Koryo Saito - Mirage

Japanese folk fanatic mashes medieval instrumentation with electronic treatments to form an inventive set of songs and soundtracks. Mirage is the debut long player from Tokyo–based musician, author and nursery school art teacher, Koryo Saito. Influenced as much by traditional European folk culture and French medieval music as by Japanese experimental music, Mirage moves from playful song and humalong melodies to unearthly atmospherics and outer-limits soundscapes. These mysteriously enchanting pieces cross the musical spectrum from folk flavoured theme tunes to ghostly sound collages and dusty field recordings via traditional song and minimal electronic composition. In essence this is an album informed as much by the juxtaposition of the modern and ancient as it is by various strands of leftfield pop, electronica and psychedelia. To accomplish all of this, Koryo has employed a considerable arsenal of weird and wonderful instruments, both old and new. These include the hurdy-gurdy, tenori-on, zither, marimba, Juno synth, bodhrán, glockenspiel and samples – alongside the occasional guitar, drums, bass and vocals. He is assisted in his endeavours by a number of additional players from the Tokyo music scene, including members of his other band Saturday Evening Post. During Koryo’s early childhood in the 1980s, his father regularly played sitar in an Asian folk band and Koryo first developed an interest in music at the age of eight when he learned to play piano. By his late teens, he was embracing technology and using sequencers and by his twenties he was involved in various bands in his native city. Mirage was all recorded in Koryo’s home studio in Tokyo. After completing the album he spent six months living in London and travelling throughout Britain interviewing various luminaries including Pentangle, Vashti Bunyan and the High Llamas. On returning to Tokyo he published his own magazine called Ballad in which he wrote about these experiences.

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