From the far reaches of Japan’s Progressive Rock underground emerges Project Nayuta, a Tokyo-based sextet whose compositional ambitions and collective musicianship place them firmly among the most compelling voices in contemporary Asian Prog. Their second full-length album, “Sazaki Orite Hikari Afure” — rendered in kanji as さざきおりてひかりあふれ and released independently on December 5, 2021 — follows the debut “Tsumibito no Kioku” (October 2020) with remarkable swiftness and with an artistic assurance that suggests a band already in full command of their creative vocabulary. Where many Progressive acts struggle to consolidate their identity across early releases, Project Nayuta arrive on their second record with a sharpened sense of purpose: dense, long-form compositions anchored in classic Progressive architecture, animated by twin female vocals of rare expressive intensity, and coloured throughout by a distinctly Japanese sensibility that lends the ensemble a character entirely their own. The album presents four tracks — two extended pieces, one monumental suite, and a brief coda of remarkable ferocity — across a total running time that demands attentive, uninterrupted listening. This is music conceived in the tradition of the great progressive suites of the 1970s, rooted in the structural sophistication of Symphonic and heavy prog, yet inflected with timbral choices and melodic sensibilities that carry an unmistakably Eastern aesthetic. The interplay between guitarist Takashi Wada, keyboardist and composer Madoka Tsukada (Providence), bassist Yosuke Tara, and drummer Masahiko Noguchi forms a rhythmically and harmonically adventurous foundation, while vocalists Mika Tsukimoto and Junko Sera navigate the material with a discipline and emotional depth that consistently elevate the ensemble above mere technical proficiency. The instrumental sophistication and compositional scope of this record represent a significant achievement not only within Japan’s progressive scene but within the broader international context of the genre. “Plastic Night” opens the album with an immediate declaration of intent. A grand synthesizer statement — ceremonial in its weight, carefully voiced to establish both tonal authority and harmonic complexity — introduces the ensemble before the full rhythm section enters with controlled force. Bassist Tara grounds the opening passage with a melodic line of considerable weight, providing a structural anchor around which the upper voices move with greater freedom. Wada‘s guitar work throughout the track demonstrates a thoughtful balance between textural support and solo exposition: his tone carries an edge that adds a Heavy Prog dimension to the overall sound without undermining the Symphonic qualities that define the band’s core aesthetic. The vocal contributions of Tsukimoto and Sera arrive with the characteristic clarity and intonation that mark Japanese Progressive vocalism — precise in pitch, deeply expressive in phrasing, and architecturally aligned with the compositional structure rather than deployed as ornamentation. Tempo shifts modulate the track’s internal dynamics with fluency, transitioning between passages of collective intensity and extended instrumental sections where guitar and synthesizer engage in carefully constructed melodic exchanges. These dialogues reveal the depth of understanding between Wada and Tsukada, whose interplay carries the hallmarks of musicians who have internalized the language of Progressive Rock and developed a genuinely shared improvisational grammar. “Plastic Night” functions as both an effective opener and a compressed statement of the album’s ambitions: it is precise, musically substantial, and leaves no doubt that what follows will demand the listener’s full engagement. “Star to Blaster” represents a significant expansion of the compositional territory established on the opening track. An introductory passage of sustained ambient textures — carefully constructed rather than decorative — prepares the ground for the track’s central rhythmic framework, which arrives with the precision of a well-rehearsed ensemble entirely at ease with the material. Tara‘s bass line assumes a primary structural role here, delivering one of the album’s most commanding moments: a propulsive, melodically inventive figure that drives the composition forward while simultaneously serving as a harmonic reference point for the vocal and instrumental material above it. The dual vocal performance across this track is particularly accomplished, with Tsukimoto and Sera navigating a range of registers and emotional intensities that mirror the track’s formal shifts between introspective and expansive passages. The harmonic language moves fluidly between darker, more chromatic passages — where the ensemble’s affinity with Progressive Rock’s more esoteric tendencies becomes apparent — and broader, openly Symphonic sections that allow the full sonority of Tsukada‘s keyboard arsenal to emerge. The central instrumental passage extends the track’s narrative through an immersive sequence of layered electronic and acoustic textures: synthesizer timbres that locate themselves at the boundary between the organic and the synthetic, guitar figures that punctuate without imposing, and a rhythm section that maintains propulsive coherence across the shifting harmonic terrain. “Star to Blaster” represents Project Nayuta at their most formally ambitious within a single track: it encompasses the full range of the ensemble’s stylistic reference points — from Heavy Prog intensity to Symphonic expansiveness to atmospheric interiority — and manages the transitions between these registers with the assurance of a band well beyond their second release. The album’s centrepiece, the title suite “さざきおりてひかりあふれ” (17:22), is the work by which “Sazaki Orite Hikari Afure” will ultimately be assessed, and it does not disappoint. At over seventeen minutes, it constitutes a comprehensive statement of the ensemble’s compositional range and collective musicianship, structured around a succession of formal sections that unfold with the careful architecture of the finest extended Prog compositions. The opening passage establishes a mood of measured intensity through layered synthesizer writing of considerable sophistication — Tsukada‘s work here is among the most impressive on the record, building harmonic density through patient stratification rather than immediate impact — before the first vocal entrance redirects the emotional weight of the material. The interplay between vocal passages and purely instrumental sections is managed throughout with exceptional intelligence: the transitions are formally motivated rather than arbitrary, each shift in the textural balance marking a meaningful development in the suite’s internal narrative. Tempo changes accumulate across the work’s duration with a logic that becomes legible only in retrospect, as the listener recognises the structural coherence underlying what may initially register as episodic succession. The rhythmic contributions of Noguchi are particularly noteworthy in this context: his percussion work functions simultaneously as a structural scaffold and as an expressive voice in its own right, anchoring the ensemble through the suite’s most harmonically adventurous passages while contributing to the forward momentum of its more assertive sections. The suite’s emotional arc — from introspective opening through passages of escalating intensity to a conclusion of powerful formal resolution — places it among the genuinely significant extended compositions in recent Progressive Rock, and constitutes the clearest evidence of Project Nayuta‘s potential as one of the form’s most compelling contemporary voices. The album concludes with “Sazaki176,” a brief coda that functions less as a conventional closing track than as a concentrated burst of Heavy Progressive energy: frenetic in tempo, dense in harmonic content, executed with a technical precision that makes its forty-eight seconds feel compositionally complete rather than truncated. The track’s ferocity throws the album’s preceding expansiveness into sharp relief and leaves the listener with a final impression of an ensemble in full command of their technical resources. “Sazaki Orite Hikari Afure” confirmsProject Nayuta as a formidable and genuinely distinctive presence within contemporary Progressive Rock. Their capacity for rigorous long-form composition, the expressive depth of their twin vocal front, and the sustained technical quality of every contribution across the lineup place this record in the company of the best international Progressive releases of recent years. The album demands patient listening and rewards it generously: it is a work of real compositional intelligence, rooted in the tradition without being constrained by it, and inflected throughout by a cultural specificity that enriches rather than limits its communicative reach. Recommended without reservation to any listener with a serious investment in the Progressive form.
Tracklist
01. Plastic Night (7:12)
02. Star to Blaster (11:40)
03. さざきおりてひかりあふれ (17:22)
04. Sazaki176 (0:48)
Lineup
Mika Tsukimoto / Vocals
Junko Sera / Vocals
Takashi Wada / Guitars
Madoka Tsukada (Providence) / Keyboards, Synthesizers
Yosuke Tara / Bass
Masahiko Noguchi / Drums & Percussion
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