Yuma Koda - Kopfkino (Newhere) [Jazz]

Hopefully you know who Yuma Koda is by now. if not, then hop over to the review of his first poetic single "Images on Loan" from his upcoming Amid Kinos album, dropping on October 2 via Newhere Music, to get the lowdown.

A little German knowledge would help you understand the album and this single's premise, so I hope you're sitting comfortably. Kino is the German word for cinema, and the album title, Amid Kino's, nods back to his father's job running an independent cinema, as well as Koda's fascination with "imagined nostalgia". Add Kopf, which means head, to Kino, to form "Kopfkino", and the new compound word then describes the vivid, involuntary process of the imagination playing out entire scenarios, dialogues, or worries like a film in the mind.

To tell this tale he once again enlists the help of guitarist and producer Takuro Okada, saxophonist Kei Matsumaru, bassist Marty Holoubek, and drummer Shun Ishiwaka, and there seems like there was an air of misty-eyed reflection in the studio. A loose, gently skittering, unprogrammable hip hop beat is laid down by Ishiwaka, and is immediately joined by all the other musicians, as the song blows through the speakers like warm air when you open your front door on a hot summer's day. The musicians eschew ego to become one, the pedal steel, sax, contrabass, piano and light-touch drums uniting in somewhat sentimental, smooth yet spiritual, mid-twentieth-century orchestral jazz fashion to reminisce about what was and what could have been. It's a lovely laid-back listen, and the album is fast shaping up to be a ray of easy yet meaningful sunshine, in October's autumnal cool.

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Playlist Companion

Find Koda in the Slow Jazz Playlist.