Dawn by Shinji Wakasa
Shinji Wakasa's "Dawn" is a conceptual ambient music album inspired by the ancient Chinese poem "The Fisherman" and the picture book "Dawn" by Uri Shulevitz, which uses this poem as its original title. In Shulevitz's picture book, a beautifully evolving world at daybreak is depicted with very beautiful colour usage and minimal words. Wakasa undertook the creation of this album to express the world of this picture book and the original poem through sound.
In producing the music for this album, Wakasa set a very simple rule for himself: to create in the early morning using the clear awareness of the morning, to play what he felt at that moment without denying the first sound, and to build the music like flowing clouds, a concept expressed in Japanese Zen as "flowing clouds and water."
This approach has successfully imbued the entire album with a sense of freedom and a gradation that transitions from the pitch-black sky gradually illuminated by the sun's light, turning from blue to green to yellow.
Tracklist
| 1. | Gradation of Dawn | 4:57 |
| 2. | approx1.6180339887 | 6:54 |
| 3. | Koun | 7:58 |
| 4. | Shouyo-Yu | 3:46 |
| 5. | Sansui-Ryoku | 4:21 |
| 6. | Minamo | 5:03 |
| 7. | Aware | 2:59 |
| 8. | Surface of Dawn | 4:30 |
| 9. | Ryusui | 5:30 |
| 10. | Koe (Dawn Edit) | 3:58 |
| 11. | Rinzai | 5:30 |
| 12. | Jyakumaku | 9:43 |
Credits
About the cover art:
The artwork for this album was produced by Wakasa's friend, graphic designer Shingo Kurono. The expression of light emerging like mist pushing up under an impressive ink-black sky is actually a photograph of the dawn ridge seen from his home, printed on Japanese washi paper and blurred with water. The artwork, matching the music, further liberates the world of DAWN.
Mastered by Gus Elg at Sky Onion Mastering
License
All rights reserved.
Composer/artist.
He has composed music for commercials, films, fashion shows, and art exhibitions. In his own work as an artist, he is conscious of stillness and restraint, and believes in the intensity of sound and music rooted in resonance/texture. In recent years, he has been experimenting with a field approach to the themes of death and the materiality of music.
Photo by Kota Shoji