Bon Odori began, improbably and exquisitely, in Portland on Valentine’s Day. Patrick Shiroishi was on tour with his duo Oort Smog, playing a sparsely attended show after a long run of dates. Randall Taylor was there, already familiar with Shiroishi’s work from afar, including albums like Hidemi and Evergreen, music known for balancing raw alto sax physicality with spiritual attention. Shiroishi, in turn, knew audio and video artist Taylor’s solo work as Amulets, whose deeply intense ambient albums Not Around But Through and Blooming are built from tape loops, treated guitar, layered voice and slowly shifting texture. The two talked after the show, shooting the shit, trading mutual admiration and discovering an easy chemistry that felt immediate.
As Shiroishi loaded gear at the end of the night, Taylor decided not to overthink it. “I yelled at you while you were loading gear out,” he recalled during a recent conversation. “I was like, ‘Patrick, you want to make a record together?’ And you were like, ‘Yeah dog.’ And that was it. Sometimes you’ve just got to yell what you want at a person you just met.” What might have been a throwaway exchange hardened almost immediately into something real.
Called Kimyō, the record came together quickly and almost entirely at a distance. Over a brief period in early 2025, Shiroishi and Taylor traded sounds, fragments and half-formed ideas back and forth, often turning material around the same day. “All the recording took place more or less two or three weeks in January,” Shiroishi said. “There was not a lot happening, so it was kind of perfect in the sense that our communication was very fast.” Momentum mattered more than preciousness. “The way we were collaborating, it just flowed,” Taylor noted. “It was really fast, and it was nice to work with someone who was just as hyped as I was.” The album was recorded in Winter and Spring of 2024.
The music took shape through correspondence rather than sessions, guided by instinct and trust rather than deliberation. “I think we were just excited,” Shiroishi said, “and it tapped into a really beautiful moment.” Most of Kimyō was already written before additional collaborators – Pauline Lay, Dylan Fujioka, Courtney Swain, and otay:onii – entered the picture, leaving space later for voices and textures to thicken what was already emotionally legible.
Across the album, Bon Odori moves with a constant sense of physical unease and restraint, music that seems to breathe unevenly rather than settle into comfort. “As I Imagine Them” harnesses heavy chord changes and a muffled beat to explore darkness, which is fueled by a typically menacing Shiroishi alto solo. “Creatures of Habit” is driven by an irregular heartbeat rhythm and drifting layers of grit, a pulse that holds steady just long enough to feel familiar before rupturing halfway through in noise, hardcore drums and aggression. Elsewhere, near-still washes of noise open into wide waves of distorted guitar, so saturated they begin to feel fuzzy soft, while a voice slips in quietly, drifting between baritone and falsetto like a system testing its limits. By the time the final track, “The Weight We Carry,” arrives, everything collapses inward, as if the first seven tracks were a prelude – rhythm, noise, breath, memory and the wailing yowl of guest vocalist otay:onii folding together into one dense, imploding mass.
From the outset, Bon Odori was shaped as an Asian-focused collaboration, not as a theme or a statement grafted on afterward, but as a working framework. “For me, especially the name that I pitched to Patrick, is a celebration of our heritage, culture, of music, of collaboration,” Taylor said. Shiroishi was even more direct. “Purposefully, all the guests are of Asian descent. The person who mixed it is of Asian descent. Even the label.” The name itself, borrowed from a Japanese communal dance honoring ancestors, points toward a sense of shared movement rather than individual spotlight.
A gust of sublime intensity, Kimyō moves as an unstoppable force, brief, collective and quietly overwhelming.
