Naoki Zushi - III

Naoki Zushi 
III
World Of Echo
Japan/UK, 2005/2025
LP

Truly incredible pulse-slowing melancholy psych-folk meanderings from Naoki Zushi of Hallelujahs & Nagisa Ni Te. Track C1, “If I Could See You Again,” is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard—a softly padding 18-minute traipse anchored by a thumb piano arpeggio and gentle strums that just goes on & on & on, accumulating gently smiling worldly sadness as it goes.

“Under the June Moonlight,” released here for the first time, is the rare bonus track that actually extends the album’s spell rather than breaking it, a disorienting reverse angle that takes you out of the studio and into the center of a field of crickets. It’s just crickets, all around you and surprisingly immersive, stretching on for so long that you’re quite sure that’s all the track is going to be, until finally, near the end, you can just make out the sound of Zushi’s guitar gently chirping in the background.

Genuinely floored by this one.