Limited to 300 copies
More gold from the An'Archives axis with the charm laced debut from Japanese singer-songer, Kotonashiso. It's taken some time for the guitarist to make it this far, having started performing at the turn of the century as a teenager, but then taking an extended break in 2005 that didn't see him return to music until 2016. Live has occupied most of his focus since then, in both Japan and beyond, with only a handful of recorded releases to his name before the arrival of Umwelt, room. It's important context for an album that seems to strike an intriguing balance between Kotonashiso's confidence in his own voice and an almost youthful kind of enterprise that playfully shapes these delphic blues-pop configurations. For an artist into their fourth decade, youth is perhaps not the most accurate descriptor, but the dreamy, relaxed nature of Kotonashiso's delivery and his loping guitar playing feels so effortless and intuited you don't get the sense of someone who's been at the coalface for too long. Maybe you could draw comparisons to fellow Japanese artists like or Nagisa Ni Te, Youri Kun or the early work of Naoki Zushi, though I think the great accompanying notes by Jon Dale nail it best with the mention of Bill Callahan (solo-era, not Smog) and Scout Niblett (which you could even extend out into the realms of anti-folk), who between them seem to express that same dichotomous friction between the crafted and the instinctive. So much to be seduced by here, but mostly it's the feeling that feeling of graceful wonder that Kotonashiso appears to communicate. Umwelt, room is the sound of an artist who's very happy to be here. As listeners, it's hard to not feel the same.
