2020’s monumental ‘Windswept Adan’ was really the album on which Japanese folk singer Ichiko Aoba crystallised a vision she had been working on for the best part of a decade. With the same kind of pastoral folk songs at its core that had defined her career to that point, truly luscious arrangements elevated Aoba’s music from from the pleasant to the boundless and sublime. With her music, and also her Japanese-language lyrics, Aoba conjured a fully realised world far more fantastical, painterly, and beholden to nature than the very real one she inhabited.
New LP ‘Luminescent Creatures’ can be seen as a loose sequel to ‘Windswept Adan’ – it takes place in the same sound-world, and was born out of Aoba’s musings about what a world without humans would look like. As before, Aoba’s lyrics are Japanese, but her serene vocal performances and the sheer emotional power of the music is such a force that the language barrier ought not deter anyone drawn to sounds most beautiful.
And as before, like a fantasy novelist, a virtuoso game designer, or a master filmmaker, Aoba’s music offers pure, immersive escapism.
The chamber-folk instrumentation here is the star of the show, the thing that makes Aoba’s goal to pack a whole fantasy world into every album a genuinely achievable one. Every little sound counts in this delicate musical ecosystem – and a litany of aquamarine strings, tender fingerpicked guitar, and glacial piano trills frequently combine with the zephyr of Aoba’s vocals oh so beautifully. The sound is naturalistic, and throughout, this is music that sounds like it was discovered, not composed.
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The highlights are plentiful – every second spent in Aoba’s world is a privilege. The cinematic, glassy piano and heavenly violins of ‘Luciférine’ give the song a sense of childlike wonder, whilst the main melodic thrust of similarly dazzling ‘Pirsomnia’ comes from breathy non-lyrical vocals that sound like they’re from another universe entirely.
However, in spite of the truly remarkable orchestration throughout, closer ‘Wakusei No Namida’ might be the most memorable number of the lot. Aoba limits herself to just voice, acoustic guitar, and the whisper of the wind – her existential lyrics intertwine with yearning melodies and sounds of nature to weave a most majestic tapestry.
With this latest album, Ichiko Aoba has created yet another subsuming listen, an oceanic and blissful record that is a masterclass in escapism. In a world that is brutal, and bruising, it comes of great comfort to lose yourself for hours, days, weeks, forever, in the unspoiled utopia of ‘Luminescent Creatures’.
9/10
Words: Cal Cashin
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