Making music with no regrets. On his new album EPILOGUE, Ken-ichiro Isoda goes beyond ambient
Photo: Shigeharu Isoda
Like a lot of younger listeners, I found Isoda's music through the 2023 reissue of Oscillation Circuit. I found it on streaming, and since then I often listen to it when I go for a walk. Personally, I like listening to it while looking at the bare trees in the park, like the tree on the album cover.
Isoda was born in Osaka in 1962. He released his first album, Oscillation Circuit, in 1984, and apparently Ryuichi Sakamoto once played "Nocturne" from it at an event. In the early '90s he made six healing and new age albums, and after that he worked as a producer and composer, doing film music, Okinawan music and classical music.
In 2005, he also made Acoustic YMO with his group The TOY BOX. It covers YMO's whole first album without any electronic sounds, only acoustic instruments. With toy piano, xylophone and all kinds of percussion, it really sounds like a toy box, and I love it. On 25 November it comes out on vinyl for the first time, and the full album comes to streaming too.
This month, on 30 October, his new album EPILOGUE comes out on Oath, a label from Istanbul. Isoda lives on now, and he says he made this album to show the side of his music that isn't ambient or new age. I asked him about it, and also about the island bird you can hear on the first track.
Q1If you had to describe your music in a few words to someone who has never heard it, what would you say?
That's a difficult one. I'm known as an ambient and new age artist, but for most of my professional career I've been a recording producer and a composer. As "work," I've handled everything from classical and contemporary music to folk music and rock bands. As a composer, too, I've written everything from new age to large-scale wind orchestra pieces and film scores. So what people know of me now is only a small fragment. Whatever the genre, I'm happy if people feel it however they like and use it however they like.
For anyone interested, here is my career history (automatically translated by the site).
Q2What kind of album is EPILOGUE? Why did you call it EPILOGUE? And when or where would you like people to listen to it?
After reissuing Oscillation Circuit in 2023, I released past ambient and new age work three years in a row: Majel's Slumber in 2024, a re-recording of my '90s new age work, and Beach of the Pliocene in 2025, a compilation of my '90s work. But all of these were passive projects, released because there was demand for them. For me, they were things I put out because I wanted listeners to enjoy them. With Interwoven, too, I approached it wanting to learn from , whom I deeply admire.
EPILOGUE is a record I made because I felt I couldn't only do passive work. Side A is put together so it reaches my existing listeners, but Side B includes electronica-style vocal numbers and chamber music written in a classical idiom for film. As I said in my previous answer, I started making it because I felt that if I didn't give shape to the side of me that isn't ambient or new age, I would regret it when I die. "EPILOGUE" is a piece I composed for a film twenty years ago. I placed it at the end of the album, and used it as the album title with the meaning I've just described.
Side A is meant to be played freely, at any time of day and in any space. The same goes for Side B, but personally I'd like people to listen to it quietly, late at night.
Q3The first track, "TANEKOMA," has the voice of the Izu robin, recorded in the mountains on Hachijō-jima. What kind of bird is it for you? Do you have any memories of it on the island? And why did you put this track first?
My wife, a veterinarian (I studied veterinary medicine at university, too), retired from her work and wanted to enjoy birdwatching, which she loves, so the two of us moved to . The island is home to many rare birds, including the Izu thrush and the Japanese wood pigeon, which are protected as natural monuments. The is one of them, but unlike the European robin, it rarely shows itself. You can only know it's there from its distinctive song.
I originally wrote this piece as part of a charity project for climate change and natural disasters. But the typhoons of 2025 caused severe damage to Hachijō-jima, and the mountains where the Izu robin lives were badly hit. They are still closed to the public. We have no idea how the robins are living now.
That's why I placed this track at the start of the album, with my hopes for the day I can meet them again.
For more about the typhoon damage, please see my blog.
Q4This year you also released Interwoven with aus. What is it like for you to make music with younger musicians? And how did it feel to have 's voice on "STEPS"?
I grew up in studios, live houses and concert halls. When I make music, I write scores. aus has lived more within club culture, so he has approaches and ways of thinking that I don't, and I learned a great deal from him.
I specifically asked Sonoda to take part. The way the lyrics of "STEPS" are written, like pointillism made of single words, was inspired by "Chronograph," a song by Sketch Show, the duo of Haruomi Hosono and . I asked Sonoda because I felt that he, also a writer, was the only vocalist who could give these fragmentary lyrics meaning and lyricism. The result went beyond my expectations, and I'm very happy with it.
Q5Could you tell me some ambient music you've been listening to a lot lately? Old or new, anything is fine.
First, the works of , the 14th-century French composer, who could be called a distant ancestor of ambient music. Designed to fill the churches of his time with pure, clear air through simple, clean melodies and harmonies, these works are sound that exists only with the reverberation of the church. I think they are musical works that are one hundred percent attuned to space and environment.
They're not pure ambient, but Haruomi Hosono's Yours Sincerely and maya ongaku's Nothing Space Music, two albums released this year, are rare masterpieces in which I can feel colours with ambient thinking in the background.
Three songs from EPILOGUE are already out before the release. On "," flute, vibraphone and melodion play a sad, gentle melody, and I especially love the moment the flute comes in. The Izu robin you hear now and then was recorded by Isoda himself in the mountains of the island. On "," Sonoda sings single words one by one, like "close your eyes," "open," "close," "far," "near," "sleep." Underneath, a beat made of glitches and noise pans from left to right and tickles your ears in a really good way. "" started as an ambient demo from the '80s, recorded on a four-track cassette with his brother's guitar. For the album, Aiko Takahashi added piano, Isoda layered vibraphone on top, and he edited it all in an improvised way. The piano has a beautiful soft, hazy sound, like a felt piano. Isoda calls it the oldest and also the newest ambient piece on the album.
