why we love this

Like a stream of consciousness in an early morning light, Fuubutsushi braids memories of distant songs. These clash and coalesce, forming associations that, despite their disparate origins, settle into a tender stride.

about the record

Fuubutsushi, the quartet of Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage, and Patrick Shiroishi, returns after minutes, days, months, and years with Meridians, their first proper full-length album in two cycles of seasons. This double LP follows their acclaimed tetralogy Shiki, a series of four albums—one for each season—released between 2020 and 2021.

Those first four albums were a sort of gathering, processing, learning, exploring and measuring of time during a global crisis. Since then, the group has been patiently ticking away at a new body of work. Meridians showcases the band chiming in their familiar musical vocabulary—ambient-leaning jazz informed by folk, new music, and post-rock—but with time’s accrual, they sound their most refined, focused, and polished to date. Fuubutsushi no longer feels like a pandemic-borne catharsis but a fully gestated and realized musical entity, with Meridians representing their most coherent statement as a group so far.