Now available on streaming: The moon sets and birds cry / 月は落ち、鳥が鳴いて

The piano/electronics album ‘The moon sets and birds cry / 月は落ち、鳥が鳴いて’ , created during the pandemic in Japan and originally released in 2021, is now available on streaming platforms.

The album was written in response to the time spent in Tokyo studying Noh, and is a combination of elements of Noh music, improvisations with electronics, and composed pieces.

‘The moon sets and birds cry / 月は落ち、鳥が鳴いて’ is a quote from the Noh play Dōjō-ji, describing the moonlit scene at an expectant moment at a temple. The sounds and ideas of Noh are reflected in ways both direct and indirect throughout the album. Many of the tracks were recorded with microphones inside the lid of the closed piano, to pick up and amplify its mechanical properties - sympathetic resonances, the metallic hums of strings, wooden creaks of the piano frame reminiscent of the Noh stage and footstep-like knocks are woven into the texture. As with mugen (dreamlike) Noh, the worlds of reality and illusion are constantly shifted and blurred.