Ikebana, in Japanese, is the art of flower arrangement. Ikebana is an art and not a simple decoration. It is subtle, sensitive, sophisticated and meditative. Ikebana emphasizes lines and space. It celebrates simplicity.
Ikebana is also a Japanese female duo performing this gentle art through music where their voices are the flowers suspended in a space full of notes. Maki and En are the two wonderfully talented female artists behind this interesting project. They both have musical backgrounds and Maki was once part of the famous Japanese shoegaze band Incence.
When You Arrive There is the title of their seven tracks album that will be out on July 8th trough the Japanese label Flau Records that seems to have been releasing some very nice music recently. 'Alone' from Ikebana’s album When You Arrive There is an example of that nice music and it’s not the only one from the album. Just press play and beauty and calmness will fill the space around you.
At first listening the seven songs seem simple and repetitive but the minimal melodies that characterize the whole album take on a hypnotic quality half way through each track so that each tune seems to be one of the seven shining faces of the same beautiful diamond.
‘Ends’ is the opening song of the album. Two are the elements used in this track: 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.
‘Wrong’ is a 52-seconds track of echoes coming from a harp guitar that sounds like an interlude preceding ‘Alone’, the song that anticipated the album release. I loved this track at first listening. I loved the opening chords that are played in the same way throughout the entire song and I loved also the vocals that goes over the guitar, softly , like a second gentle instrument. ‘Alone’ is where Shoegaze and subtle ambient tones and drones meet, performed in the most minimal way.
The following ‘Rose’ is a song that will easily make you get lost. The vocals over the chords are like an echoing chorus that instills peace of mind and the sensation of flowing away like a boat on the sea in the listeners. Really nice.
The following ‘Kiss’ has a solo guitar that makes its delicate sounds over the vocal. Toward the half of the song the rhythm becomes faster and the words “kiss, lips” together with the softly pronounced “aaahhhh” resonate continuously. Soft bell notes close the song in the last 10 seconds and the track fades away into ‘Ikebana’, the longest tune of the album.
Minimalist, calm, spacey and shoegazey are appropriated tags for this song. The pauses between one chord and the other one give a sense of space and whispery vocals, that seem suspended in the that space, fill moments of silence. The chorus and the acoustic guitar are articulated in the space like the flowers in the Ikebana art in which nature and humanity are brought together. The outcome of the Japanese duo’s experiment is a minimal shoegaze that will stun you. Breathtaking.
‘Spring’ is springing at the end of the album with its minimalist soundscapes and will bring you to the flowering gardens of Japan where cherry blossoms colour the world around you. The guitars resonate in this soft pink cloud giving a sense of droning, almost like organ music transcribed for the guitar. It’s a beautiful and melancholic track, solemn closure of the album.
When You Arrive There is a work of art, ‘Alone’ is one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in a long time. Maki and En deserve your attention for their originality, their minimalist, for the simple beauty of their music.
