Goddess In The Morning – Goddess In The Morning, 1996

There’s a significant chance you’ve already heard half of this record, as I’ve regularly been using it in mixes for the past year and a half. And with good reason! Aside from being objectively beautiful from start to finish, it feels particularly aesthetically situated to resonate well with listeners right now, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this prompts a reissue. (Do it!)

It’s a mysterious record–the only release from the eponymous duo Goddess In The Morning, comprised of Akino Arai and Yula Yayoi. Akino has left a pretty dense paper trail, credited on 95 different releases for vocals, writing, arrangement, and production, notably as a regular contributor to Yoko Kanno scores. Yula is a little harder to trace, with a handful of releases that I’ve had limited success in tracking down. I’d particularly love to hear her 1999 record Summer Aura on the basis of its cover art and release year alone, if anybody has a copy they’d be willing to share. (She also shows up as a vocalist on Seigén Ono‘s behemoth 20-disc Saidera Paradiso, and fittingly, Ono is credited with mastering Goddess, which seems particularly cool in light of how divergent the record is from Ono’s wheelhouse.)

Goddess In The Morning is a wild ride in the truest sense, ranging from hazy trip hop on “Ucraine” to the Celtic folk-inspired prog “Saga” to the Virginia Astley-esque pastoral closer “14.” Across them all are (what I assume to be) Yula and Akino’s heavily layered vocals (effectively musical catnip for me), processed into intricate electronic landscapes that feel both spacious and heavily polished to a reflective chrome sheen. I’m not gonna try to sell this too much harder, because if it’s for you, it’s very obviously for you, but I do hope you love this, as it keeps worming its way nearer (and dearer!) to my heart.

buy / download