Tone Glow 176: Ichiko Aoba

An interview with the Japanese singer-songwriter about attentive listening, whale song, and her new album 'Luminescent Creatures'

Ichiko Aoba

Photo by Michael Leviton

Ichiko Aoba (b. 1990) is a Japanese singer-songwriter who has spent the past fifteen years releasing tender and resplendent folk music. As a teenager, she learned how to play guitar and was encouraged to write her own songs by her mentor, Anmi Yamada. She eventually released her debut album, Kamisori otome, in 2010. She would remain prolific in the following years, with her fourth studio album, 0 (2013), proving a significant breakthrough in her songwriting. With the assistance of producer and engineer ZAK, best known in the West for his involvement with Fishmans, the two found ways to weave field recordings into her compositions. Aoba would later start her own record label, Hermine, in 2020. Through it she released her seventh studio album Windswept Adan, a triumphant and ambitious record that catapulted her career internationally. It was created as a soundtrack for an imaginary movie, and contained her most lush and grandiose arrangements to date, with songs featuring organs and flutes, kalimbas and strings, lutes and celestas.

Her follow-up LP, Luminescent Creatures, finds Aoba as adventurous as ever. Inspired in part by field research done in Japan’s Ryukyu Archipelago, the album stands as a document of her many ruminations on our time here on Earth and beyond, grappling with the nature of existence and the importance of connection. “Is it true that we are reborn so many times over?” she asks on “FLAG.” She offers an answer on “Luciférine”: “Life can be found from long before words were ever born.” For her, there is a tremendous beauty to be found in the links we have with the nature around us, that come before and after us. The animals that we share these spaces with, she explains, reveal how song is the purest form of communication.

Joshua Minsoo Kim spoke with Ichiko Aoba on February 20th, 2025 via Zoom to discuss singing as a form of protection, the role of improvisation in her music, and the stories behind her new album. Special thanks to Luka Uno Sandoval for serving as our interpreter.

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Joshua Minsoo Kim: I want to start by asking about your earliest memories of being in nature.

Ichiko Aoba: There are so many… (pauses to think). It’s hard to remember the earliest one, but the first one that comes to mind is when my father took me to a river in Kyoto. That trip had two purposes: one was to fish for ayu [sweetfish], but the other reason was to help pick up litter on the riverbed. This was a community-centric event.

Was there a point at which you recognized this duty that humans should have in conserving nature? Is that a big part of your life?

I don’t really believe that humans alone are able to save nature, or if we should even have this messianic role and mindset—humans are part of nature. But to answer your question, my father was heavily involved in community efforts to clean up the city, so I was always seeing this. I was also heavily influenced by Ghibli and Disney films, and they helped me understand the beauty of nature. So from a very young age, I understood the importance of preserving it—it was deep within my subconscious.

Are there any qualities of your parents that you see in yourself?

I have a large influence from my mother. She would always talk about the world within you, and she placed a high value in recognizing that. She was very adamant that you can take these dreams, your ideas, your imagination, and manifest them into reality. That’s something that has influenced my music and is just an integral part of who I am. My father is a craftsman, as is my maternal grandfather. Even from a young age, I was able to see my father do his work up close. He would ask me to help with things—to spool string or wrap objects. My grandfather would make these paper constructs, working on them until they were perfect. If he ever saw a flaw, he would take it all apart. This taught me the importance of being a perfectionist—specifically, of getting as close as possible to perfection before delivering what you’ve made for someone, whether that’s a customer or a listener.

All of this connects back to nature, too. My grandfather would use glue to connect pieces of paper together or to other items. He would make anything out of paper and wood—notebooks, boxes, clocks, houses. But this glue wasn’t something that he bought; it was handmade. How he did this was that he would take rice that was left at the family altar—this would be old rice, of course—and he would mash it until it could be used as glue. This really taught me the importance of saving food, of using it in a productive way. And if there was any rice left over, he would give it to the birds (lifts her head and hands up, as if giving an offering).

Does religion play a role in your life at all?

My father’s work was involved with Buddhism but I went to a Catholic school, so I don’t see myself as belonging to any sort of religion. But just from being in that environment, I would see a lot of things related to religion. There would be picture books depicting Heaven and Hell in these grotesque ways, or these books about chopsticks that were too long—so long that you could only use them to feed others. These are the sort of things that became a part of me, that influenced me. But also from being in these environments, there were a lot of religious bells that I would use—not as tools of worship, but as instruments (laughter). So there is this influence from Buddhism, but not in any explicitly religious way.

Was there a point at which you recognized the beauty of attentive listening? Were you ever in nature and listening closely to the sounds around you? Maybe this was something that happened at home, too.

