Akira Kosemura: Diary 2020-2022
Schole Records

Akira Kosemura's second volume of archival works testifies to the Japanese composer's inexhaustible creativity. Since making his recording debut in 2007, Kosemura has produced a prodigious amount of work, not only solo recordings but scores for video games, television, and movies. It's safe to presume that the nineteen pieces featured on Diary 2020-2022 are but a sampling of the total amount of material he created over that span. It's a Kosemura project full stop, as it was composed, arranged, produced, and performed by him. One comes away from the release amazed at the seeming effortlessness with which music emerges whenever this entirely self-taught artist places himself in front of a keyboard.

That the pieces have been issued under the title Diary 2020-2022 might suggest they're sketches or private bemusements as opposed to material fully-formed and designed for public consumption. True to form, each piece is polished, some solo piano settings and others more elaborately arranged to feature strings and other instruments. The release includes music he created for Hirokazu Kore-eda's documentary The Center Lane, film material he made for projects by directors Naomi Kawase and Tomokazu Yamada, and music created for the Chinese television series Season Diary, whose production was halted because of the pandemic. Appearing with Kosemura on the forty-eight-minute release are six violin, viola, and cello players, two clarinetists, and Jun Futamata, who's credited as “Chorus.” Adding to the release's value, almost all of the pieces are making their recording debut.

The set begins, in fact, with six selections from The Center Lane before moving onto six others and then seven Season Diary settings. The main title music from the documentary introduces the collection with a prototypical Kosemura expression, his radiantly chiming piano augmented (briefly) by strings, before “Stuck” presents a slightly different side when electronics subliminally accompany reverb-heavy piano. A more symphonic approach is adopted for “My Biggest Enemy” as well as for the even more grandiose “Swimming Again.” Intimate by comparison is “Change Destiny” for its focus on solo piano and an at first tender and then triumphant expression. One could mistake the soundtrack's “I'm Alive” for a composition by Joe Hisaishi when the writing so vividly evokes Kosemura's colleague.

Entering the set's middle section, “Reve” captures Kosemura's gift for tone painting when programmed, beat boxing-like beats and shimmering electronics build on singing piano melodies. The composer's capacity for poignant expression is exemplified in gently lyrical solo piano settings such as “Life is Friendship” and “Kawakami.” There's no shortage of prettiness on offer, be it the arpeggiated sparkle of “Miwa No Sato,” which incrementally swells to a spectacular swoon-inducing lilt, or the symphonic “Provence,” its dramatic presentation bolstered by percussion and strings.

As mentioned, the album's final third's dedicated to the diary pieces, each a succinct, lustrous meditation that largely sees acoustic piano sweetened with strings or electronic textures. In some, the keyboard's more elaborately enhanced than others without straying too far from the shared concept. In featuring strings only, “Day 3” exudes a particularly plaintive quality. Piano joins the strings to give the fourth day's expression a distinctively haunting character. In contrast to its solemnity, the fifth in the series radiates optimism and uplift in its solo piano declamations. Deviating from the sonic template used elsewhere, the pulsating "Day 6” features an arrangement comprised wholly of synthesizers and electronics. The serenity of the seventh day's expression makes for a fitting close to this wide-ranging “diary.”

August 2026