LUMINESCENT CREATURES

To listen to Ichiko Aoba is to be drawn into a world as intimate as a warmly lit home, but cosmic in scale. The Japanese artist has taken a dedicated online fanbase built from viral TikTok sound clips and critically acclaimed albums and translated it into international tours spanning more than 20 countries. Aoba's latest album, Luminescent Creatures is the culmination of her 15-year long career - during which she's collaborated with Japanese luminaries such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Cornelius, and more - and finds her deftly melding the jazz-infused folk of her early albums with the orchestral world building of her 2020 opus Windswept Adan. While conducting field research on Ryukyu Archipelago, Ichiko was enamored by the boundless beauty, and occasional terror of the ocean. She'd go freediving, submitting herself to the whims of the tides. "I feel unable to resist the pull of the ocean," Ichiko says, "and know how easy it would be for my small body to be swallowed by the sea." That contradiction, gentleness and power, instilled a sense of awe that is expressed in the soundscapes of Luminescent Creatures. "Lucif?rine" introduces her central theory: bioluminescence. Lush strings and twinkling piano ripple like sunbeams on lapping waves, cutting through the dark expanse of the briny deep. "Inside each of us," she sings, "there is a place for our stars to sleep." It conjures an image of creatures pouring off light like celestial bodies, lighting a path to close the distance between galaxies. On "SONAR," she ruminates on other ways to bridge the divide. "Beyond the darkness, a glimmer of somebody's voice"-her own voice low in the mix as if suppressed by insurmountable depths. An echo of her voice creeps in, reverberating like a whale song. Even with the most rudimentary senses, we find ways to one another. Luminescent Creatures is about making meaningful connections against impossible odds. The sea is immense and ancient, but it is also reminiscent, housing a deep record of fossils and recollections of how we've treated our planet. "When I stare into the seemingly bottomless black depths of a trench," Ichiko reflects. "I occasionally see the blinking light of some rainbow-colored lifeform." That organism may not speak any known language, but in that moment it managed to communicate in a universal way. "My beloved Luminescent Creatures