Stardust Crystalsis the adventurous new large-ensemble album from Swiss-based Polish-Japanese singer-songwriter Yumi Ito.
Recorded in cooperation with Swiss Radio SRF Kultur, the 11-piece ensemble (representing musicians from eight different countries), adds colour, layers and a rich texture to these delicate and highly original songs.
But it’s not just nations that Yumi brings together in this project; the music traverses neo-classicalart-pop, references progressive electronica and gives a special twist to that classical jazz sound.
Aptly described by Jazzthing Magazine as an impressionist chamber orchestra flirting with Nordic pop, the eight original songs on the album could well have been taken from the pages of her diary.
Written over the course of two years, after winning the Montreux Jazz Vocal Competition, fragments of melodies and glimpses of lyrics were lovingly pieced together whenever inspiration – or tragedy – struck.
A friend breaks under the pressures of life and is confined to a mental institution… An unfamiliar neighbour dies of a heroin overdose… Absinthe transmutes the streets of Prague into a Kafka-esque maze…
In the grand scheme of things we are just Stardust Crystals! ~ Yumi Ito