Piana
Ephemeral

"By now I can't even easily remember Naoko's face (...) Of course, with a bit of time, I can recall her face. But first her small cold hands appear, her beautiful smooth hair so light to the touch, her soft and round earlobes with a small mole underneath, the elegant camel coat she often wore in winter, her way of asking a question while always looking the other straight in the eyes, the voice that sometimes trembled for some reason. And only if I put these images together, one by one, then her face naturally appears to me in a breeze. (...)However, it takes a bit of time to conjure Naoko's face this way. And as the years go by, the time grows longer. It's sad but it is so. While before, it took me five seconds to remember her, the five seconds became ten, then thirty, then a minute. The time stretched little by little, like shadows lengthening at sunset. And I wonder if at this rate her face will eventually be swallowed by the darkness."

"Ephemeral" is the second album by Piana aka Naoko Sasaki, a Japanese from Morioka, previously the voice of World's End Girlfriend, following her debut album "Snow Bird".

Naoko shows us all the sensitivity and delicacy, and perhaps even the movements of a young oriental woman looking westward with a shy and dreamy gaze, demonstrating a great mastery in writing and arranging music halfway between glitch-pop and ambient.

Piana is the vehicle that brings peace, her fragile and enchanting melodies are surrounded by digital errors, leading the mind towards distant and nearby landscapes but always vast and immersed in a sly and sensual quietude, recalling the sounds of Sigur Ros and Cocteau Twins, east and west merge, past and present are revealed, a perfect synthesis of electronic and acoustic, an abstract poetry, a floral and fragile landscape, emotional and iridescent inspired by Haruki Murakami, Naoko's voice floats in a sea of love and mystery.

"Something is lost", Naoko introduces the listener to a white landscape with a very strong light, the pink sky lets red petals fall that fill the view, the timid and dripping melody serves as a backdrop to choirs that accompany the voice, "Early in summer", strings prevail over lazy and discreet percussion leaving the forefront to the honeyed voice, creating an ensemble that leaves one breathless, "Beside me", evokes the sound of Mùm, the spaces are still very open but this time green, the sensation is one of absolute peace, almost like observing the world from a different, detached position, the lightness is absolute, the possibility to observe oneself from the outside seems almost concrete, "Mother's love", guitar and piano shoot an arrow to the heart, the notes fall like drops of water in a puddle generating splashes that travel in all directions, as if they were thoughts of love.

"Ephemeral" is a slow and emotional album, an ephemeral pleasure that can last the moment of a note or extend for all its 40:21 minutes, as if it were a flower expressing all its beauty in the span of a day, only to die leaving a splendid memory, its color and its fragrance.

"I spent the spring of my eighteenth year feeling that lump of air inside me. But at the same time, I tried not to take it too seriously, because I vaguely sensed that taking things seriously doesn't always mean getting closer to the truth. I kept moving in that agonizing antithesis, in an endless vicious circle. Looking back, they were really strange days. In the midst of life, everything revolved around death."

Recommended to anyone seeking peace, because peace is the premise of any happy life...