Shoko Igarashi
Simple Sentences
Tigersushi (France) 2022
TSRLP 043 (LP)
sleeve : NEW
media : NEW
The first solo album by Shoko Igarashi, a young talent from Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, with whom I have a deep connection, has arrived on the French label Tigersushi. All songs are great, highly recommended. I wrote the press release, so please see below for more details.
—
"Simple Sentences" is the first solo album by the Millennials' newest talent, Shoko Igarashi.
Born in Tsuruoka city, Yamagata Prefecture in 1991, Sachiko discovered jazz at an early age, and by the time she was 17 years old, she was playing in jazz clubs in Tokyo. She began performing as a saxophone player in jazz clubs in Tokyo at the age of 17, and studied at her music school called Senzoku Gakuen. She performed with her teacher Seiichi Nakamura, Terumasa Hino and Katsumi Watanabe, and already showed talent glimpses of what she could do at a young age. At the age of 22, she moved to the USA and entered the Berklee College of Music. After graduation, she began her musical career in New York and is now based in Brussels, Belgium. Together with her partner, pianist Casimir Libersky, and guitarist Lucien Frépon, she formed the group Maniac Maison, which has been playing live mainly in Europe.
Now, the first solo album released under her own name by Shoko Igarashi is "Simple Sentences". The album features a simple, yet carefully crafted rhythm track, which responds to the lustrous, extended nostalgic melodies of the synthesised synthesizers are played in a simple but carefully crafted rhythm track, while the body-sonic sound production creates an open atmosphere. It's a big change of direction from the modal jazz of her 2016 album "Alarm Call", released as the Shoko Igarashi Organ Trio. The influence of the low-bit digital music of Japanese computer games that swept the world from the 80s onwards might be easily associated with the album's sound, but it’s jumping to conclusions. “Simple Sentences” has a solid groove. It's rooted in the jazz methods and physical sensibilities she has cultivated over the years. Furthermore, she music of soul, funk, 70s jazz, fusion and city pop, which she says has influenced her recently, has been flexibly absorbed and condensed to create a personal groove. The oriental flavour of the melodies, with their heavy use of Japanese scales, unwittingly draws comparisons with Japanese synthpop predecessors such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Yasuaki Shimizu, as well as the excellent anime music that emerged in Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, but is also characterised by a refined quality not unlike those.
Futuristic, yet somehow nostalgic and comforting. Shoko Igarashi began to flash.
Chee Shimizu
A1: Sand Dungeon
A2: Anime Song
A5: Monochrome Chronicle
B3: Applebanana
B4: Tsuki No Yama