There was never a specific point at which this happened, as I always listened very closely to things my whole life. When I was a child, I would spend a lot of time listening to household appliances. I would press my ear up against the refrigerator and listen to it hum, or wait patiently for ice to be made and fall into the tray. I would also listen to the sound of rain—I’d like to sit and wait for the sound of a single drop of water to fall. I have always listened to mundane sounds like this.

Do you approach songwriting with this same sensitivity? Is it the same when you pick up a guitar?

When I play, I’m always aware of the room I’m in. But I’m also aware of things that may seem irrelevant, like the weather. The guitar is an instrument made of wood, so the humidity affects how it sounds. This influences how I write songs. On days when my guitar sounds particularly soft or quiet, the songs I create may be quiet and slow.

Can you give an example of a song where the weather affected how you wrote it?

“Terifuriame (テリフリアメ)” from qp (2018). It was written on a day where it would go through these cycles of rain. I was playing on the fire escape of my apartment, watching it rain and get sunny, and emotions would naturally follow—when it rained, I would feel blue, and when the sun came out, I would feel happy. I wanted to emulate those waves of emotion in the song.

What was it like to make 0 (2013), then? That’s when you started incorporating field recordings into your songs. I’m thinking of “Iriguchi Deguchi (いりぐちでぐち),” for example, where the field recordings are as important to the song as the actual instruments.

As you mentioned, I only recorded albums in the studio until then. When I was making 0, I had met the engineer ZAK, who wanted to try incorporating field recordings. We flew down to Ōita Prefecture to the Kunisaki Peninsula. We went into this abandoned tunnel, and as we walked through it, I improvised this song. ZAK was walking by me, to my right, and holding the microphone. He was letting the sound of the tunnel work its magic. As we were walking, we ended up in the middle of the tunnel where it was pitch black. But as we continued to walk, we eventually saw the light again and I started running. ZAK stayed, though, and pointed the mic towards me and recorded the sound of me getting further and further away.

How important is improvisation to your songwriting practice? How many of your songs are improvised?

It’s probably a 50/50 split between songs that are improvised and songs that are made with lyrics first. When I compose in a structured manner, I always start with lyrics. These lyrics form a story, and then I use my guitar, other instruments, and my voice to turn it into a song. When I improvise, it’s almost an athletic process—I use my body to compose the melody, the chords, and lyrics and they flow through me at the same time. On the new album, Luminescent Creatures (2025), this happened with tracks like “mazamun” and “aurora.” Everything came together at the same time for those songs.

You’ve talked about how you approach the guitar. Do you mind talking about the process of writing melodies and singing them? Do you visualize an image or a map and try to capture it with your voice? What does that process look like?

For me, singing is easier than talking. As my career has progressed and I’ve become more of an adult, I’ve learned how to talk. But when I was starting out, I found it very hard to communicate with people—the exception was my mentor, Anmi Yamada. This is why I place so much trust and value in music. The main reason I sing is not so others can hear me—it is a form of protection. It is like my heart has an egg that is locked inside of a cage, and I am always trying to protect it. My method of protecting it is through song.

How does singing provide protection in a way that talking doesn’t?

When you’re speaking with someone, it is foundational that you create this mutual understanding, a mutual language. There is an effort you need to make to communicate clearly because the other person needs to understand you. But with song, it can exist on its own—there’s no effort needed to communicate things clearly. Of course, many musicians try to do this, but my music is not about communication, it is about existing. And then people who listen to my songs can look within themselves and resonate with what is being sung. This idea isn’t limited to human singing—it’s with all sounds in nature. We can think about the sound of whales singing, for example, because that is just how they communicate. I want to tap into this idea because it is so special, and I’m so happy that I’m able to do this every day and make a living out of it.

How do you feel like you’ve grown as a singer throughout the course of your career? And how has that growth impacted you as a person?

What do you mean by growth?

I am wondering if you feel like singing songs throughout your whole career has shaped you in some way. However, this is making me realize that growth is something that is always inevitable; simply by existing you will automatically experience growth. We understand this with the concept of age, but maybe we should think about it more generally.

Thank you for explaining this. It took me a moment to understand your question because this core—this aforementioned egg—has never changed for me. It has never been broken. And because of this, I have been able to try out a lot of different things—I don’t need to be afraid. Nowadays, I am influenced by things that aren’t just the human voice, like the whale songs I mentioned earlier.

What is meaningful to you about whale songs?

I’ve actually heard the sound of whales singing when I was inside the ocean. I was so far from shore that I couldn’t see the ocean floor anymore, and while I couldn’t physically see the whales, the vibrations of sound were carried much more quickly and clearly. So even though these whales were so far away, it felt as if they were right next to me, or even within me. Maybe this is because the water around me and the water inside of me were mixing in some way. That made me understand that music is not something that needs to be in a specific location. It is not something that needs to be picked up and listened to; it can be something that permeates the air. Birds sing freely whenever they want as a form of communication, and this is so beautiful. Surely little bacteria are communicating, too, in some sort of song.

