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Meitei rummages through the aural keepsakes of Japan’s history, time traveling through defunct FM radio stations and dusty dive bars. By reaching back into the past, he returns with anecdotes of how the present is embellished by memories.

about the record

Meitei’s 2020 album Kofū was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s Kwaidan and 2019’s Komachi.

All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being washed away—not least by the unforgiving sands of time—through wistful compositions that stretched across ambient music, hauntology, and musique concrète.

When finalizing Kofū, Meitei found himself left with over 60 fully realized tracks, bursting with ideas that fired in divergent, curious directions. He was content with the 13 tracks he had selected, but when it came time to begin his next album, he realized it had been sitting in front of him all along. His work wasn’t over yet.

Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in the first two tracks of Kofū II—a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds, and flutes, all united in bustling harmony.

Happyaku-yachō is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field. “My image of this music is that it expresses the vibrant mood of Edo's merchant culture,” says Meitei, “where old Japanese dwellings were densely packed together in a vast expanse of land.” The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate Kaworu, a compositional piece lifted from his Komachi sessions—a final requiem to his late grandmother.

The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, and even a vengeful assassin (Shurayuki hime, known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snowblood’).

Saryō is as elegant and refined as you would expect. It induces stillness in its repetition, with each synth note a brushstroke. It was inspired by a Sengoku-era tea house Meitei once visited, designed by national icon Sen no Rikyū. He tied it to the reaction he felt while poring over the ink paintings in his grandmother’s house. “The decayed earthen walls and faded tatami mats gave me an emotional impression,” he says. “And the cosmic flow of time drifting in the small room. I decided to put my impression of this into music.”

In Akira Kurosawa, an appropriately thunderous track, Meitei finds deep resonance in the filmmaker’s vast body of work, which drew equally from Japan’s rich heritage and troubled circumstances post-WWII.

Kofū II is not a leftovers album, nor is it a straightforward companion piece. With this album, Meitei confronts the Japanese identity more profoundly than ever. Over the years, he has attempted to peel back what he believes has defined Japan and its people. After seeking answers with three full-length albums, his fourth poses more questions.

If his first three albums inspired a sense of longing—or, perhaps inevitably, fed an irreparable nostalgia doomed to history—Kofū II compels us to reassess our relationship with the past. By constantly looking back, are we ever afforded a clearer present? After capturing the “lost Japanese mood,” where does that leave the country in the modern world? Meitei offers no immediate answers with Kofū II. Instead, it forces you to sit with its disparate moods and meditate amidst the textured fragments.