Ichiko Aoba has the power to bend space around her, pulling listeners from reality and surrounding them in the comforting fabric of her imagination. She’s been casting these spells since her debut at 19 years old, making picturesque dioramas with only her voice and guitar. But in recent years, she’s turned a corner and let a new process take hold. The Japanese singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist tapped into the full breadth of her ability, marrying the classical guitar of her earlier work with lofty orchestral sweeps. She went big with Windswept Adan (2020), crafting a story about her deepening bond with nature. Collaborating closely with arranger Taro Umebayashi and creative director Kodai Kobayashi, the three of them freely shared ideas—both aural and visual—crystallizing a collective vision. The universe of Windswept Adan was so vast that it also included the script for an imaginary movie, drawings by Ichiko, and stunning photos by Kobayashi. For her new album, Luminescent Creatures, she opens an even wider portal into her mind.

Ichiko’s ambitions kept growing, and the world took notice. She was well known in Japan—collaborating with artists like Haruomi Hosono, Cornelius, and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto—but Windswept Adan connected her with an international audience. She earned the adoration of fellow musicians abroad, collaborating with and playing alongside artists like Japanese Breakfast, Mac DeMarco, Owen Pallett, Pomme, Weyes Blood, and Black Country New Road as her profile continued to grow. Western publications like Pitchfork and The Needle Drop started paying attention, though the real driving force behind her ascent is her naturally captivating presence.

Her Instagram reels, sometimes snippets from shows and sometimes private concerts from her home, attract hundreds of thousands of viewers. Fans create TikToks using her songs as the backdrop to scenes from their lives, letting her music be their soundtrack in the moments they choose to be vulnerable. And no matter where she performs—whether it’s an intimate venue, a huge festival like Big Ears, or Walt Disney Concert Hall—the entire room looks on in stunned silence, hanging on every breath. She sings in Japanese, but her delicate voice operates on an emotional frequency that pierces through language barriers and cultural divides.

As Ichiko’s star continues to rise, she’s committed to being her truest self. Along with her creative partners Umebayashi and Kobayashi, she’s returned to the recesses of her reverie for her latest project. Her compositions have become more grand, her songwriting more refined, and she’s preparing for her largest world tour to date—yet her ability to make listeners feel like they’re inside in a private cosmos alongside her remains as strong as ever.

“This album, Luminescent Creatures, was born from Windswept Adan,” Ichiko says. “It began when I started wondering what happened after the protagonist of Windswept Adan disappeared along with the music of the island’s inhabitants. What would be left?” The album’s title makes the link clear, bearing the name of the closing track from her previous record. She pushes the envelope further, exploring themes of connection through musings about the origin of life with dreamy musical vistas.

While visiting Japan’s Ryukyu Archipelago and conducting field research, she was enamored by the boundless beauty—and occasional terror—of the ocean. She’d go diving with only the breath in her lungs, submitting herself to the whims of the tides. “I feel unable to resist the pull of the ocean,” Ichiko says, “and know how easy it would be for my small body to be swallowed by the sea.” That contradiction, gentleness and power, instilled a sense of awe that is expressed in the soundscapes of Luminescent Creatures. The flurry of strings on “COLORATURA” bring to mind choppy waters, whereas the warbling electronics of “pirsomnia” paint a moment of calm. “When I’m surrounded by the timbre of the ocean, I feel like I’ve come home”

As she kept visiting the islands over months and years, it became something like an environmental survey. She started to notice the shape of coral reefs shifting over time, how they can be affected by the weather, and the way even remote locations can be battered by climate change. She attuned to her natural surroundings, letting her fantasies guide her as she pondered the transformations of eons past. When did life begin? How did it look before humans existed? How might these primordial creatures have learned to communicate in the brutal environment of the deep blue? Those daydreams transformed into music.

With “Luciférine,” Ichiko introduces her central theory: bioluminescence. Lush strings and twinkling piano ripple like sunbeams on lapping waves, cutting through the dark expanse of the briny deep. “Inside each of us,” she sings, “there is a place for our stars to sleep.” It conjures an image of creatures pouring off light like celestial bodies, lighting a path to close the distance between galaxies. On “SONAR,” she ruminates on other ways to bridge the divide. “Beyond the darkness,” she calls out, “a glimmer of somebody’s voyce”—her own voice low in the mix as if suppressed by insurmountable depths. An echo of her voice creeps in, reverberating like the graceful song of a marine mammal trying to find its friends. Even with the most rudimentary senses, we find ways to one another.

Ichiko also ruminates on explicitly human connection. She sings a folk tune from Japan’s southernmost Hateruma island on “24° 03′ 27.0″ N, 123° 47′ 7.5″ E,” which she learned by communion with the local community, participating in their traditional ceremonies. “Feeling a song that has been sung for centuries flow through me truly fills me with happiness,” she says. “It’s like people who have long since gone are flowing through my body on the wave of this music.” The title comes from the coordinates of the island’s lighthouse, a reminder that even people send out photons to make contact when we’re adrift.

Luminescent Creatures is about making meaningful connections against impossible odds. The sea is immense and ancient, mirroring the harsh conditions that life sprang forth from—but it is also reminiscent, housing a deep record of fossils that once swam through its waters and recollections of how we’ve treated our planet. “When I stare into the seemingly bottomless black depths of a trench,” Ichiko reflects. “I occasionally see the blinking light of some rainbow-colored lifeform.” That organism may not speak any language known to man, but in that moment it managed to communicate in a universal way. “My beloved Luminescent Creatures.”

Bio by Shy Thompson