Kimiyo by Alex Henry Foster

Following an extensive European tour, Foster had to undergo a cardiac double-graft surgery, a procedure initially planned to be a 4-hour intervention that turned into a 10-hour life-threatening tour de force for the surgeon. While a success, the prolonged period of intubation after the surgery, along with the several blood transfusions needed, would have a devastating effect on Foster, as added to his fragile physical state, he would have to endure months unable to talk, not knowing if he would have the ability to sing in the future, the significant blood loss contributing to severe episode of memory fogs, incoordination, dizziness and substantial headaches, having for direct result the impossibility for him to read, write, play guitar, or look at a screen. For a usually ongoing individual and upbeat type, he was now powerless.

Slowly starting to regain energy, at least just enough to envision the possibility of being able to dedicate the few functioning hours of his days, Foster contacted his friend and longtime creative accomplice Ben Lemelin (co-writer and multi-instrumentalist for his live band The Long Shadows) to assist him with what initially seemed a sort of positive recovery venture before he realized the ambitious amplitude of what Foster wanted to dwell on and accomplish considering his fragile physical and cognitive state.

The whole project was initially perceived as an instrumental one by Lemelin, Foster only being able to whisper when the idea was brought up, but the latter rather had the idea of inviting Momoka with whom he had worked on several occasions – dating back to his tenure with Your Favorite Enemies – to be the voice of the first incarnation of his project. Little did she know she would become the focal point of what would become the album titled Kimiyo, which became a catalyst for what would follow afterward.

Foreseen as a story within a story, Kimiyo bloomed into a multi-layered entity, the album is inspired by the testimonies of the people Foster met in Japan back in 2010. Kimiyo’s main narrative focuses on the journey of a young person who wrote to Foster years after their encounter to share pieces of her journey about how she found a new sense of self after thinking of taking her life upon becoming unwillingly pregnant, but unable to fathom the idea of ending her life or her pregnancy, she became hateful towards the burgeoning existence slowly taking over her body, but found a fulfilling form of hope for her present and future self emerging from feeling the baby starting to move inside of her body.

She then envisioned a life of her own, a purpose she had never imagined being able to find anywhere – especially not within herself – but lost the child following a miscarriage, leaving her empty again, but somehow transformed. She had learned that happiness is a measure of the heart and soul, accepting that purpose is something that grows from within, but, as Foster exposed it, while the tree might too often hide the beautiful density of a forest, there are lights that are simply way too bright to be hidden.

Tracklist

1.	Of Dreams and Dust	4:19

2.	A Silent Stream	8:18

3.	The Edge of Time	10:05

4.	A Vessel Astray	7:44

5.	All of Our Past Future Lives	4:42

6.	Autumnal Processions	7:35

7.	Nocturnal Candescence	9:47

8.	Too Bright to Crumble	8:06

9.	Under a Luxuriant Sky	8:10

Credits

released April 26, 2024

Music by: Alex Henry Foster and Ben Lemelin
Vocals by: Momoka Tobari
Lyrics by: Alex Henry Foster / Translated to Japanese by Momoka Tobari

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