Yumiko Morioka & Takashi Kokubo - Gaiaphilia
Japanese artists Yumiko Morioka and Takashi Kokubo unite for Gaiaphilia, a journey through ambient soundscapes that seamlessly blends Morioka’s graceful piano compositions with Kokubo’s immersive field recordings and atmospheric synthesisers.
This collaboration brings together two of Japan’s most influential pioneers in ambient and new age music, each with decades of groundbreaking work. Morioka, celebrated for her 1987 album Resonance—reissued to critical acclaim by Métron Records—infuses her introspective playing with Kokubo’s vivid environmental textures, creating a dialogue between nature and melody.
After releasing Resonance, Morioka stepped away from music, moving to America to raise her family. For years, her work was quietly cherished by fans, only gaining wider recognition with its reissue in 2020. A devastating wildfire destroyed her California home seven years ago, prompting her return to Tokyo where she became a chocolatier before rediscovering her passion for the piano in recent years, playing live and recording new works.
Takashi Kokubo’s legendary discography spans over 30 years, and has found wider acclaim in recent years via YouTube algorithms and bootleg uploads, wracking up tens of millions of plays. Yet he is probably best known for his sound design work, specifically the Japanese earthquake alert sound as well as credit card payment jingles - his creations are pervasive in Japanese society.
“From our love and concern for our planet, we both offer a unique sensibility and spirit of inquiry which we express through our music.”
Rooted in shared philosophical interests, Gaiaphilia reflects a profound reverence for nature’s resilience and harmony. Themes of Gaia, Mother Earth’s renewal, and the interconnectedness of life are central, with inspirations drawn from cosmology, sacred geometry, and Japan’s mystical Katakamuna tradition. The album invites listeners into a meditative space where sound mirrors the delicate balance of the natural world.
A master of sound design, Kokubo enhances this vision with his distinctive field recordings, captured using a self-made binaural microphone shaped like a crash test dummy’s head. From the jungles of Borneo to the gentle rhythm of ocean waves, Kokubo’s globe-spanning recordings transform into immersive soundscapes that perfectly complement Morioka’s introspective piano compositions.
“The title, Gaiaphilia, is a newly created word to encompass our love and respect for nature and life, this feeling is the theme we hoped to express.”
Released on Métron Records on 12/03/25 and with artwork from Ventral Is Golden, Gaiaphilia marks a remarkable new chapter for Morioka and Kokubo. Recorded at Kokubo’s log house studio named Studio Ion in Yamanashi, their collaboration offers listeners a deeply emotional and transcendent experience, rooted in the timeless beauty of Japan’s natural landscapes.
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credits
creditsComposed and arranged by Yumiko Morioka & Takashi Kokubo
Piano and Keyboards by Yumiko Morioka
Synthesizers,Keyboards and field recordings by Takashi Kokubo
Voice by Takashi Kokubo(on (Katakamuna Chant)
Recorded and Mixed by Takashi Kokubo in STUDIO ION (Japan)
Artwork by VENTRAL IS GOLDEN
Supervisor by Jiro Yamada
Manufacturing by Brandon Hocura
Special thanks to SUSERI (The inspiration for ‘O-KA-GU-RA’)
Yuki Yama, Takaya Nakamura, Chiharu Ishida. Métron records 2025
© + ℗ 2025. Métron Records. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting is strictly prohibited.
Katya Yonder - Cure
Returning with her second release on Métron Records, the Baku based Russian multi-instrumentalist and producer, Katya Yonder, reveals her most deeply personal and emotionally layered work to date, Cure.
Fearlessly exploring themes of personal struggle, love, heartbreak and divorce, Cure is an introspective and candid record that delves into questions of self-understanding, acceptance, and growth.
“This is an honest story, it is about happiness and heartbreak, excitement and disappointment, about what and how I feel, how I love, cry, how I perceive this world.”
The album continues to expand upon the diverse sonic and cultural forces found on Katya’s first Métron Records release, Multiply Intentions, channeling the influences into a more concise and reflexive expression.
Mixing Baroque aesthetics, Soviet-era ballads, classic Hollywood music, electronica, rap and timeless pop, Katya’s unique palette provides a dynamic backdrop for capturing the journey through adversity towards healing.
“To cure yourself you just have to look inside, see what you really are, fully feel and experience everything as it is. And be kind and honest to yourself.”
Written and Recorded by Katya Bruk.
Mastered by Brandon Hocura.
Artwork by Sofia Hjortberg.
© + ℗ 2024. Métron Records. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting is strictly prohibited.
Lucy Sissy Miller - Pre Country
Lucy Sissy Miller is a French/British singer-songwriter, performer and artist based in Paris. On her latest release for Metron Records, Pre Country, she renders her own personal take on country music, an ambient and airy ode to her love of Americana. Across 16 tracks, Miller recollects about love-like friendships, breakups, mermaids and missing girl mysteries - the album acting as a movie-like homage to girlhood and desire.
“With this album I really enjoyed blurring the lines between fiction and reality, a bit like what movies are able to do to us. I hide a little bit of personal truth behind each song.”
Influenced by the tones of Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap, as well as the imagery found in Twin Peaks and Paris, Texas, Pre Country is a rich and explorative record that mixes a wide range of sonic sources. Though very much rooted in folk music, Pre Country is laced with layers of autotune, bringing an other worldly and haunted presence to the work.
“It’s an album about memories and how we stitch up these moments, making them movie-like to make sense of these experiences.”
The record was crafted with notes from journals, poetry, voice memos, transformed and collected sounds and here it carries the many layers of desire, loss and fear that Miller wanted to convey in the songs, communicating an unsteady, explosion of feeling whilst remaining delicate and personal.
Written and Recorded by Lucy Sissy Miller.
Mastered by Brandon Hocura.
Artwork by Lucy Sissy Miller.
Additional vocals by Owen Barnell (Autopilot)
Additional production by Sarah Terral (Florida Mermaids)
© + ℗ 2024. Métron Records. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting is strictly prohibited.
Li Yilei - NONAGE
“Growing up has always been a solitary journey, marked by forward-looking anticipation, anxiety, unripe potential, aspirations, and closures.”
London based Chinese composer and multi-instrumentalist Li Yilei returns to Métron Records with NONAGE, their second full length release following 2021’s OF. An introspective reflection on the journey through childhood, this new work brings together samples from old Chinese TV shows, mechanical children’s toys and an array of acoustic and electronic instruments - some of which were designed and built by Li themselves.
The Chinese title for "NONAGE" is "垂髫", which translates to “childhood” or “disheveled hair”, and refers to the carefree phase of life when children let their hair down, both figuratively and literally. For Li, nonage is a place that they always revisit - to learn about fear and fearlessness, love and despair, grief and glee, curiosity and mistakes.
“I remember pressing piano keys like touching flowers, reading scores like looking at paintings, writing like how I would talk to myself, greeting death like how I would greet life.”
Initially conceived as an archiving project, the record retraces and reimagines fractions of Li’s childhood memories through smell, location and colour, and brings to life the lingering feelings that remain into adulthood.
Compositions are built around a variety of unusual sources: damaged instruments such as a toy piano, a hand cranked music box, bird whistles, a broken accordion and anything else Li could find that evoked nascent recollections. Interspersed throughout are samples from Li’s childhood piano jams, moments of contemplative transmigration where previous incarnations of self and memory meet the present.
Written and Recorded by Li Yilei.
Mastering by Brandon Hocura.
Artwork by Li Yilei.
P & C Métron Records 2024.
© + ℗ 2024. Métron Records. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting is strictly prohibited.
Dasom Baek - Mirror City
Dasom Baek is a Seoul based composer and performer of traditional Korean instruments, specialising in the daegeum and sogeum, types of ancient Korean bamboo flute that have a deep historic and cultural significance.
‘’I think the charm of wind instruments is that their sound is based on how you breathe. The stories I’ve kept in my mind I breathe into the instrument - they become music’’
On her latest album Mirror City, Dasom explores ideas of solitude and community within cities and the effects this has on inhabitants. Wishing to hold a mirror up to modern life, she uses music to express the emotions of the people living in the city.
“People have plenty of choices and the convergence of all these choices create infinite possibilities in the city. What impact have I left on my city through my choices?”
Dasom’s contemporary expression of these ancient instruments bridges the gap between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary sonic experimentation. Sparse and spacious, Mirror City layers textured ambient sounds and chopped dusty vocal patterns, all set to the rasping and rich timbres of the daegeum and sogeum.
Mirror City also features the incredible work of Minseon Choi who plays ajeang on the album; a zither with twisted silk strings that is played with a slender stick. Collectively the sogeum, daegeum and ajeang represent a part of Korean musical culture that is starting to regain more attention. With Mirror City, Dasom Baek hopes to showcase the power these heritage instruments can have in contemporary music.
As an accomplished soloist, Dasom has performed all over the world with esteemed orchestras, played international music festivals including SXSW and has received academic recognition from prominent Korean arts institutions as well as a PhD at Seoul National University.
Written by Dasom Baek.
Ajaeng by Minseon Choi.
Recorded and mixed by Sanghyun Cho.
Mastered by Brandon Hocura.
Artwork by Sukyeong Jeong.
© + ℗ 2023. Métron Records. All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting is strictly prohibited.
