Windswept Adan - 2026 European hermine Records Label 14-track 2LP Set Reissue

After creating her label, Hermine, last year to celebrate her tenth anniversary in music, Aoba released the most complex and rewarding work of her career, 2020’s Windswept Adan. While audiences in the West are only just learning she exists, her accomplishments are unquestionable; she contributed to the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, was cited by Owen Pallett as an inspiration (“I’ve never been so blindsided by a musician as I was by Ichiko Aoba”), and has collaborated with the likes of Haruomi Hosono, Cornelius (who met her only two years after she first picked up a guitar and was blown away), Ryuichi Sakamoto, and recently Mac DeMarco. Ichiko Aoba’s iconic voice and classical guitar playing are immediately recognizable, timeless sounds. Windswept Adan, envisioned as a soundtrack for a fictional film, builds its own world with sweeping co-production and arrangements from Taro Umebayashi, which “recall the Wes Anderson scores of Mark Mothersbaugh or the cinematographic swells of American composer Jherek Bischoff” (Bandcamp). It’s the story of a young girl sent to the island of Adan, a place where there are no words. While international listeners of Aoba may not understand the words she sings, and despite the central importance of lyrics in her writing, it’s a testament to the power Aoba wields that one can resonate so deeply with her work. No matter the breadth of her sonic palette, and on Adan her scope is as wide and encompassing as Joanna Newsom’s on Have One On Me, Aoba manifests an intimacy that makes one feel in the room with her.

Tracklisting.

1. Prologue 04:55
2. Pilgrimage 03:48
3. Porcelain 04:29
4. HORO 01:58
5. Easter Lily 03:16
6. Parfum d'étoiles 02:52
7. Kirinakijima 01:27
8. Sagu Palmʼs Song 03:57
9. chinuhaji 01:52
10.Red Silence 03:47
11.Hagupit 02:58
12.Dawn in the Adan 04:45
13.ohayashi 03:44
14.Luminescent Creatures 06:07