Six years ago you released Ayukawa no shizuku (2019), which foregrounds field recordings and has songs interspersed. You were trying to capture a very specific sense of place. Windswept Adan (2020) felt like the inverse, where you were creating these vivid worlds through music. Luminescent Creatures feels like a refinement of these ideas. I see that within the first two tracks of the album, for example. “COLORATURA” is so invested in building this image of the ocean through an array of instruments, and then with the second track [“24° 3′ 27.0″ N, 123° 47′ 7.5″ E”], we hear you singing a traditional folk song. It’s much more rooted in a specific place, culture, and group of people. Do you see these as two different modes of songwriting, or are they the same?

I’m so surprised and happy that you said this. It’s as if you made the album yourself, as if you were here during its recording. “COLORATURA” was made early on in the making of this record. I did this with Taro Umebayashi, who co-produced the album. There was a very specific image that we had in mind for this: a pirate ship with a tattered sail. And this ship might not even be visible to the human eye, but it has cargo, and maybe the listeners themselves are the cargo. As we travel across the sea, there’s a violent storm and the waves are raging—they’re as high as the ship itself. At some point, the ship goes into the waves and goes underwater, but it is here—underneath the surface—that we see these luminescent creatures. This is how the album opens.

With the second song, I was visiting Hateruma Island a lot—and I still go there very frequently. There’s a lot of nature there, but there’s also a lot of people. Seeing how they treat nature, and how they offer tributes of dance and song to the gods in nature, was very inspiring. The first song I learned while I was on the island was the folk song that is on this track. When I came back to Tokyo, Taro and I were working on the album and I would keep impulsively singing it. Taro picked up on this and asked that it be on the album.

Photo by Yuichiro Noda

Do you mind talking about “惑星の泪 (Wakusei no Namida),” the last song on the record? When I listen to it, it feels like we’re at the end of this long journey and are finally allowed the chance to breathe and take everything in. Even the sound of wind feels like it’s breathing. I love that your voice and the wind are intertwined in this way.

This song could have had another song title: “What Would Happen if We Left the Earth.” We all go through our daily lives, we run errands and do work, but all of us—even us two—will eventually die. Every creature in history has lived under this contract, so it is a miracle that we are alive right now and can even talk to one another. The song was about imagining these spirits leaving the earth and looking far away at our blue and green planet, and looking at it nostalgically. They would look at these humans involved in their various disagreements and squabbles. They would think that they were foolish, but they would look warmly upon these moments, too.

“Wakusei no Namida” was very important, and we placed a lot of importance on it. Songs like “COLORATURA,” “Luciférine,” “pirsomnia,” and “SONAR” were mixed and edited and had a lot of effort involved. But with “Wakusei no Namida,” the guitar was recorded in one take and the wind was, too. What happened was that after I recorded the guitar and vocals, we went into the booth and listened back to the track. While this happened, Taro was playing with the filter on a synthesizer to make this sound, and it was essentially improvised. What we wanted was for it to sound like these spirits were taking a deep breath, were letting out a big sigh. I asked for him to make it sound like stardust blowing in the wind. If there is a message in my music, then this song’s message is the one I hope people tune into.

Was there anything you wanted to talk about today that we didn’t talk about? Or is there anything you always wanted to be asked in an interview?

I want to add one more thing about “Wakusei no Namida.” At the very end of the song, the synthesizer reaches a frequency that is not perceptible to the human ear. We cannot hear this, but maybe it could be heard by a whale. Luminescent Creatures isn’t an album made for humans, it is made for all living beings. While it may take the form of a musical album, it is really just a wish—one that I hope reaches as many as possible and can make them happy.

There are a few quick questions I wanted to ask before we end. Are you inspired at all by Japanese folk musicians from the ’60s and ’70s? I’m thinking of acts like Happy End and Sachiko Kanenobu?

No, I am not.

In 2015 you had a role in the staging of Shūji Terayama’s final play, The Lemmings. What was memorable about being part of that production?

I appeared as “The Girl” who holds Escher’s box in her arms. Kazuhisa Uchihashi, who made music for the play, invited me to join and I was given a special role that felt like it had one foot in the play and one foot in the real world. I felt as if I was the guard, or guide, to a dream. But being able to perform with the late Yūkichi Matsumoto and Tengai Amano is my greatest memory from my time in that play.

There’s a question I end all my interviews with and I wanted to ask it to you. Do you mind sharing one thing you love about yourself?

I may be clumsy, but I am endlessly honest.

Ichiko Aoba’s Luminscent Creatures is released on her record label Hermine. The album can be purchased at Bandcamp and the Hermine website.

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Thank you for reading the 176th issue of Tone Glow. John Lilly-inspired album incoming?

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