HOSHIKO YAMANE - REFLECTIONS

DETAILS

Release Date: 03.03.2023
Format: Gatefold Vinyl
Catalog: WLR130

Genre: Modern Classical

Co-Released with: 1631 Recordings

PRESS RELEASE

Hoshiko Yamane is a Japanese composer who has been based in Berlin, Germany since 2006. She has released collaborative music with Mikael Lind and Eraldo Bernocchi on Time Released Sound and Denovali respectively, as well as solo material on 1631 Recordings who have facilitated this latest album, a split release with Whitelabrecs.

Hoshiko has toured for many years as a violinist with Tangerine Dream and also working with Jane Birkin, before she began to write electronic music as Tukico. Around five years ago, she began to compose music which returned to a musical upbringing which began with learning the violin at the age of four. She has studied classical music for many years and this was the reason for moving to Berlin, drawn to the city through a love of Bach and Brahms.

Whilst her work develops to incorporate many layers of instrumentation and other canvas-filling sonic details, Hoshiko’s music typically starts life as an improvised violin sketch. The sketches that formed the spine of this new album ‘Reflections’ emerged from the otherworldly backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, back in the early stages around March and April 2020. People were losing their lives every day and the world was praying in hope, whilst each day revisiting the quiet, apocalyptic reality of the world at that time. This album is not about the pandemic specifically. Instead, it was born from it. During that time Hoshiko was able to reflect upon herself, seeing inside her own being including the thoughts of hope she held for others. Like many around her, she was able to see life’s necessities; what is needed to get by, what is important and what life is all about. She was able to reconnect with the things that had previously been lost to the routine of daily life. These reflections urged for the inner-peace of everyday life never to be taken for granted again.

At that strange time, the violin sketches had been developed into full sheet music, waiting to one day be performed by a real ensemble. This was the first time that Hoshiko had put her ability to produce sheet music into practice and fittingly, as time progressed, she was able to assemble a string quartet to perform her music in person. Dreams of physical performance became a reality, as the ribbons of the players’ violin, viola and cello performances filled the room, intertwining triumphantly with one another, as if the pressure of isolation had built into a forcefield of musical energy. The album is cemented by the cover artwork, in which Hoshiko walks freely forward, with her own reflections now available for the world to experience, overlayed with our own.

CREDITS

Hoshiko Yamane - 1st Violin, Voice, Electronics

Cecilia Ferron - 2nd Violin

So Fukushima - Viola

Sebastian Selke - Cello

All tracks composed and mixed by Hoshiko Yamane

Mastered by Wil Bolton

Recorded 2022 at UFO Sound Studios in Berlin

Recording engineer Fabian G. Knof

Cover photo by Kei Sugimoto

Art and design by Andrew Heath

PRESS QUOTES

Music Won't Save You/Rockerilla: "Mentre nei precedenti album solisti, a margine della sua esperienza con i Tangerine Dreams, Hoshiko Yamane ha ricercato soprattutto l’essenzialità di solitarie composizioni per violino, in “Reflections” dischiude la propria pratica compositiva a un piccolo ensemble da camera. Si tratta di un lavoro articolato, costituito da tredici brani originati da bozzetti estemporanei, in seguito ampliati e affidati a un quartetto d’archi. Isolamento e ritrovata condivisione sono i punti cardinali entro i quali si muovono le riflessioni sonore dell’artista giapponese, afasiche eppure fortemente espressive di una agognata ripartenza."

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