Music : Koki Nakano
Artwork : Natsumi Toyama
Fashion design : Issey Miyake
Koki Nakano - EP Soft Sculptures
Composer Koki Nakano presents his new collaborative EP Soft Sculptures, to be released on 12th January.
Last September, during the Paris Fashion Week, the Japanese pianist Koki Nakano composed for the ISSEY MIYAKE Spring Summer 2023 collection A Form That Breathes and performed live at the show. Koki Nakano will unveil the original compositions in a digital EP format out on 12th January.
The designer of the brand Satoshi Kondo invited Koki Nakano to compose the music for the collection, which draws its inspiration from a series of sculpture studies.
Speaking about the collaboration, Kondo says, “As someone who has listened to Nakano-san’s music for many years, I am grateful to have worked with him on the collection. There is something I find so riveting and inspiring about his music, in that it engages the listeners’ senses in an immersive and affecting way. The way he interacts with the piano and digitally manipulates the sound is primitive and yet modern, which I find more so having watched his performance live.”
“When we first met, Kondo-san had in mind words like ‘Soft Sculpture’ and ‘Living Sculpture’,” says the pianist. The key word “Soft Sculpture” has been a main influence in Nakano’s work. He has explored this balance between “the state of crystallization and movement”, and a deep relationship between music and dance for a few years. It’s this very physical experience of music – one which acknowledges the bodily tensions of movement and gravity – that makes his sound so unique.
The long track Torso / Assemblage is composed of a repeated motif that expresses the gentle swaying of a huge piece of cloth that is becoming bigger, in a crescendo. The composition reflects the movement of garments that come to life and breathe. Koki explains, “the composition represents various kinetic shapes that a piece of cloth would create together with human bodies. Music starts in the dark with a faint light intensity, followed by a breath and then revealing a torso. The bodies become fluid and dynamic as the piece of cloth gains in amplitude”.
The second piece ‘Infinite Column’ translates the enchanting climax of the show. The dynamic energy of the track evokes the explosion of joy and light of the 9 dancers in airy garments of colors inspired by a variety of skin tones, joined by all the models, dressed in garments of various textures, shapes and colors. A final scene that gives hope.
