Satomimagae entrusts listeners with Hanazono, a compendium of miniature beauty, a sonic globe enclosed with subtly resonant energies. Satomi’s fourth full-length arrives as an invitation to revel in your immediate and imagined surroundings; to make time and space for guileless curiosity and garden variety enchantment.
Hanazano, translated as “flower garden,” is a tribute to everyday mysticism, that sense of pure and private wonder excited by a stone, a river, or winds. Its often unplugged and affective register does not emanate from raw, emotional sources, rather a more devotional, process-oriented yet playful framework. Described by Satomi as a “small outer space,” this sound enclosure is a safe remove from the world where an artist can create, just for herself.
Satomi has transmitted three albums and a handful of EPs from this enclosure so far, situated in the environs of Tokyo. Her last album Kemri (2017), and Koko before it (2014), were released on Chihei Hatakeyama’s White Paddy Mountain. While incorporating textures not uncommonly heard in Hatakeyama’s own music, Satomi’s approach to writing has always favored form over the formless in a folk tradition. Still, Hanazono is an informal affair, encouraged by Satomi’s interest in music-making for the sake of music-making as inspired by her childhood memories and freedom.
Photo credit to Mitsuhide Ishigamori.
