We Speak Music
Mieko Shimizu presents hypnotic new EP ‘Breathe Out’ alongside visually arresting music video
Mieko Shimizu returns with a powerful new EP, ‘Breathe Out’. A boldly nonconformist Japanese singer, songwriter, composer, and producer, Shimizu uses the EP to build on the success of her acclaimed album ‘My Tentacles’, which drew praise from Electronic Sound magazine and airplay on BBC Radio 6.
The new EP features two immersive tracks that showcase her signature blend of emotional depth and sonic experimentation. Dropping alongside a visually arresting music video by diz_qo, this project invites listeners on an immersive journey of texture, movement, and atmosphere, reaffirming Mieko Shimizu’s place as a pioneering force in avant-garde music.
‘Breathe Out’ echoes the light and sound that rise from the horizon, where humanity meets the boundless realms of gods and spirits, the veil between the earthly and the divine. Emerging as a sonic meditation in motion, ‘Breathe Out’ is a two-track EP that drifts between serenity and momentum. The ‘Breathe Out’ EP brings together two distinct yet complementary tracks that showcase Mieko Shimizu’s ability to create emotionally resonant, finely detailed music.
The title track, ‘Breathe Out’, unfolds with airy atmospheres, delicate sample percussion, and fast-moving flute melodies that weave like rushing wind through open space, creating a sense of release and expansion. Its counterpart, ‘Breathe In’, draws the listener inward, mirroring the first track’s fluid energy but with a more introspective pull, evoking the quiet rhythm of breath cycling back into the body. Together, the EP captures a dynamic tension between stillness and movement, offering an ambient journey that feels alive, transient, and deeply human, highlighting Mieko Shimizu’s unique artistic prowess.
Speaking on the release, Mieko Shimizu shares, “In Breathe Out, I wanted to echo the light and sound that rise from the horizon, where humanity meets the boundless realms of gods and spirits, the veil between the earthly and the divine.”
Mieko Shimizu’s ‘Breathe Out’ EP is out now via Street Records.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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