Ita by Hinode Tapes & Hiroki Chiba

On April 25th, Polish trio Hinode Tapes will release its third album on Instant Classic and Kanu Kanu Recordings. This time, Piotr Chęcki, Piotr Kaliński and Jacek Prościński are joined by Japanese double bassist Hiroki Chiba (who has collaborated with Jim O’Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi and Otomo Yoshihide, among others). Their joint album is titled “Ita” and features four new compositions at the intersection of ambient and free jazz.

This extraordinary collaboration came about thanks to Piotr Kaliński. “We were connected by a mutual colleague Albert Karch from WRWTFWW Records, who understands the music of Hinode Tapes and Chiba quite well. He recommended that I go to one of his concerts and it just blew me away, because Hiroki explored the territories between jazz and ambient in a masterful fashion,” explains Kaliński. "From my perspective, Chiba's presence adds a new color to Hinode Tapes' music. Apart from the fact that objectively he is a great musician, this is our first album to feature a double bass player. This aspect determined the way we made decisions on this album in terms of managing sonic space," adds Prościński.

At the beginning of 2025, Hinode Tapes played a short tour in Japan. "It was a very strong experience. We saw a genuinely great interest from the audience, and we were watched on stage by such legendary and important people to me as Inoyama Land and Chihei Hatakeyama," recalls Kaliński. "During the concerts we tried to compress our approach and musical aesthetics. We also played strongly improvised concerts with Japanese artists - Hiroki Chiba, Momose Yasunaga (known from our previous album) and Ko Ishikawa, a virtuoso playing the traditional Japanese instrument shō. Ko collaborated with Ryūichi Sakamoto on the album 'Async'. It was an honor and a big challenge for us." "We played almost everything acoustically, but I played one entire set on pot lids and it was great," adds Prościński.

"Ita" brings another change of aesthetics in the context of the Hinode Tapes discography. "Our previous album was quite dark, you could even say gloomy. On this one there is more sun, colors in a higher register, like bells, triangles, janissaries," says the drummer. "During the recordings we used an old multi-track tape recorder. This required certainty of musical expression, as it does not allow much editing. It was a very cleansing and humbling experience. This time I am not playing the guitar either, focusing on other instruments, but throughout the album in the background of the songs you can hear field recordings that I recorded during my trip to Japan in previous years," explains Kaliński.

Tracklisting:

1. Hinode Tapes #11
2. Hinode Tapes #12
3. Hinode Tapes #13
4. Hinode Tapes #14