Ippei Matsui & Aki Tsuyuko ‎– Natsu No Zenbu All Night Flight Records

Label: All Night Flight ‎– ANF002
Format: 2 × Vinyl, LP + Insert – Repress
Country: UK
Released: 2021
Genre: Electronic, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Abstract, Experimental

** 2021 REPRESS **

Longgg time in the works second release on the shop’s humble in-house label finally birthed into existence via Japanese couple Ippei Matsui and Aki Tsuyuko with their 27-track strong, homemade private epic ‘Natsu No Zenbu’.  A profound and intensely intimate collection of songs written at home throughout the summer of 2008, spurred-on after a move to an old-styled Japanese house in the countryside,  as Aki explains.. ‘We found that an old Japanese house with 13 rooms was being rented at a really cheap price, around 40 minutes from Nagoya, just around the border between Gifu and Aichi.  We decided to move there right away’.  Enjoying the freedom and secluded atmosphere of their new surroundings, they naturally began recording in their new space, day-by-day becoming more in-sync with the environment and making music to suit the pace of daily life.  The collection is centred around Aki’s minimalistic organ and piano pieces, subtly processed electronics and Ippei’s introspective moments of guitar feedback, heavily immersed within the surroundings of their natural habitat tucked safely away from the fast pace of the city.

There’s a distinct homey atmosphere, laced heavy with nostalgia. A train passes by, insects croaking in the distance and the sound of rain falling outside.  At times it feels as though you could be intruding on their privacy just by listening in, although we’re offered an alternative, simpler view of the world by two musicians creating natural music for themselves.  Aki’s simplistic, dreamlike organ play works in perfect harmony with Ippei’s gently strummed guitar work, conjuring other-worldly atmospheres entrenched in a sense of child-like innocence.  It genuinely feels as if you could have been hearing this music all along, although you can’t be sure with the sounds and languages equally familiar and inviting as they are foreign. 

It’d be wrong to single out any of the tracks individually, each playing a part in building the unique environment.  Comparisons for such singularly beautiful, outsider / DIY releases are near-impossible, yet Nuno Canavarro’s enchanting minimalist classic Plux Quba, Satie’s romanic reductionism or the home-grown, everyday sounds within Ernest Hood’s Neighbourhoods would be a good place to start.  A genuine pleasure to be able to put out and finally share this special work from two true artists.  Aki & Ippei explain it more simply, ‘we want our music to sound like everyday life’.   

Natsu No Zenbu (All Of Summer) originally appeared CDr in 2008 and was given to close friends, guests at their wedding, a few stores in Japan and even trickled over to the All Night Flight site way before the shop was a thing.  This gatefold 2LP comes remastered by Miles Whittaker (Demdike Stare) and manufactured by Pallas, including original artwork insert made by Ippei, riso-printed by John Powell-Jones. 

Shops please get in touch for wholesale, USA / CA please contact Austin @ Incidental Music, Japan please contact Yohei @ Pianola Records.

Tracklist

1 Long time no see
2 Travel
3 Stranger’s Garden
4 Afternoon Piano
5 Belladonna
6 Yellow Town
7 Tengu’s Paradise
8 A Visitor from the Sky
9 Embroidery
10 Diary
11 Yutaka-so
12 A Big Black Moon
13 Dolphins’s Job
14 Matsumushi Street
15 Dream Shin-Yamaguchi
16 August
17 Decade of Goldfish
18 Total Solar Eclipse
19 My Mom and Wasps
20 Fuku-san Water
21 Steam
22 Passing Game
23 Fruit and Bottle
24 Pigeons’s Job
25 What A World
26 Miracle Noon
27 Grand Toit