Blue Earth Sound – Japanese Green

We’ve recently received a track which is the perfect soundtrack to our quiet garden mornings here in the north of Berlin. It’s the new single from the Chicago jazz collective Blue Earth Sound, led by multi-instrumentalist and composer James Weir. The tune is called “Japanese Green” and is the second single off the forthcoming EP “The St. Louis Sessions”. Visiting from Chicago and recording at drummer Austin LeMoine’s new home studio, James says about the project: “Austin was hip to some local brass players, Jawaad Spaan and Josiah Burton from the St. Louis scene that we invited over for an experimental session tracked in his living room. After bonding over shared taste and drinks, we recorded the horn takes live together over my demos.”

The track has this incredibly laidback shuffling groove with a looped drum beat which makes this almost like a little piece of meditation. It also features some sophisticated percussion and a lilting piano. The horns add some sort of exoticism and mystery. “Japanese Green” was in part inspired by 90s R&B and the beauty of Japanese jazz. Adds James: “I wanted this one to feel like a swingin’ cruiser, with strong unified horns. We settled on this A&B structure, with the swing and groove at the start, but added sensitivity at the end with a nice, muted piano lead and delay floating over the top”.

“Japanese Green” came out on May 19th and continues to sooth us each day. You can listen to the track and pre-order “The St. Louis Sessions” now.