• Track Listing

To listen to Ichiko Aoba is to be drawn into a world as intimate

as a warmly lit home, but cosmic in scale. The Japanese artist

has taken a dedicated online fanbase built from viral TikTok

sound clips and critically acclaimed albums and translated it

into international tours spanning more than 20 countries.

Aoba's latest album, Luminescent Creatures is the culmination

of her 15-year long career - during which she's collaborated

with Japanese luminaries such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi

Hosono, Cornelius, and more - and finds her deftly melding the

jazz-infused folk of her early albums with the orchestral world

building of her 2020 opus Windswept Adan.

While conducting field research on Ryukyu Archipelago, Ichiko

was enamored by the boundless beauty, and occasional terror

of the ocean. She'd go freediving, submitting herself to the

whims of the tides. "I feel unable to resist the pull of the ocean,"

Ichiko says, "and know how easy it would be for my small body

to be swallowed by the sea." That contradiction, gentleness

and power, instilled a sense of awe that is expressed in the

soundscapes of Luminescent Creatures. "Luciférine" introduces

her central theory: bioluminescence. Lush strings and twinkling

piano ripple like sunbeams on lapping waves, cutting through

the dark expanse of the briny deep. "Inside each of us," she

sings, "there is a place for our stars to sleep." It conjures an

image of creatures pouring off light like celestial bodies, lighting

a path to close the distance between galaxies. On "SONAR,"

she ruminates on other ways to bridge the divide. "Beyond the

darkness, a glimmer of somebody's voice"-her own voice low

in the mix as if suppressed by insurmountable depths. An echo

of her voice creeps in, reverberating like a whale song. Even

with the most rudimentary senses, we find ways to one another.

Luminescent Creatures is about making meaningful

connections against impossible odds. The sea is immense and

ancient, but it is also reminiscent, housing a deep record of

fossils and recollections of how we've treated our planet.

"When I stare into the seemingly bottomless black depths of a

trench," Ichiko reflects. "I occasionally see the blinking light of

some rainbow-colored lifeform." That organism may not speak

any known language, but in that moment it managed to

communicate in a universal way. "My beloved Luminescent

Creatures