Takahiro Kido - INSOMNIA (2025)

The artists around the Japanese Ricco Label have inspired me more or less from the beginning of this blog. Anoice, Mizu Amane, Tokyo Ambient Collective they all appeared here and for a good reason: the label is basically a quality stamp for music revolving around neoclassical and ambient soundscapes. And around Takahiro Kido himself.

A member of all of the above and a founder of the label comes back to releasing music under his name, after almost a decade since the last album, "The New World". And it's a great thing he does so. The music on the album is lead by piano keys, but a great deal of the fantastic atmosphere is created by string instruments (violins, violas, and cellos) played by the members of Anoice. There is a certain drama felt in the compositions, the spine-thrilling and unnerving at times passages are far from the relaxing or melancholic atmosphere often associated with neoclassical music. This time, it keeps the heart beating and the mind wondering what'll happen next.

And it's not a surprise since the album was inspired by insomnia, as suggested by its title. It is focused on a simply, yet captivating question: "Where is the boundary between reality and dream" which people suffering from this sleeping disorder may need to ask themselves more often then not. It also leads to the atmosphere, unnerving as I said but also dreamy and airy. Given the artist's background, it won't be a very novel thought that this music is basically a movie score without the movie, but it really describes it so well.

INSOMNIA costs 6.98 USD

Check: The Liquidator

Country: Japan

Genre: atmospheric neoclassical

Label: Ricco Label

Anoice - The Hidden Forest (2021)

Tokyo Ambient Collective - Healing for Damages (2020)

RiLF - My Beloved Farewell (2020)

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Anoice - The Hidden Forest (2021)

It's no surprise for anyone reading this blog that I'm a fan of everything that comes out from the Japanese Ricco label. And my special feelings go to the label's artistic collective Anoice. After two other releases already appearing here, it's time for the band's sixth long play called The Hidden Forest.

And just as the title, as well as our experience with the previous releases, suggest - the music here is beautiful, airy and moody. There's hardly many music projects out there that can compete with the level of atmospheric vibes with the Japanese, that's certain. The tones here can be ethereally light and gloomily dark and they can be experienced almost simultaneously and no, it's not impossible. It first happens in a perfect day for a funeral, a track the title of which already suggests it, with the extremely beautiful strings filling souls with calmness and the last notes damaging it with unnerving anxiety. The album goes from the barely audible neoclassical and ambient beauty up to the post-rock-like might wherever it's necessary.

Due to the pandemics, the creative process for the release took longer than usually but perhaps that's why the album feels so thoroughly thought-through with its cinematic properties making me think that each song was prepared for a particular, detailed scene. Perhaps not for a movie but for lives of each of us. In reality, the songs were inspired by Naoko Okada's paintings (one of them is featured as the cover art too). Those show the powerful nature and its forces shown through fantasy/fairy-tale-like lenses and I find it very suitable for Anoice's music indeed. This nature is also present in the music itself with the multitude of field recordings making the backgrounds of those captivating compositions. 

The Hidden Forest costs 8.99 USD.

Anoice - Ghost in the Clocks (2019)

Anoice - nothing there / missing / unknown error (2019) EN

Check: the storyteller's music

Country: Japan

Genre: atmospheric neoclassical

Label: Ricco

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RiLF - My Beloved Farewell (2020) EN

RiLF just released their new album, only a second one although it's hard to believe. Mighty dose of airy and dense dream pop that fits perfectly the autumn weather and the atmosphere of the times. Let's then listen to the great My Beloved Farewell together.

Only now have I figured that the name of the band translates to Ricco Label and Friends. And of course, looking back at this, it was pretty obvious. The artists releasing their music within the label often mix in various collaborations, no wonder there's a separate moniker for them. Here it's Calu together with the Anoice duo. The new album gathers singles published in recent years (like Soraninaru that is with us since June'19) into one, fog-filled composition. From the very beginning we are joined by extremely airy vocals of Yuka Murata combined with the most dream pop things like strings, mesmerizing guitars, light melodies.

All of this sounds great in the dream pop archetypes Never Ending Dream or Soraninaru, while sometimes turn to louder and noisier Count4 or in the slowly but surely developing Someday We Will Find. It has to be remembered though that whatever is going on in the Japanese's music, the foreground is always booked fot the dream pop atmosphere. And this is what we love RiLF and the whole label for.

My Beloved Farewell costs 7 USD.

