YUMI ITO — Ysla
EN Presstexts

One-liner:

Ysla (release: 14/04/2023 via enja records), the new album by Yumi Ito marks a new peak in the opus of the Swiss-Polish-Japanese singer: personal stories, impressive improvisations and a unique voice - like an island, proud, stoic and strong in the middle of the ocean between Art-Pop, Jazz and Neoclassic.

Short text:

The new album "Ysla" by Yumi Ito has become a true tidal current of personal stories, impressive improvisations, and the unique voice of the Swiss-Polish-Japanese singer, composer, and improviser. Musically, the work moves between art-pop, jazz, and neoclassical; thematically, it deals with loneliness & separation, the world ending, and rebirth. In deep self-reflections, Ito has developed her vocal improvisation into a kind of "universal" language that can be understood anywhere. Beside that, for the first time she recorded all piano parts herself, complemented by Kuba Dworak on double bass and Iago Fernández on drums. In addition, there are illustrious guests like Chris Hyson (synths; Jordan Rakei, The Magic Lantern, Snowpoet) and Szymon Mika (g), with whom Yumi Ito also plays in a duo. Mixing & mastering of the seven original compositions was done by sound engineer Daniel Dettwiler at Studio Idee und Klang, using the same mixing console that Queen and Supertramp already used. For all  these reasons, "Ysla" (release: 14/04/2023 via enja records) isn’t simply Yumi Ito’s  fifth album under her own name, but marks a new peak in her opus.

Long text:

A journey through the endless expanses of the sea to a magnificent island: this image appears in the mind’s eye when "Ysla" is spinning on the record player. The new album by Yumi Ito has become a true tidal current of personal stories, impressive improvisations, and the unique voice of the Swiss-Polish-Japanese singer, composer, and improviser.

In recent years, I’ve worked on new music in Iceland, Galicia (Cies) and Greece (Milos), which - like my father's country of origin, Japan - are all islands. Traveling there has generated distance and time to get to know myself better.  

Yumi Ito

"Ysla", from the Old Portuguese for "island", deals with the themes of loneliness & separation, the world ending, and rebirth, linked with metaphors from nature, psychology, and sociology, as well as current contemporary history. The seven original compositions are closely connected to Yumi Ito's personhood and tell of her path of reflection and self-discovery. In this process, Ito has also developed her vocal improvisation into a "universal" language that can be understood anywhere: She uses it in a highly conscious, virtuoso, and incredibly powerful way, improvising with apparent effortlessness across genres, keys, and rhythms of all kinds - like a Zen master in harmony with her surroundings. 

The times on the islands and during the pandemic have made me reflect intensely. One realization has been that when I improvise and scat, I can connect with people across nationalities and borders in my own wordless language - much like traveling - and thus be at home anywhere.

Yumi Ito

Moreover, Ito recorded all the piano parts herself for the first time, and impressively so: when the often complex piano patterns ring out and the musician sings over them in a completely detached way, a world is conjured up in no time at all. She is complemented by Kuba Dworak on double bass and Iago Fernández on drums, both of whom already formed the rhythm section of the Yumi Ito Orchestra. Effortlessly, this trio maneuvers through a veritable genre ocean of ambient sounds, mystical grooves, and soulful parts between art-pop, jazz, and neoclassical. Among those on board: illustrious guests like Chris Hyson (synths; Jordan Rakei, The Magic Lantern, Snowpoet) and Szymon Mika (g), with whom Yumi Ito also plays in a duo. Mix & mastering was done by sound engineer Daniel Dettwiler at Studio Idee und Klang, using the same mixing console that Queen and Supertramp already used. For all these reasons, "Ysla" (release: 14/04/2023 via enja records) isn’t simply Yumi Ito’s fifth album under her own name, but marks a new peak in her opus. Profound and immensely fresh - like an island: proud, stoic, and strong amidst the powerful waves of the ocean.

