week）" released on 15th October 2017 from Sweet Dreams Press, Tokyo.

一週間歌（ICHI）

ICHI - 一週間歌（Week）

From Album "Lucky Static" (epcd 110)
November 2nd 2018 on sale

more info : www.7ep.net/item/epcd110/

I Am Robot And Proud / A Dot In Air

[ Check out our popular Spotify playlist MUSIC FOR HOME: https://urlgeni.us/spotify/musicforhome ]

This one is from the North. And it is a special one.

Sergey Suokas, a.k.a. Slow, was born in Petrozavodsk, north of Russia. In solo he produces freaky minimal techno as Suokas, ear-friendly melodic electronica as Hot Arctic and atmospheric abstractionism as Slow. Soon after he started his own productions he hooked up with other likeminded people in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and many other cities, which eventually resulting a plenty of great musical connections, including live performances as DJ and musician in Moscos, Petrozavodsk, Norway and other places. Sergey has his works released in various labels around the world, notably on Resting Bell, Multi Vitamins, Metroline and Algorythmik.

This time, we are very proud to be able to invite Sergey to work his magic on one of the most popular tracks in mu-nest’s releases: okamotonoriaki’s “recorder”. In this remix, Sergey decided to keep the flowing structure, but expertly added in some signature polyphonic instruments to give it a truly Slow’s flavour. Sergey started off the remix with the original piano notes while instilling some wonderful elements of minimal techno. Then, slowly like a blossoming flower, the breath-taking drumming from the original track was introduced, but not without some skilful twists all over it. Coupled with Sergey’s self-crafted new guitar lines, melodic polyphonic sounds, and electronic effects, he magically created a whole new atmosphere in this remix, which breathes a new refreshing life into the original track. This is a 7:45 minutes of truly blissful moment. Sit back, open your ears, and enjoy. (mü-nest)

Buy original CD here!

Recorder (Slowly Blossoming Remix by Slow)

Yanokami (Akiko Yano & Rei Harakami) - Ruby Tuesday

Sunday Sun / calm

It began with ‘Kwaidan’, a simmering study on the lost art of Japanese ghost story-telling. Then there was‘Komachi’, baptized in the earthly winds and static that define its comforting sonics.

On ‘Kofū’, Meitei masterfully closes his trilogy of lost Japanese moods with an engaging interrogation of artforms and aesthetics as a provocation — or, as fashioned in the album’s subtitle, a “satire of old Japanese aesthetics”. Each entry’s distinct flavour hasearned Meitei acclaim for conjuring a bygone culture through his transportive form of ambient music. ‘Kofū’ arrives as a deconstruction of this approach. His first release with KITCHEN. LABEL, Meitei has quietly defied expectations set by his previous two albums, while continuing to challenge modern notions of Japanese sounds.

Once again, Meitei resumes his focus on a Japan that has long ceased to be. This time, ‘Kofū’ is deliberately playful in bridging a sensibility that connects this imagined past to the present. Fractured piano chords are the first to greet you on ‘Kintsugi’ before they make way for a spectral elegance that parades the haunted mask of Kwaidan on ‘Man'yō’. 

But like an ambient soothsayer schooled in the art of the 808s, Meitei quickly drives ‘Kofū’ with propulsion on ‘Oiran I’, which shares a sibling in Side B track ‘Oiran II’. On both songs, he builds tension served up by flickering hip-hop rhythms — achieved by carefully processing old drum and metal sounds — with a subversive spirit unforeseen in any of his work thus far.

Dissecting vocal recordings to the point of incomprehensibility, Meitei aims for something stirring beyond- words — not unlike J Dilla and his mountain of cut-up soul samples, or The Caretaker with decaying 78s. He abides by a principle attributed to the master Hayao Miyazaki: “Beyond logic speaks of human nature”.

‘Kofū’ allows full immersion into fragments of the past without the trappings of nostalgia. The tracklist is denoted by prominent (and unseen) figures of this history. Tracks ‘Sadayakko’ and ‘Otojirō’ are named after renowned entertainers from the Meiji era, while ‘Nyōbō’ is dedicated to a long-suffering line of working class women within a patriarchal Japanese society. The sounds of ‘Oiran’, sharing the name of the title bestowed upon courtesans, were sparked after learning about the treatment of red light district workers within this era. It paints a grim picture of baidoku (also known as syphilis) and its ravage spread.

These stories cloud the overall mood of ‘Kofū’, but Meitei takes a Mizoguchi-like approach to mould that unimaginable pain with tenderness. ‘Oiran 1’’s hidden subtitle is Hana, and ‘Oiran II’ is Shiokaze. As Meitei explains, “Hana means gorgeous and glorious. Shiokaze is the sea breeze — for her life.” Tracks like ‘Urameshi-ya’ and ‘Gen'ei’ provide a meditative space amidst the turbulence, while ‘Shōnen’ takes a turn for the cinematic. The eight-minute odyssey is engulfed by shadowy voice loops, mixed best for a headphone experience in a solitary setting.

Meitei bids farewell to an expedition first sparked by a passion for a long-forgotten cultural past. ‘Kofū’ is a definitive conclusion with an open invitation to listeners from Japan and beyond — encouraging continued appreciation of this sacred part of history, wholly untethered from the world at large.

‘Kofū’ will be released on LP, CD and across all digital formats via KITCHEN. LABEL. Chihei Hatakeyama mastered this recording in Tokyo, Japan.

Release Date:
CD, Digital - 25 Sep 2020
LP - 30 Oct 2020

Ⓟ & © 2020 KITCHEN. LABEL

Meitei - Man'yō (Kofū, 2020)

Meitei - Sadayakko (Kofū, 2020)

Meitei - Oiran II (Kofū, 2020)

"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 - Sadayakko (Kofū, 2020)

KITCHEN. LABEL

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