The Suspended Dreams of Ichiko Aoba

Ichiko Aoba arrives at the Royal Albert Hall after a series of concerts around the world that have testified to the growing interest in her music. Luminescent Creatures is presented as the new step in an already established journey, capable of expanding her sound towards orchestrations, ambient details, and luminous introspection. It is a further step in the way Aoba transforms the stage into a place of contemplation rather than exposure. Her music is made of contrasts: the simplicity of the instrument - often the classical guitar - and of the measured, almost whispered voice, alongside the richness of sound spaces that bloom in silences, in delicate overlays, in reverberations suggesting rain, wind, light filtering through leaves. In the lyrics one perceives a rare sensitivity towards the present, but filtered through the lens of dreams and imagination: what appears as an inner landscape becomes an opportunity to reflect on transformation, solitude, wonder. Born in Chiba Prefecture and raised in Kyoto, Ichiko Aoba began dedicating herself to music at a very young age, the classical guitar was the instrument through which she wove her first compositions. Over the years she has also explored other instruments and collaborations, and has developed a music that envelops, that invites attentive listening, that lends itself both to small and large spaces. Her previous work, Windswept Adan, had already marked a turning point, telling with a fragile voice stories that seemed to emerge from lost islands, from landscapes made more of wind than of land.