RiLF - Three Stories for Numbers (2018) EN

Check: Never Ending Dream

Country: Japan

Genre: uberethereal dream pop    

Label: Ricco

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RiLF - My Beloved Farewell (2020) PL

RiLF wydali właśnie swój, drugi dopiero choć ciężko w to uwierzyć, nowy album. Potężna dawka eterycznego i gęstego dream popu pasuje jak ulał do jesiennej aury i nastrojów ostatniego czasu. Tak więc posłuchajmy znakomitego My Beloved Farewell razem.

Dopiero teraz zorientowałem się, ze nazwa zespołu oznacza Ricco Label i Przyjaciele. Ale oczywiście, patrząc na to teraz, tak naprawdę zawsze o tym wiedziałem. Artyści wydający muzykę w ramach labelu ciągle mieszają się w różnych konfiguracjach, nic więc dziwnego, że powstał dla tych kolaboracji osobny zespół. Tutaj jest to Calu wraz z duetem Anoice. Nowy album zbiera single publikowane od jakiegoś czasu (takie Soraninaru jest z nami od czerwca '19) w jedną, wypełnioną mgłą kompozycję. Od samego początku towarzyszą nam nadzwyczaj eteryczne wokale Yuki Muraty połączone z wszystkim co najbardziej dreampopowe: smyczkami, hipnotyzującymi gitarami, lekkimi melodiami.

To wszystko brzmi idealnie w archetypicznych dla dream popu Never Ending Dream czy Soraninaru, czasem staje się głośniejsze i bardziej noise'owe, jak w Count4 czy w rozkręcającym się powoli acz nieubłaganie Someday We Will Find. Należy jednak pamiętać, że cokolwiek by się nie działo w muzyce Japończyków, na pierwszym planie zawsze pozostaje dream popowa atmosfera. I za to wszyscy kochamy nie tylko RiLF ale cały label. 

My Beloved Farewell kosztuje 27 złotych (7 USD).

RiLF - Three Stories for Numbers (2018) PL

Sprawdź: Never Ending Dream

Kraj: Japonia

Szufladka: uberethereal dream pop    

Label: Ricco

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Tokyo Ambient Collective - Healing for Damages (2020) PL

Wytwórnia Ricco opiera się zdecydowanie na zamkniętym gronie muzyków, którzy tworzą muzykę w rożnych konfiguracjach, z których najbardziej znane są te pod nazwami Anoice (kolejna świetna EP-ka ostatnio) i RiLF. Tymczasem kolejna z nich okazuje się być fantastyczną dawką pięknego ambientu. Posłuchajmy więc Healing for Damages.

Tokyo Ambient Collective składa się ze znanego właśnie z Anoice Takahiro Kido oraz dwójki Kenji Azuma, perkusista, i Sami Elu, "jedyny w świecie gracz na pixiechord, domowej roboty drewniany instrument strunowy stworzony ze złomu, jednorazowych pałeczek do jedzenia i strun pianina". Jako że Azuma bębni w równie alternatywne rzeczy, cała muzyka ma niezwykły posmak do-it-yourself i pełna jest unikalnych dźwięków. To wszystko spaja delikatna elektronika, czasem ledwo słyszalna, czasem wypełniająca głośnik swoją osobowością. A czasem towarzysząca świergotowi ptaków. Pierwszorzędny ambient.

Healing for Damages kosztuje 12 złotych (3 USD).

Sprawdź: Wind Woods

Kraj: Japonia

Szufladka: experimental soundscape
Label: Ricco

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Tokyo Ambient Collective - Healing for Damages (2020) EN

The Ricco label is based certainly on a closed group of artists who make music in various configurations, the most famous ones being Anoice (another great EP recently) and RiLF. Meanwhile, another one of them turned out to be a fantastic dose of beautiful ambient. Let's listen to Healing for Damages.

Tokyo Ambient Collective includes Anoice's Takahiro Kido together with two artists Kenji Azuma, the drummer, and Sami Elu, "the world’s only player of the pixiechord, a handmade wooden string instrument made up of scrap materials, dispensable chopsticks and strings for piano". As Azuma uses also some alternative things to drum, the whole project has this unique do-it-yourself taste to it and is filled with exceptional sounds. All of this is glued together with delicate electronic, sometimes really barely noticeable, sometimes filling the whole speaker with its personality. And sometimes accompanying birds' tweeting. Top-shelf ambient.

Healing for Damages costs 3 USD.

Check: Wind Woods

Country: Japan
Genre: experimental soundscape

Label: Ricco

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