East Wind by John Ken Nuzzo, HAIOKA

IT technology brings us vast amounts of information every day, and under the auspices of capitalism, everything is categorized and put into language. Yet, as if to resist this, there are those who break down the walls of categories and genres to create ambiguous boundaries and challenge the act of existing within these confines. Shintaro Haioka, known for his unique approach to electronic music, is one such person. John Ken Nuzzo, also, believed that the classical music world, devastated by a global pandemic, needed something new. This album, however, has become a unique and fresh collaboration that is surprising even to them.

Shintaro Haioka, known for his peculiar take on electronica, was a bit surprised when one of the most popular voices in classical music in Japan spoke through his phone: „Here’s John Ken Nuzzo. I just wanted to say I really appreciate your music.“ Even now, about two years later, Haioka still seems baffled. „In the days after the call I sometimes wasn’t sure if this had really happened.“

Happily for all of us, it has truly occurerd. So as to Haioka and all other disbelievers we can say: Here it is. East Wind is the result of many persistent sessions they accumulated. Haioka visited the singer, who usually tends to perform Arias by Puccini or Verdi and Schubert-Songs in sold out operas, in his home to record his voice. Before the recording sessions, Haioka would send his tracks to the singer. Yet the process involved something that is not a given in the world of classical music: To blend more natural operatic melodic lines with contemporary electronic music, John Ken Nuzzo repeatedly improvised singing the simple lyrics over the simple loop tracks prepared by Haioka.To maximize the opera singer's expressiveness, Haioka provided John with themes and characters to embody, and he rose to the occasion. Haioka then meticulously went through the extensive recordings of the singing, editing and at times completely remaking the tracks, to produce the work.

Though this process might appear incredibly challenging and stressful, it was a natural act for Haioka given his production career. His approach to music has been about "connecting moments and moments in era with music". Just as he has previously blended traditional Japanese music with contemporary electronic sounds and reinterpreted music from bygone eras to create something new, he now sought to merge times with classical vocal music as his canvas. Nuzzo would improvise his parts.

From the start with „Fire In Rain“, this album sounds like an installation, a world to enter and study. Haioka provides space for his tunes, what is not audible is as important as what you can hear. From „Neon Lights“ through „East Wind“ to „Drifted Away“, the album slowly builds up its melancholia that can be interwoven with sudden outbursts of contempt, and even joy. „We envisioned a fragile world, as our world is now. A world as shown in Science Fiction such as Blade Runner“, Haioka states on the conceptual layout. Just to promote the key word in its ending track, „Blowin’ In The Wind Of Love Again“: This world needs an overall spring, and as Japan is located in the east it’s the East Wind that will bring it.

---Christoph Braun

"Shintaro Haioka is a man who is deeply in tune with his cultural identity. Inspired by traditional Ukiyo-e art -- a style that roughly translates to "pictures of the floating world"-- Haioka offers a distinctively Japanese take on modern electronic music, and one that rationalises the past with the future, and his nation with the world.

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