Takuro Okada – Konoma

Takuro Okada
Konoma
ISC HiFi Selects/Temporal Drift
Japan, 2025
LP (2026 repress)

Quiet stunner from the versatile Japanese composer and guitarist Takuro Okada—smoky late-night downtempo jazz rock inspired by his discovery of connections between African American aesthetics and the Japanese Mingei folk art movement. Having grown up near a U.S. Air Force base in Fussa, where he gigged in clubs for American service members, Okada has had a lifelong affinity with blues, jazz, and funk music. With Konoma, he’s crafted a record that organically incorporates those influences, coming across like a late-‘70s cult film soundtrack that you’d frantically try (and probably fail) to Shazam.