Flourish by Asta Hiroki
Asta Hiroki shares new track ‘Flourish’ taken from his forthcoming second solo full length album via Folded Music.
His album project travels multiple musical roads that span a variety of genres and this track is no exception, mixing folk and jazz instrumentation with nostalgia-inducing warm tape synths and sound design open the track up over a skittish kick beat, energetic percussion and UK garage-style vocal chops. Rumbling sub bass drops provide additional power and balance while occasional snare rolls and found sounds are dropped into the heady mix that juggles several elements expertly, each popping into focus for a moment before another takes centre stage.
Stylistically it draws from the likes of Four tet, Flying Lotus, and Caribou with its genre-blending tendencies grabbing ideas from everywhere. Crafted with modern production techniques but drawing on a smorgasbord of sonics, it’s one of the few tracks on the album that relies more heavily on a sampler as an instrument being played in the same way as drum pads or a keyboard. Yet despite this starker difference compared to some of the tracks which are perhaps better described as modern jazz or otherwise it still doesn’t feel like an outlier in the collection due to the producers ability to successfully meld ideas, sounds, styles and concepts together with subtle details running throughout the work and continuing previous thoughts or ideas already present.
Asta Hiroki speaks about the track:
“I had thought I’d finished the writing element and was working on the selection and run order for this album project when ‘Flourish’ came about. I hadn’t intended to create more material for the album at all but it just arrived so organically and quickly that it forced a consideration. Whilst it’s maybe the closest thing to a dance / electronica track on the record it’s still very human with most of the parts ‘played’ in on a sampler and left unquantised. Conceptually it’s a track about growth and specifically people growing which slotted in perfectly with the central album themes of continuation and keeping going. There’s a nice pace to the rhythms on the track and I wanted to have at least one track on the album where it leaned more electronic, but was still within the parameters of creating a human project.”
Since his debut release in 2017 Asta Hiroki has long been considered a notable figure across multiple independent music scenes and turned heads at key tastemakers and outlets across the industry. Seeing regular support as a staple of BBC6Music, FIP, BBC, JazzFM, and KCRW. Winning further plaudits from national paper The Guardian for his composition work and XLR8R, Dummy Mag, CLASH, Magnetic Mag Exclaim! on the music media side. Not to mention the multitude of editorial placements on Spotify and AppleMusic across Jazztronica, All New Jazz, Fresh Finds, Butter, and more.