Featuring Pauline Lay (Breath of Heir),
Dylan Fujioka (As I Imagine Them,
Creatures of Habit), Courtney Swain
(Yellow & Barely There) & otay::onii
(The Weight We Carry)
All music written/recorded in
the Winter & Spring of 2024
at Orange Door in Los Angeles,
California & Tape Basement
in Portland, Oregon
Mixed by Ian Aeillo
Mastered by Dave Cooley
Artwork by Emma Palm
Photography by Becca Collins
Graphic Design by Navin/Derwent
Tracklist:
1. Breath of Heir
2. Ruminator
3. As I Imagine Them
4. Yellow And Barely There
5. Creatures of Habit
6. Borrowed Scenery
7. Lilium
8. The Weight We Carry
As Shiroishi loaded gear at the end of the night, Taylor decided not to overthink it. “I yelled at you while you were loading gear out,” he recalled during a recent conversation. “I was like, ‘Patrick, you want to make a record together?’ And you were like, ‘Yeah dog.’ And that was it. Sometimes you’ve just got to yell what you want at a person you just met.” What might have been a throwaway exchange hardened almost immediately into something real.
Called Kimyō, the record came together quickly and almost entirely at a distance. Over a brief period in early 2025, Shiroishi and Taylor traded sounds, fragments and half-formed ideas back and forth, often turning material around the same day. “All the recording took place more or less two or three weeks in January,” Shiroishi said. “There was not a lot happening, so it was kind of perfect in the sense that our communication was very fast.” Momentum mattered more than preciousness. “The way we were collaborating, it just flowed,” Taylor noted. “It was really fast, and it was nice to work with someone who was just as hyped as I was.” The album was recorded in Winter and Spring of 2024.
The music took shape through correspondence rather than sessions, guided by instinct and trust rather than deliberation. “I think we were just excited,” Shiroishi said, “and it tapped into a really beautiful moment.” Most of Kimyō was already written before additional collaborators – Pauline Lay, Dylan Fujioka, Courtney Swain, and otay:onii – entered the picture, leaving space later for voices and textures to thicken what was already emotionally legible.
Across the album, Bon Odori moves with a constant sense of physical unease and restraint, music that seems to breathe unevenly rather than settle into comfort. “As I Imagine Them” harnesses heavy chord changes and a muffled beat to explore darkness, which is fueled by a typically menacing Shiroishi alto solo. “Creatures of Habit” is driven by an irregular heartbeat rhythm and drifting layers of grit, a pulse that holds steady just long enough to feel familiar before rupturing halfway through in noise, hardcore drums and aggression. Elsewhere, near-still washes of noise open into wide waves of distorted guitar, so saturated they begin to feel fuzzy soft, while a voice slips in quietly, drifting between baritone and falsetto like a system testing its limits. By the time the final track, “The Weight We Carry,” arrives, everything collapses inward, as if the first seven tracks were a prelude – rhythm, noise, breath, memory and the wailing yowl of guest vocalist otay:onii folding together into one dense, imploding mass.
From the outset, Bon Odori was shaped as an Asian-focused collaboration, not as a theme or a statement grafted on afterward, but as a working framework. “For me, especially the name that I pitched to Patrick, is a celebration of our heritage, culture, of music, of collaboration,” Taylor said. Shiroishi was even more direct. “Purposefully, all the guests are of Asian descent. The person who mixed it is of Asian descent. Even the label.” The name itself, borrowed from a Japanese communal dance honoring ancestors, points toward a sense of shared movement rather than individual spotlight.
A gust of sublime intensity, Kimyō moves as an unstoppable force, brief, collective and quietly overwhelming.
Featuring Pauline Lay (Breath of Heir),
Dylan Fujioka (As I Imagine Them,
Creatures of Habit), Courtney Swain
(Yellow & Barely There) & otay::onii
(The Weight We Carry)
All music written/recorded in
the Winter & Spring of 2024
at Orange Door in Los Angeles,
California & Tape Basement
in Portland, Oregon
Mixed by Ian Aeillo
Mastered by Dave Cooley
Artwork by Emma Palm
Photography by Becca Collins
Graphic Design by Navin/Derwent
Tracklist:
1. Breath of Heir
2. Ruminator
3. As I Imagine Them
4. Yellow And Barely There
5. Creatures of Habit
6. Borrowed Scenery
7. Lilium
8. The Weight We Carry