It has been announced that the four-member ambient unit UNKNOWN ME will release their second LP, “Beauty and Science (BITOKAGAKU),” a compilation of songs they provided to Shiseido’s “Hanatsubaki Ambient,” on limited clear vinyl and digitally on Friday, July 19th through the long-established American indie label Not Not Fun.
UNKNOWN ME is composed of three composers, Yakenohara, P-RUFF, and H.TAKAHASHI, and Yudai Osawa, who is in charge of graphic design and video. This is their fifth album, a compilation of songs created at the request of Shiseido. Following on from their previous album “Bi・Kind・Tai,” which was selected as the best of the year by many domestic and international media, this album continues the theme of “beauty” and includes eight songs in total, including “The Universe in Ore,” a song themed on Kenji Miyazawa, created for the “Hanatsubaki Ambient” project of Shiseido’s corporate culture magazine “Hanatsubaki,” “A Rainbow in Meditative Air,” a collaborative song with the scented stick “Retreat Stick” created by Shiseido’s fragrance research, “Dancing Leaves,” “Kit-sune No Yomeiri,” and “Retreat Beats.” It is an “imaginative soundscape that explores the scientific beauty of the mind and body,” which attempts to create new value by fusing scientific knowledge with an aesthetic perspective to add color to everyday life. It is said to be environmental music for city dwellers, with ambient meditations in a variety of melodies that flicker like a mirage.
The delicately adjusted synthesizer with a floating feeling, the field recordings recorded in Shiseido’s laboratory, the murmuring of a stream and the processed bird voices change the scenery like the universe of a planetarium, and the listener feels the depth and breadth of time and space. UNKNOWN ME’s masterpiece that crosses ambient, IDM techno, Balearic, and paradise new age was born.
■About Hanatsubaki Ambient x Retreat Stick
■Hanatsubaki Ambient x Retreat Stick Event Report
【release information】
UNKNOWN ME “BITOKAGAKU (Hanatsubaki Magazine, Shiseido Works)”
Release Date: 2024.07.19 (Fri.)
Label: Not Not Fun
Tracklist:
01 A Rainbow in Meditative Air
02 Dancing Leaves
03 The Universe in Ore (Paradise Mix)
04 Kitsune No Yomeiri
05 Retreat Beats
06 Mirage of Ocean (Science Edit)
07 Eternal Sunset
08 Beauty and Science
Recorded: August, 2021 ~ June, 2023
Mastering: TARO NOHARA
Artwork: OSAWA YUDAI
Special thanks to Shiseido Co., Ltd., Hanatsubaki Magazine, Akiko Toda
UNKNOWN ME are TARO NOHARA (aka YAKENOHARA), P-RUFF, H.TAKAHASHI, OSAWA YUDAI
*Digital and analog record (limited clear vinyl version)
■UNKNOWN ME:Bandcamp
