Konoma
For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of āAfro Mingei.ā The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance ā āBlack is Beautifulā defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.
Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried āPortrait of Yanagiā drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent āGalaxyā gestures toward Sun Raās late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotusās early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okadaās choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarekās āNefertiteā shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europeās own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzukiās āLoveā channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.
With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.
[[Selling Points]]- LP pressed on black vinyl
- Features six originals and two covers
- Co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift
Original: $28.00
-70%$28.00
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Description
For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of āAfro Mingei.ā The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance ā āBlack is Beautifulā defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.
Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried āPortrait of Yanagiā drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent āGalaxyā gestures toward Sun Raās late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotusās early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okadaās choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarekās āNefertiteā shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europeās own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzukiās āLoveā channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.
With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.
[[Selling Points]]- LP pressed on black vinyl
- Features six originals and two covers
- Co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift
