is the seventh studio album by Japanese singer-songwriter Ichiko Aoba, released on 2 December 2020 by her label, Hermine. Conceived as a soundtrack for an imaginary film based on a narrative written by Aoba, the concept album follows the story of a young girl who is sent away by her family to the titular fictional island of Adan. Aoba and composer Taro Umebayashi wrote, composed, arranged, and produced the music for the album throughout 2020. Initial development began in January, while recording and mastering sessions were held from July to October. The album was preceded by one single, "Porcelain", which was released on 30 October 2020.
Windswept Adan is a folk baroque and psychedelic folk album with elements of jazz, classical, and ambient music. It marks a departure from Aoba's earlier minimalist instrumentation, drawing inspiration from diverse music traditions and featuring a variety of instruments and sounds, including a celesta, wind chimes, string arrangements, and field recordings taken by Aoba during her trips to the Ryukyu Islands. The album includes instrumental, a cappella, and vocal performances, some of which contain only non-lyrical vocalizations.
Windswept Adan received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its arrangements, instrumentation, and worldbuilding. Upon its release, the album debuted at number 82 on the Billboard Japan Hot Albums chart and number 88 on the Oricon Albums Chart. It was promoted in Japan with concerts and alternate versions, including a live album and a three-track single with acoustic renditions of selected songs. It received an international vinyl release on 19 November 2021, the first time one of Aoba's albums was reissued outside of Japan. To further support the album in global markets, Aoba embarked on her first international tour, performing in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and North America between August and October 2022.
Background After the release of her debut album in 2010, Ichiko Aoba had built an audience in her native Japan, but her work remained obscure abroad.; . However, following the release of her sixth studio album, Qp, in 2018, Aoba began drawing attention from international listeners and media outlets. Qp was received positively by both critics and listeners outside of Japan and was ranked among the top albums of 2018 on the online music community Rate Your Music.; . The album's popularity brought new listeners to Aoba's previous releases, leading her 2013 album 0 to be retroactively ranked as the top album of its year on Rate Your Music.; . On 10 January 2020, Aoba announced the establishment of her record label, Hermine, alongside the release of two songs titled and "Bouquet" as a double A-side single.
Development Writing
Aoba first conceptualized Windswept Adan as a story while on a trip to the islands of Okinawa, Zamami, and Kudaka with photographer Kodai Kobayashi in January 2020.; . The title originated from a conversation between Aoba and Kobayashi during a drive on Zamami, in which Kobayashi noted the Pandanus tectorius trees on the island. Aoba stated that the story for the album came to her in an epiphany she had at an izakaya in Naha; after noticing the translucency of a sea grape, she wrote the sentence "there were no words on the island" in her notebook, and soon began outlining a plot.; ; . Between March and September 2020, Aoba made several subsequent trips to the Ryukyu Islands, visiting Amami Ōshima, Kakeroma, and Ishigaki. She researched various aspects of Ryukyuan culture and history, including festivals held on remote islands; the noro and yuta figures of Ryukyuan religion; the region's geography, demographics, weather, and marine life; and the topics of plant breeding and plankton.; . Aoba completed the final draft for the story of Windswept Adan in October 2020, during the album's mastering stage. A companion book containing Aoba's writings, sketches, and photographs was released to supplement the album.; .
The narrative follows a young girl with prophetic powers from a village of inbred families on the fictional remote island of Kirinaki, who is exiled by her family to the island Adan to preserve her bloodline while preventing her from participating in intermarriage.; ; : "From an early age, the girl was able to foresee the weather, predict the fate of crops, and even foretell the births and deaths of her fellow villagers. The people grew to fear her, and eventually she was exiled from the village by her own family. She was placed in a small, wooden boat and told to sail far away to 'Adan Island' and to never, ever return." Aoba depicts the imaginary Adan as flourishing with diverse plant and animal life (such as Risso's dolphins, bougainvillea, and Easter lilies) and inhabited by creatures of an unspecified species that communicate using seashells in place of a spoken language.; : "In place of a spoken language, the island's inhabitants communicated by giving seashells to one another ... Bougainvillea danced with the sun as a pod of Risso's dolphins leapt through the shore break ... The bluff wore a beautiful cape of Easter Lilies." The creatures of Adan celebrate the girl's arrival with a festival, and soon after die due to their brief lifespans.: "The creatures worked at twilight, creating endless blessings - for the life they were given, for the girl who came to them, for the rain that falls on the island, and for the wind that blows on the headland ... The creatures' life cycle is quite short. Some of them born in the morning were lifeless by evening." After falling asleep under a tree and awakening to a group of creatures rising into the air, the girl also dies and is reincarnated as a number of different life forms.: "The girl and the creatures fell asleep under the adan tree on the beach ... a group of creatures rise up into the air, becoming a flaming tornado in the morning light. The tornado of fire gradually moves ... Her heart, beating. Beating until it stops beating ... Only the body of the girl had vanished instead, transformed and reborn into a variety of living things."
Production
All of the lyrics on Windswept Adan were written by Aoba, while composition, arrangement, and production were largely handled by Aoba and composer Taro Umebayashi, with whom she had previously collaborated on "Amuletum".; ; . According to Aoba, the album began development during her first trip to Okinawa in January 2020; a snippet of the track "Pilgrimage" was the first demo that she received from Umebayashi.; . Recording sessions began in July, and the final mastering stage ended in mid-October. Aoba described the production process as unconventional, with composing, recording, and mixing being done concurrently rather than sequentially. She likened the experience to working on a ship:
Contrary to Aoba's earlier works, which had been characterized by their minimalist guitar and vocal arrangements, Windswept Adan features an array of different instruments, including woodwind, keyboard, and string instruments.; . Aoba and Umebayashi enlisted the help of several musicians, including flautist , percussionist Manami Kakudo, and the string quintet Phonolite Strings, for accompaniment on the album.; . Windswept Adan also contains samples of field recordings taken by Aoba at various locations around Amami Ōshima.
While composing for Windswept Adan, Umebayashi worked closely with Aoba as she wrote her story. He recorded demos inspired by Aoba's ideas, which she periodically shared with him as the plot developed; the demos would then shape the direction of Aoba's subsequent writing.; ; . Umebayashi sought to reflect the mythological themes and the setting of Aoba's narrative in the sound of the album, as well as create an intentionally vague impression of the music's cultural origin. On the song "Easter Lily", he plays the celesta, an instrument he believed suited Aoba's vocals and the atmosphere of the story; a prepared piano with a felt covering was featured in the recording of "Parfum d'étoiles" for the same reason. For the song "Pilgrimage", he used the charango, a lute-like instrument traditionally used in South America, to create a foreign feeling for the track. According to Umebayashi, the song "Porcelain" includes a single electric guitar in order to "incorporate the idea of expressing color"; during its production, he examined photos that Kobayashi had sent to him and contemplated which sounds best matched the colors in the images. He also consulted Aoba to determine how the instruments should be played on the track and focused on ensuring that its dynamic level was appropriate for her vocals. Both Umebayashi and Aoba have said that they were inspired by musical traditions and cultures from around the world while writing and composing for Windswept Adan, adapting scales from Ryukyuan music and experimenting with sounds from shima-uta and Bulgarian folk music, particularly the style of the Bulgarian Voices.; .
Composition Windswept Adan is a concept album inspired by Aoba's narrative;; . she has described it as the soundtrack to a fictional film.; ; . Critics have generally labeled the album as chamber folk. and psychedelic folk,; . but some have also described it as including elements from jazz, classical, and ambient music.; . Some reviewers have stated that Windswept Adan represents a stylistic departure from the minimalist instrumentation featured on Aoba's earlier projects, such as Qp.; . Its atmosphere has often been called "ghostly"; . and "serene".
Critics have made comparisons between Windswept Adan and the works of artists across various musical genres, ranging from art pop to contemporary classical. The album's composition has commonly been analogized to those by composers Erik Satie and Philip Glass.Reviewers who have compared the album or its tracks to the works of Satie include:
Reviewers who have compared the album or its tracks to the works of Glass include:
David Honigmann of the Financial Times deemed it a successor to Akiko Yano's 1982 album and likened the songs "Horo" and "Ohayashi" to the works of Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Steve Reich, respectively. The Observer Emily Mackay noted similarities to the music of Nick Drake, Joanna Newsom, and Isobel Campbell's The Gentle Waves project. Brendan Mattox of Bandcamp Daily compared the album's arrangements to Mark Mothersbaugh's scores for the films of Wes Anderson and the works of composer Jherek Bischoff. Other artists whose works have been compared to Windswept Adan include Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Astrud Gilberto, and Kate Bush.; .
Songs