IKEBANA when you arrive there

CAT No. FLAU34
Release Date: Japan - June 19th / Europe & USA - July 8th 2013
Format: CD/Digital

makiとenの日本人2人組によるギターユニットIKEBANA、初の全国流通盤となるニューアルバム。 シューゲイザー/アンビエントを通過し、徹底的にミニマルに削ぎ落されたゆらめきの音像、ざらついたギターノイズの感触と深いリヴァーブの中から浮かんで は消える声。makiがカセットMTRに録音した音源をきっかけに生まれたそのサウンドは、夢と現実の間を漂いながらも、圧倒的な存在感をもって日常の隙 間に入り込んでいきます。欧米のサイケデリック/ドローンの流れとは一線を画す、限りなく白く儚い音楽の形がここに。

こんなに緊張感のある美しいアルバムは聴いたことがない。隠された夢のような音楽だ。James McNew (Yo La Tengo)

recording/mixing: DJ Codomo
mastering: Miles Whittaker (Demdike Stare/Pendle Coven)
artwork: Shimon Minamikawa
design: AOKI,hayato

IKEBANA, in Japanese, is an art of flower arrangement.
Unlike conventional flower arrangement, it often focuses on other areas of the plant, such as its stems and leaves, rather than its blooms, and lays emphasis toward the shape, line, form of the arrangement.
IKEBANA is about minimalism, about beauty in space, and about calmness.
And so does the music of flau label’s latest signing, the Japanese female duo IKEBANA.

IKEBANA is made up of 2 wonderfully talented female artists, maki and en. Their unique music is infused with a strong sense of Shoegaze and Ambient, but in a very much stripped-down form. Phases of minimal guitar noise floating through the space of sounds, like a wavering light in darkness, with deeply reverbed female voices drifting in to create a calm universe between a dream and the reality.
Unlike the current style of psychedelic/drone music for overseas, IKEBANA’s music is about minimalism, about beauty in space, and about calmness, just like the art of flower arrangement of IKEBANA itself.

KEEP READING

Track List

Album Preview

 

01 ends

02 wrong

03 alone

04 rose 05 kiss

06 ikebana

07 spring

Press Quotes

an album of beautiful, tense, secret dream-music that sounds like nothing else, ever – James McNew (Yo La Tengo)

sun-dappled vistaSPIN

reminiscent of Slowdive’s Pygmalion or Grouper’s works. Breathtaking. – No Fear Of Pop

The Sensual Drift – BlackBook

keeping stocks of ethereal minimalism high for the rest of the world, presumably in case of a perilous shortage – The 405

aerial beauty trapped in isolation, evoking a not wholly definable past. ‘Rose’ brings to mind Grouper’s light touch with repetition – Peel Apart

a guitar chord and a wonderful voice that seems to capture the last shining ray of sunlight reflecting on the sea’s surface on a summer’s afternoon.  It’s short, it’s simple and it’s brilliant – Echoes and Dust

very clean crisp sound a lot like the now fan favourite Slowdive album ‘Pygmalion’, there are some quirky moments of minimalism in there too like the scraping of a guitar string or the echo of distant feedback. ‘When You Arrive There’ has a very solitary sound to it like Labradford… – Norman Records

Ikebana‘s wafting enervated moods are striped down to their essential components, albeit with a resonating allurement of deep, echoing guitar effects.– Monolith Cocktail

Then reverb-heavy guitars emerge, caught halfway between the effects of Cocteau Twins and July Skies’ levels of fragility….after a few listens each key change seems startling and vital; like we’re hearing the advent of a new era for experimental music – The Leonald’s Lair

…que aqui têm algumas canções extremamente frágeis e doces, e uma ou outra ideal para acompanhar momentos de sexo oral cheios de meiguice…Diverte-me bastante. – VICE

a gradually, natural oozing of thought and contemplation, filling the air with a beautiful, lightly coloured smoke that acts as their own natural sonic perspiration…Vaporous songs from a Japanese duo, oozing out on exhaled breaths – ATTN:Magazine

wonderfully effective and uses the space between each note to allow the sound to breathe and resonate organically. Nice – Yes/No Music

It all adds up to a recording that, while short at thirty-one minutes, nevertheless impresses the listener with its beguiling experimental songcraft. – Textura

warm and intimate…there is always something wacky going it seems, and makes that this is quite out of the ordinary – Vital Weekly

ミニマルかつエフェクティヴなギターワークの深みと密やかな言葉の響きは、浮かべた氷がガラリと鳴る午後のけだるさに、あるいはぽっかりと灯る月の夜のしじまに、あまりにもしっくり。これぞ円熟した耽美。 – EYESCREAM

直接弾いた音から遊離したフィードバックノイズが作り出す、ファンタスマゴリーさながらの音像が心地よい – GINZA

Al contrario, tutto è minimale ed evanescente, in grado al massimo di evocare i passaggi più placidi e sognanti dei My Bloody Valentine o le eteree sospensioni degli ultimi Slowdive…fragili gemme melodiche possano sbocciare in carezze di impalpabile e rallentato minimalismo dreamy. – Music Wont’s Save You

IKEBANA when you arrive there

CAT No. FLAU34
Release Date: Japan - June 19th / Europe & USA - July 8th 2013
Format: CD/Digital

Track List

Album Preview

 

01 ends

02 wrong

03 alone

04 rose 05 kiss

06 ikebana

07 spring

makiとenの日本人2人組によるギターユニットIKEBANA、初の全国流通盤となるニューアルバム。 シューゲイザー/アンビエントを通過し、徹底的にミニマルに削ぎ落されたゆらめきの音像、ざらついたギターノイズの感触と深いリヴァーブの中から浮かんで は消える声。makiがカセットMTRに録音した音源をきっかけに生まれたそのサウンドは、夢と現実の間を漂いながらも、圧倒的な存在感をもって日常の隙 間に入り込んでいきます。欧米のサイケデリック/ドローンの流れとは一線を画す、限りなく白く儚い音楽の形がここに。

こんなに緊張感のある美しいアルバムは聴いたことがない。隠された夢のような音楽だ。James McNew (Yo La Tengo)

recording/mixing: DJ Codomo
mastering: Miles Whittaker (Demdike Stare/Pendle Coven)
artwork: Shimon Minamikawa
design: AOKI,hayato

IKEBANA, in Japanese, is an art of flower arrangement.
Unlike conventional flower arrangement, it often focuses on other areas of the plant, such as its stems and leaves, rather than its blooms, and lays emphasis toward the shape, line, form of the arrangement.
IKEBANA is about minimalism, about beauty in space, and about calmness.
And so does the music of flau label’s latest signing, the Japanese female duo IKEBANA.

IKEBANA is made up of 2 wonderfully talented female artists, maki and en. Their unique music is infused with a strong sense of Shoegaze and Ambient, but in a very much stripped-down form. Phases of minimal guitar noise floating through the space of sounds, like a wavering light in darkness, with deeply reverbed female voices drifting in to create a calm universe between a dream and the reality.
Unlike the current style of psychedelic/drone music for overseas, IKEBANA’s music is about minimalism, about beauty in space, and about calmness, just like the art of flower arrangement of IKEBANA itself.

KEEP READING