Michiko Ogawa - Pancake Moon LP
"Michiko Ogawa, a performer/composer based in Berlin and California, has released her second solo album, "Pancake Moon”.
The opening of the album’s first track, ‘ashimoto_no_uchu,’ reminded me of the moment of death or birth that repeats itself. The transparent sounds of synthesizers and pianos, the nostalgic, gritty resonance of a used Farfisa organ, and the deep overtones of the shō intertwine, evoking memories that flash by like a dying person's final moments. Eventually, light pierces the pitch-black darkness, and I felt a strange sensation of being reborn, as if my eyes were opening anew. Memories of summer, when I didn't yet know how to swim and clung to my strong mother's back for comfort. The path I walked with my father and sister, lost in time and playing in the snow. The loneliness of when my older childhood friend no longer wanted to play with me. The sense of alienation I felt throughout my school days. As I passed through an era of tender sensitivity, my body gradually strengthened its outer defences as the world expanded. The sound progresses, simultaneously revealing the past I have traversed and the countless pasts I might have chosen, moving toward an open future. As the sound begins to run, my body grows lighter and lighter, and silence returns, blurring the boundaries of my individuality. It is a space like prayer without a specific deity, a place of profound depth.
The second track, ‘shizukana_hikari,’ is a song that exudes even more warmth, creating a sense of floating in the forest, as if emerging from daily life. The sound, which transforms unpredictably yet flows with underlying coherence, accepts chaos, contradictions, and even incomprehensibility. Michiko Ogawa is also my older sister. From a young age, she imagined a world where no one was left after the end of the world and cried, and felt uneasy about dividing humans into numbers, treating them with arithmetical division. She had a straight-forward strength that transcended the boundaries between people. This became a kind of difficulty in living, and it may have brought her a versatile personal space through music, where she gained the freedom to be brave, fierce, and compassionate.
The sound of the shō she plays seems like a device that warps and expands time and space. I listen to this album on the carpet in the morning, amidst the noise outside, or curled up under a blanket before bed. The sounds recorded in the suburbs of Berlin or Joshua Tree National Park in California feel distant yet intimately personal. No matter where I am, her music connects me to the tactile fragments of memory and helps me focus on the emotions and intentions I truly want to prioritise. I felt it possessed such energy.
Just as the title suggests, it is an album like a moon floating in the darkness—gentle, filling the listener with the innocent anticipation of adventure, like countless lights spreading out at one's feet."
