Kramer is preparing to release a new LP, adding to his esteemed collection by once again exploring the ambient genre. ‘The Walk’ is due out on August 23 via Shimmy-Disc.

This time, he collaborates with the multi-talented Japanese artist Kato Hideki. Their new album, ‘The Walk,’ marks the first joint effort between these innovative composers.

‘The Walk’ offers an immersive ambient experience, blending contemporary musical creativity with the timeless art of literature. Inspired by poets Basho and Robert Walser, Hideki and Kramer craft a soundscape that serves as an auditory tribute to the art of listening, offering a fresh perspective on seeing and hearing the world. This album provides a sanctuary for the listener, evoking a journey through space and time without ever leaving home.

Today, they release the first track from the album, ‘Tranquility.’ This piece portrays a world at rest, composed of interrupted silences and entirely free of human ego, the illusion of “free will,” and everything except the sound of the void itself.

Discussing how the collaboration came to fruition, Hideki remarks, “We started working together in the late summer in 2023, discussing the thematics and the sonic palette of the album. We shared strong connections with the writings by Robert Walser and Basho – both of them walked, dreamed, lived and died on the road.” Ambient music was Hideki’s and Kramer’s natural middle ground, meeting there to breathe sonic life to literature of the poets. “I’d waited decades to find the right ‘environment’ in which to create music in dedication to this great prose writer and poet,” Kramer recalls, “and in 2023, I found that it was not ‘the right environment’ that I’d been waiting for, but rather, the right collaborator.”

‘The Walk’ evolved into an album that was not only inspired by the transformation of the art of two long-gone language artists, but by the collaborators themselves. Hideki’s initial instinct when beginning work on the LP was to create “slow yet structured music that sounds deceivingly similar to ambient music.” Says Kramer, “Kato Hideki and his extraordinary work as composer for film, dance and just about every other creative discipline you can imagine, was equally as inspiring to me for this project as the words and worlds of Walser and Basho. I’m not sure that I would even be interested in music at all, unless there were other artists to partner with as I worked.”

With equally kind words, Hideki recalls his time crafting the album: “Neither of us imagined just to make “another ambient record”, nor a direct translation of their writings. Kramer’s genius was apparent to me: his ability to elaborate the music as a composer / musician with his keen ears; to frame the album conceptually, sonically and musically as a producer.”

What you hear in this album is a true collaboration between two artists who trusted each other to let the music transcend. “This months-long act of co-creation I have shared with Kato for The Walk has made me as happy to be alive as Walser and Basho were so happy to be alive while on their walks, as evidenced by their extraordinary descriptive powers, knowing that the world around them – so simple yet so very complex – made life so wondrous, and so well worth the sometimes seemingly insurmountable struggles of finding a way to survive Today, so that we might try again Tomorrow.”

Headline photo: Jeremy Amar

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