Akira Kosemura’s Polaroid Piano may be 15 years old now, but its gentle, warming soundworld sounds as fresh and inviting as ever. Each of these 12 pieces captures a momentary glimpse, like a series of small, fleeting memories cast into sonic glass. Using field recordings from Lawrence English as jumping-off points, Kosemura’s pieces produce this specific combination of chance and immediacy, capturing that specificity of feeling polaroids evoke. Intimacy threads through this album in the delicate swishes of Kosemura’s clothing and the soft hum of the room. It’s so impossibly tender, buoyed by ageless melodies pulled from the air. Combining this sentimentality with a soft, straightforward approach blurs the edges of this music like time obscures our memories. Polaroid Piano, after all this time, is essential in its sincerity, resonating within long after it fades back into space.
The 15th anniversary edition of Polaroid Piano will be released on April 4 by Room 40. Grab the edition HERE. Akira Kosemura’s website can be found HERE.
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What are your earliest memories of sound? What did music mean to you as a child growing up in Tokyo?
I’m not remembering well, but I remember that I woke up with the sound of a chicken crowing when I was in my elementary school days, because I lived nearby. When I was a child, I often went to the movie theater with the family, and the American film music was very powerful, influencing to my musical experiences at a young age.
You’ve described music-making as therapy during a difficult period in your early twenties. Can you tell me about what drew you to the piano specifically during that time, and what it offered that other instruments or forms of expression couldn’t?
I can only play the piano. I was in a hardcore band in high school, but I was a vocalist, so I could not play the instruments. I learned classical piano since I was three, so the piano is the closest instrument in my life, and it’s still not changed. During the difficult time, I always listened to the sounds of the environment and walked around the park with my handy recorder. The field recordings healed me then, and they inspired me to edit them. I just put small musical harmonies with the piano or synthesizer, which was enough to me.
Polaroid Piano captured something that became foundational for what’s now called felt piano music. When you were recording these pieces fifteen years ago, were you conscious of creating something new, or were you simply following your instincts toward intimacy and proximity?
I just recorded my 30-minute improvisations with the felt piano at home. I did not know it would become a very important record for my career then. I often used the felt since I was a child, and its sounds are very intimate for me, so it already existed in my life then. My house was along the road, so the noises are included in the record with my piano sounds, but I recognized that it was not bad for my music. After that, I mixed several sounds of the instruments (or instrumental mechanical noises) and some field recordings because I thought it should be. The album is too intimate and sounds like my closest space. I was a little afraid to release it. It was very far from the usual musical albums at the record store…
The album includes so much environmental presence (sirens, birds, the rustle of your clothing folding into the recordings). Were these intrusions you welcomed, or did they become part of the work through acceptance rather than intention?
Both. I welcome all noises and try to capture the music and sounds around the music. That’s the theme of this album, Polaroid Piano should capture the moments of the piano, and actually, the music is always in the noises, so I just followed the concept of this album.
Lawrence mentions he shared field recordings with you as prompts for some of these compositions. How did working with someone else’s captured environments inform or shape your own relationship to the spaces you were recording in?
His field recordings are very beautiful. I still remember the feelings when I listened to them for the first time. I felt that they were very familiar to my life, but also mysterious at the same time, because I could not recognize the sounds visually. It’s like a dream, as if I knew the place, but I had never been there. So I used them in my recordings to make this record more dreamlike.
You’ve talked about carrying an audio recorder to capture soundscapes that would later inspire your piano work. What draws you to a particular sound in the moment? How do you know when something you’re hearing wants to become music?
I always like to listen to the environmental sounds. I believe that the natural sounds are more beautiful than any music people create. Those field recording sounds make me calm and meditative, that’s enough to me. But sometimes, I find the space to put my notes in. I’m not sure what the cause of it is, but when I find it, I try to put my notes in, and it sounds more musical. We usually hear the environmental sounds surrounding us, but the recorded files are stereo, so it’s something different for me to listen to, and that inspires me to create.
When you’re composing, are you hearing the piano as separate from its environment, or has your field recording practice trained you to hear everything as one continuous sound?
It depends on what I want to make. I usually record my piano in my studio with my old upright piano (I have played it since I was 5 years old), and sometimes birds sing outside or insects too, so I stop recording when their sounds are louder. I love to listen to them, but when I focus on the piano sounds more carefully, I quit doing it. But Polaroid Piano was the project where I welcomed capturing all those sounds with the piano. Usually, the pianist does not like to include the other sounds of the piano, but for me, I know that it makes the music more special. I also love the mechanical piano noises. I love to find the noises from the piano, it’s really something for me.
Polaroid Piano celebrates the piano as a physical, resonating body rather than just a melodic tool. What’s your physical relationship to the instrument? How do you experience the piano beyond the keys?
My piano is in my hands. People move their hands without thinking; that’s the same for me when I play the piano. I don’t think to play the piano. My hands play the piano without thinking. I just choose the phrases or chords when I hear them and note them. At the first point, sometimes I imagine the specific visuals or inspirations, but when I play the piano, I don’t think, and I just let my hands play.
You’ve described music-making as being like breathing for you now, an extension of everyday life. How has your relationship to composition changed over these fifteen years since Polaroid Piano?
It hasn’t changed. All music comes to me as it likes when I face my piano or synthesizer. I will not be able to forget how it works in my mind, forever. I’m a professional film composer now, so I became good at making the music for specific scenes as needed, but the choices matter more than composing in this work. So, the relationship to composition has not changed since I started composing in 2005.
This anniversary edition includes bonus material and a full remaster. When you returned to these recordings, what did you hear that you hadn’t noticed before? What stayed true?
When I listened to this album on the record player, it sounded perfect for this music. It makes me go back to 2009, during the time of recording, and all the memories from back then. I’m sure that this album was completed perfectly now. I’m so grateful to Lawrence for making it happen. In 2009, I didn’t believe that this album would become such an important one for my life, but now I believe that this is how it should be.
And to close, as always, what are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
Rain.
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