“Fluid And Dreaming Of Stripes”, an album inspired by a dream and the idea of mono no aware. I dreamt of flying around the world within a tornado, with yellow, orange, and red images swirling in my mind. While I was making this record I often thought about the dream.
Mono no aware is a Japanese aesthetic. It means the awareness of impermanence, or sadness at the passing of things. To me, it means being suspended, or some kind of silence. It’s not all about contemplating and being nostalgic and romantic; to me it's about dealing with the other, living in the moment without ego. The emphasis is on the subtlety of emotions towards things, something that is not grand, not intense, nor obvious. Awareness of others, things or objects, is essential.
Selected reviews on Fluid And Dreaming Of Stripes
"Masaya Ozaki has crafted sparse beauty, allowing self-reflection to fill the negative spaces."
https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/65901/Masaya-Ozaki-Fluid-And-Dreaming-Of-Stripes/
Tristan Jones, Sputinkmusic
“Ozaki’s patience in the spacing of his sounds slows the pace of life around them; the details of “mundane” human interaction and expression, and the microcosmic parallels that occur in nature (that we seldom slow enough to pay attention to) become far more apparent with Fluid and Dreaming of Stripes as their score.”
https://www.wideanglerecordings.com/masaya-ozaki-fluid-dreaming-stripes-eilean/
Philip James de Vries, Wide Angle Recordings
“supplemental to the natural progression of the order of things there is a human-run time, a secondary stream that carries with it airs of expectation in today’s society, certain predetermined areas of turbulence as we pass through key stages of growing up and movement into the great unknown of adulthood. Fluid And Dreaming of Stripes is kind of a softly spoken “fuck you” to these requirements and expectations, one that chooses to embrace a disconnect with societal pressures and drift on its own quiet path.”
https://www.hearfeel.co.uk/2015/03/02/masaya-ozaki-fluid-dreaming-stripes-eilean-records-2015/
hearfeel
“Fluid and Dreaming of Stripes is a yearning for warmth, a gentle stretching of mental limbs, a cold and curious night witnessed on an 8mm black and white film reel.”
https://acloserlisten.com/2015/05/17/eilean-records-winterspring-2015/
A Closer Listen