Midori Komachi is a Japanese, London-based violinist, composer, and sound designer who brings together expertise in performance, composition, and installation for immersive experiences. She is known for bridging Japanese traditions with Western classical and contemporary music. Chashitsu: Auditory Tea Room is Komachi’s solo album, a sonic journey of the Chashitsu (茶室), the traditional Japanese architectural space designed to be used for tea ceremony gatherings, and chadō (茶道), the Japanese tea ceremony (literally: The Way of Tea), a tradition where every sound, gesture, and moment of stillness forms a deeply sonic practice.

Chashitsu: The Auditory Tea Room is an intimate and contemplative journey of sound, place, nature, narrative, and self-reflection, reconnected through the tea ceremony and in harmony with others. It is divided into eleven concise pieces that suggest an elaborate choreography of sound, silence, gesture, and space. Each piece offers another step in this auditory equivalent of the tea ceremony: a contemplative pause, a moment to listen to its distinct timbres, and a path inward. Like the traditional tea ceremony, each piece elevates the sonic experience into a meditative art form.

This album was conceived and produced by British sound artist Nick Luscombe (of the MSCTY label), known for structuring sound and music specific to spaces, places, and moments. Luscombe ornamented the pieces with subtle field recordings from Japan. It transforms the aesthetics of the Chashitsus into arresting sonic architecture. It explores how the Japanese notion of attentive listening to space, where silence—Ma (間)—holds meaning, introduces insightful timbres, and opens a completely new, highly immersive sound world. It invites us to listen differently.

Eyal Hareuveni

Midori Komachi (violin), Nick Luscombe (field recordings)