Stella Epoca, by Sawako

Stella Epoca

by Sawako

supported by

Daniel Lind This is a welcome return! I still hold those feather-light, fragmented, floating sounds Sawako put out in the aughties in high esteem. The style on Stella Epoca is very recognizable, a continuation of what came before. Music for lazy summer afternoons. And for many other seasons and times of day. Lovely!

Ali Khan Sawako's music has been at the top of my listening, enduring time. This album is as delicate as ever, with collaborations that make it even more special. It takes a masterful touch to make music breathe this softly, and I appreciate it. Thank you, it was worth the wait! 💜

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
12k is very happy to announce the return of Japanese artist Sawako with her first new release on the label since 2008’s Bitter Sweet (12k1047) and her first solo album since 2014’s Nu.It.

Stella Epoca references star time and moving into a new age. The ideas of sky maps and planetary frequencies were the inspirations behind Sawako’s dreamlike sounds. She references orbits, sound waves and light that shower the earth and all living things in ephemeral encounters of sparkle and resonance.

Sawako’s sound has always been fragile and amorphous. Watercolor paint sublimating and fading. Here she collapses eight years of memories and records into layers of sounds intended to open the body to the celestial world. Using generative compositional methods, she recorded fragments of melodies on days of full moons, new moons, planetary conjunctions and around other notable events happening in the skies. Her digital sounds take on a humble, human sound as she observes the vastness above.

Stella Epoca brings friends of Sawako to collaborate as well. Guitar played at the dawn of the winter solstice by AOKI, Haytao. Field recordings at the moment of a total solar eclipse in Argentina by 12k’s Federico Durand. Further contributions from Haruka Nakamura, ARAKI Shin, Yukiko Hayakawa, and gift_ also connected with Sawako’s framework of space and time and bring a multi-instrumental richness to the album.

Rounding out the conceptual framework is the album art, also generatively created by creative coder Kynd, whose computing handicraft perfectly visualizes Sawako’s hybrid approach to her digital/analogue music.

Includes unlimited streaming of Stella Epoca via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ... more

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

$10 USD or more

1.	Eclipse Dawn 07:41	buy track
2.	Space Dive 04:51	buy track
3.	Enquan 04:26	buy track
4.	Dream Float 03:09	buy track
5.	Night Leaf 03:04	buy track
6.	Sol Soil 03:15	buy track
7.	Sky Rebirth 02:25	buy track
8.	Tiny Conjunction 02:12	buy track
9.	Fertile Emptiness 05:30	buy track
10.	Sweet Hygiea Grass 05:44	buy track
11.	Fennel Tunnel 05:22	buy track
12.	Moonlight Wave 03:22	buy track
13.	Soranikaeru 01:37	buy track
14.	Field Memory 02:30	buy track

about

12k is very happy to announce the return of Japanese artist Sawako with her first new release on the label since 2008’s Bitter Sweet (12k1047) and her first solo album since 2014’s Nu.It.

Stella Epoca references star time and moving into a new age. The ideas of sky maps and planetary frequencies were the inspirations behind Sawako’s dreamlike sounds. She references orbits, sound waves and light that shower the earth and all living things in ephemeral encounters of sparkle and resonance.

Sawako’s sound has always been fragile and amorphous. Watercolor paint sublimating and fading. Here she collapses eight years of memories and records into layers of sounds intended to open the body to the celestial world. Using generative compositional methods, she recorded fragments of melodies on days of full moons, new moons, planetary conjunctions and around other notable events happening in the skies. Her digital sounds take on a humble, human sound as she observes the vastness above.

Stella Epoca brings friends of Sawako to collaborate as well. Guitar played at the dawn of the winter solstice by AOKI, Haytao. Field recordings at the moment of a total solar eclipse in Argentina by 12k’s Federico Durand. Further contributions from Haruka Nakamura, ARAKI Shin, Yukiko Hayakawa, and gift_ also connected with Sawako’s framework of space and time and bring a multi-instrumental richness to the album.

Rounding out the conceptual framework is the album art, also generatively created by creative coder Kynd, whose computing handicraft perfectly visualizes Sawako’s hybrid approach to her digital/analogue music.

credits

released November 4, 2022

Sawako: apple, aqua, fennel, sweet grass, waves, voice
Federico Durand: solar eclipse + small objects
AOKI,hayato: guitar + winter solstice
ARAKI Shin: flute, sax, clarinet, meyer optik
haruka nakamura: piano
Yukiko Hayakawa: sho (Japanese Sheng)
incense smoke: memory flows
gift_ (Toshikazu Goto + Fumiko Ikeda): soundscape + reading
Kynd: double bass + entangled computing

Taylor Deupree: mixing tracks 7, 8, 10 & 12 + mastering
Kynd: jacket art

license

about

12k New York, New York

12k is a New York based experimental music label run by artist Taylor Deupree that has decisively defined and developed its own concept of minimalism in the realms of experimental and ambient music since 1997.

contact / help

Contact 12k

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Stella Epoca, you may also like:

Tail of Diffraction
by Minamo & Asuna

supported by 70 fans who also own “Stella Epoca”
go to album
The Inland Sea
by Taylor Deupree

supported by 59 fans who also own “Stella Epoca”

Taylor doesn't miss- and we were surprised to find we didn't own a copy of this wonderful recording! It's on 'endless play', heh.....am/ss editions vaché
go to album
Mur
by Taylor Deupree

supported by 56 fans who also own “Stella Epoca”

When the rest becomes a rush, the beauty in the breakdown. flow.ctrl
go to album
Kofū / 古風
by Meitei / 冥丁

featured on Bandcamp Radio Nov 8, 2022
go to album
sobyo
by NRV

Minimal ambient/drone pieces from Japanese producer NRV (of antennasia) aim to capture the minutiae of everyday life. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 5, 2022
go to album
Kofū II / 古風 II
by Meitei / 冥丁

An ever-shifting array of ambient tracks that simultaneously honors and deconstructs the artist's Japanese heritage: wistful, but warm. Bandcamp New & Notable Dec 8, 2021
go to album
Februarys
by Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer

supported by 51 fans who also own “Stella Epoca”
go to album