Some musicians just make more sense in the spring. Every year, I spend the first week of warm weather dusting off the ol’ Bluetooth speaker and trot down to Clark Park to enjoy that class of musicians that just makes more sense in the spring – Animal Collective, The Strokes, Fishmans, and of course, Cornelius, the Japanese pop-rock-electronic-everything musician who finds his way onto my sunbathing-playlist every year.
This year, I’ll be jamming his newest single, “Sketch for Spring,” an aptly-titled piece that seems to sway in the wind as you listen to it. Like most of his recent output, it’s an understated track, consisting mainly of a mellow detuned guitar and a slow 808 drum machine pattern; it’s a far cry from the cartoonish glee of his cult-classic 1998 record Fantasma, but some twenty-five years into his career, the change is more than welcome.
Composed to serve as “the background music in the tube of PARCO, a cultural complex in Shibuya,” the new track will feature on Cornelius’ newest album Ethereal Essence, which comes out June 26th through Warner Music Japan. The album will feature Cornelius’ remix of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Thatness and Thereness,” which appeared on a 2022 tribute to the late Japanese composer’s work. You can stream “Sketch for Spring” below.