Midori Hirano - Otonoma

A culminating statement from one of the most distinctive and quietly essential voices in contemporary electronic and classical composition. Berlin-based, Kyoto-born composer, pianist, and synthesist Midori Hirano has spent years building a body of work that lives in the resonance between sonic and visual worlds, releasing acclaimed music under her own name and her MimiCof alias, composing for film, television, art exhibitions, and architectural expos, and collaborating with an extraordinary range of artists including CoH, Ben Lukas Boysen, Paul Emmerich, and many more. Otonoma draws all of those threads together into her most fully realized work to date.

The album synthesizes the two halves of Hirano's creative identity with remarkable precision and grace. Her classical sense of harmony on the piano, nuanced and deeply felt, is woven through endless textural possibilities opened up by synthesizers, the two worlds informing and enriching each other rather than simply coexisting. The results are music of genuine sensory immersion, impressionistic in the truest sense, painting with sound rather than describing it. Like nebulas coalescing into galaxies, the pieces of Otonoma emanate hues dense with subtle layers of color folded into gradients, arresting and radiant, music that rewards patient, attentive listening with something that feels close to the physical sensation of watching light move through water.

For listeners drawn to the work of Nils Frahm, Lubomyr Melnyk, or Johann Johannsson, Otonoma is essential. This is an artist at the peak of her powers, painting the space between the classical and the electronic with a confidence and beauty that very few musicians working today can match.