“Intimate yet cinematic, the Japanese musician’s new two-part album exchanges her colorful pop patchwork for soft, luminous ambient music of alien beauty and human warmth. “– PITCHFORK

Tujiko Noriko is a musician, singer, songwriter and filmmaker based in France. Shortly after her demo was discovered by Peter Rehberg and Christian Fennesz in 2000, she released her debut album ‘Shojo-Toshi’ on the renowned Mego label (later Editions Mego). Tujiko has to date released over twenty critically acclaimed albums on the labels Editions Mego, FatCat, Room 40 and PAN. She has performed worldwide, including international festivals Sonar, Benicassim and Mutek. Her 2002 album ‘Hard Ni Sasete’ received an Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica. In 2017, she co-wrote and co-directed with Joji Koyama the feature length film ‘Kuro’ which premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and later streamed on Mubi. Tujiko has also written music for films, dance performances, animations and art installations – she composed the soundtrack to the 2020 film ‘Surge’, which screened at Sundance and the Berlin Film Festival, and her music was included in the exhibition ‘Audiosphere’ at Museo Reina Sofia– the first exhibition in a major contemporary art museum with no images and no objects at all. Her latest album is Crepuscule I&II, from Editions Mego (2023).

On Crépuscule one can hear the influence the film medium has had on her music as visual insignia are invoked in the evocative audio at hand. Instrumental interludes further conjure a film landscape alongside the titles which also reiterate the cinematic form.
This is synthetic music with a deep human presence. The mind of a human captured wandering the fantastic realms of the internal sphere is exquisitely rendered through machines which usually prompt one to disfigure such humanistic tendencies. The warmth, serenity and dream-like environment that Noriko conjures from her tools is what makes her such a unique and outstanding artist and Crépuscule is an epic testament to these powers.
The title Crépuscule perfectly encapsulates the somnambulant nature of the music where the nocturnal shifts evoke a broad sense of calm. Crépuscule I features a selection of shorter ‘songs’ whilst Crépuscule II allows more room for these songs / moods to breathe with only three songs running at broader longer duration. Crépuscule allows the listener to view the world through Noriko’s eyes. With her cunning ability to humanise machines a world of calm wonder is allowed to take focus in the frame.

Tujiko Noriko is available for solo set or for the Crépuscule Live AV Concert with Japanese filmmaker Joji Koyama.