The answer to this title is simple: go to an Onsen. Or, failing that, listen to Onsen Music. Setting the tone for Shoko Igarashi’s new album, Onsen Music, this first single that premiers today EN introduces us to the key theme of her project: deep relaxation. The live video features precise vocals and instrumentation accompanied by deep dark green-blue lighting that creates a sense of underwater magic.
The Belgium-based Japanese artist’s album dips into Japanese City-Pop, ’70s jazz fusion and electronica. EN is the most mellow sounding on the album, due out on Paris label Tigersushi 6th December. The single out today, EN’s title is a Japanese word and derives from the Sanskrit word prataya in Buddhist philosophy, referring to an indirect cause that relates to inevitability and fate. Shoko Igarashi explains, “It seems that the essence of life is condensed into this one word.” Happily melding traditional with experimental, this album is a delight.
Shoko Igarashi became a new mum at the end of 2023 and also said farewell in another part of her life, this virtuosic performer distils a palpable sense of facing fate in the video for EN as she looks thoughtfully off into the distance, above and past the camera. She pronounces highly poetic Japanese lyrics, translated for us as a champion’s journey who “swallows up the painful memories vaguely” later admiring the moon. Processing emotions head on, this single and wider project are just as promising as the 2022 album Simple Sentences that received praise from Pitchfork.
The enchanting feeling of being underwater, or soaking in an Onsen, mirrors the dream-state achieved in this hypnotising video piece. Flowing, pixelated visuals in calming hues are displayed in tandem on an old TV set that sits well with Igarashi’s established appreciation for vintage. Another reference that bubbles to the surface on EN is anime film music that Igarashi grew up learning to play. We can’t help but draw comparisons between EN and Spirited Away with its delicate, emotive and multilayered compositions, although this Onsen Music is far less traditional. Varied as the difference between each Onsen, this will be an album in heavy rotation come December.