Yumi Ito - bio

With her voice, Yumi Ito creates worlds far beyond all borders. The Swiss singer with Polish-Japanese roots is considered one of the most outstanding representatives of vocal improvisation, and effortlessly operates between genres as well as her roles as a singer, pianist, composer, and improviser. Consequently, Ito's own music is diverse, a veritable ocean of art-pop, jazz, and neoclassical. Based on countless concerts and tours, the musician acts within it like a Zen master - clear, reflective, and with a uniquely powerful energy. SWR2 Jazz subsequently named her one of the vocal discoveries of 2020, and Jazz thing as well as Bandcamp selected her album Stardust Crystals as one of the best releases of 2020. Yumi Ito performs solo or in a trio, which includes the Spanish "drum poet" Iago Fernández and the Polish bassist Kuba Dworak. Always in focus: the creation of musical worlds in the name of boundlessness.

Yumi Ito has performed at the Blue Note Jazz Festival in New York (US), Montreux Jazz Festival (CH), Jazzmandu Festival (NP), Jazz Juniors Kraków (PL), Nigran Jazz Festival (ES), Vejer Jazz Festival (ES), Schaffhauser Jazz Festival (CH), Jazz Festival Basel offbeat (CH) and many others. 

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Singles

Is It You (25.11.2022)

"Is It You" is the first single from Yumi Ito's new album "Ysla" and deals with a broken relationship. It brings up the associated feelings of guilt in view of possible injuries, as well as self-confrontation and self-forgiveness. These two contrasts also meet on a musical level: after an opening full of longing, featuring a striking cello figure, halfway through the song it shifts into a driving groove, driven by Ito's piano playing, who for the first time has recorded all the piano parts on an album herself. All these elements make it clear that nothing is eternal, as much as it may seem so - which is precisely why it is a powerful realization of the continuously new.

Rebirth (06.01.2023)

When the gray of winter is at its height, the yearning for the rebirth of spring and its colors is at its strongest: Yumi Ito uses this metaphor to describe the desire for sun and warmth on her single "Rebirth," especially in times of the Corona pandemic. The balladic piece impressively illustrates how the child carves out its path to life: at first delicate and slow, the mood of the song rises more and more until the explosion of birth, which results in the delicate first breaths of life. "Rebirth" is part of Yumi Ito's new album "Ysla", which will be released on 14/04/23 via enja records.

Drama Queen (10.02.2023)

This song was written in the historic Jensens Hus, one of the oldest buildings in Iceland, where Yumi Ito worked on the music for her new album "Ysla" (release: 14/04/23 via enja records). Since there were no keyboard instruments there, only an old guitar, this is what she used to work on the song and its 13/8 time signature. In the studio, Polish musician Szymon Mika, with whom Yumi Ito has been performing as a duo for years, recorded the guitar parts. Shrouded in a failed relationship, the thematic core describes how former lovers often wear a mask of acceptance and hide behind it, despite the pain of the break-up. At the same time, the song also stands for strength, for breaking free from the shackles of thought - or: the transformation from victim to queen.

Love Is Here to Stay (17.03.2023)

If one composition on Yumi Ito's new album "Ysla" (release: 14/04/23 via enja records) stands as a multi-layered document of time, it's "Love Is Here To Stay": the song deals with the forced separation of the musician and her partner during pandemic times - while he was stuck in Spain, she was in Switzerland, and neither could see each other for about four months. This period of constant uncertainty is linked in the lyrics to the war trauma of Ito's Polish great-grandparents: Her great-grandfather was interned in a Siberian labor camp for about ten years, while her great-grandmother had to live on in Poland without knowledge about his condition. One the one hand, the modern synthesizer sounds by Chris Hyson (Jordan Rakei, The Magic Lantern, Snowpoet) as well as the use of the ancient theorbo stand for future and past; on the other hand, they express the overcoming of both separation stories, which meet again in the present on Yumi Ito's new work.