Today, Toronto-based songwriter, guitarist, and poet Hiroki Tanaka returns with his sophomore album Isan, released via Errant Records.
Isan—which translates to “inheritance”—marks a notable shift from the intimate, emotional folk of Kaigo Kioku Kyoku.
Here, Tanaka expands his sonic palette, weaving together elements of garage rock, synth-pop, ambient drone, and psych-folk.
The result is a more textured and exploratory record, one that feels both restless and reflective, as it navigates themes of memory, legacy, and transformation.
About the album by Hiroki:
“To explore my complex heritage as a descendant of Christian missionaries, I felt compelled to write songs that took the melodic, harmonic, and thematic material from hymns in a Japanese hymnbook I inherited from my grandparents.
As an atheist, I wanted to explore biblical themes from a more scholarly and secular perspective.
Much like how Michael Ondaatje based In the Skin of a Lion off of the Epic of Gilgamesh, I researched the hymns, proverbs, and passages in The Bible, and used that as a launchpad for my own songwriting.”
“I wanted to use these songs to explore all the unconscious beliefs that I had inherited through my religious and multicultural upbringing.
I would argue that the ideology of Christianity is woven into the language and systems of Western society, and I believe we cannot ‘unbind’ ourselves from those structures without engaging with them consciously first.
I also feel that my Japanese-Canadian identity contributed to my outsider identity and feeling that I don’t belong in any particular space.
With Isan, I am trying to create a world of my own.”
Isan was also made as a deliberate act of community.
Tanaka recorded with Japanese diaspora musicians throughout, including Japanese-Canadian artists Teiya Kasahara (known for their work with Jeremy Dutcher), Brian Kobayakawa (Serena Ryder), and Annie Sumi, as well as Japanese-American Paul Wiancko of the Kronos Quartet. — Hiroki Tanaka
Isan gets: 📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷/10.
Hiroki Tanaka – Isan [Streaming]
