Biography
Hinako Omori, who entered the world in Japan before growing up in the United Kingdom, developed her skills as a pianist through classical training while also delving into synthesizers, processed voices, and location-captured sounds to shape expansive, undulating auditory terrains. Influences on her output range from innovators Pauline Oliveros and Suzanne Ciani to the restrained electronic minimalism that surfaced in Japan throughout the 1980s.
Her family left Yokohama for London when she was three; piano study began two years later and stayed central to her schedule until she reached university. At sixteen, listening to the Swedish electronic duo the Knife prompted her first synthesizer experiments. After completing a Music and Sound Recording degree at the University of Surrey in 2011, she took positions in audio engineering, label administration, and festival programming. Industry contacts soon led to requests for live-band participation and session contributions, and she subsequently supplied keyboards to Fionn Regan, Ellie Goulding, KT Tunstall, James Bay, EOB, and Kae Tempest.
The short-lived Ocean label issued her first solo single, the synthesizer-heavy instrumental “Voyage,” in May 2019. November brought the more concentrated Auraelia EP, built around deep frequencies and warped vocals and centered on the sensory disruptions and visual changes associated with migraines. October 2020 opened with the initial entry in an extended series of collaborations with new age artist Clare Uchima—the steady, restorative, drone-based piece “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu”—and closed with her own single “Dopamine,” whose restless, mechanical character stood in contrast to the earlier track. Before month’s end she accepted an invitation from former university colleague Oli Jacobs, now head engineer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios and co-curator of WOMAD at Home, to appear in an online edition of the long-running arts festival. Omori drew atmospheric pieces from her existing files, added fresh field recordings made in the Mendip Hills, and presented the resulting serene, place-focused works during the Real World livestream.
March 2021 added the further tranquil single “Be Here Now,” again with Uchima. Omori next supplied a slow-moving, high-profile remix of the Anchoress’ “The Exchange” that featured vocals from James Dean Bradfield. “Speedwalking,” released in November 2021, extended the line of “Dopamine” with its bright motorik momentum. Early the following year, London’s Houndstooth label extracted three WOMAD performances as singles—“A Journey,” “The Richest Garden in Your Memory,” and “Snow.” March then brought both the third Uchima collaboration, “I AM,” and a one-time joint session with Alison Cotton of the Left Outsides for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction. As the month finished, Houndstooth released Omori’s debut album, …a journey…, assembled entirely from the 2020 WOMAD recordings.
Her family left Yokohama for London when she was three; piano study began two years later and stayed central to her schedule until she reached university. At sixteen, listening to the Swedish electronic duo the Knife prompted her first synthesizer experiments. After completing a Music and Sound Recording degree at the University of Surrey in 2011, she took positions in audio engineering, label administration, and festival programming. Industry contacts soon led to requests for live-band participation and session contributions, and she subsequently supplied keyboards to Fionn Regan, Ellie Goulding, KT Tunstall, James Bay, EOB, and Kae Tempest.
The short-lived Ocean label issued her first solo single, the synthesizer-heavy instrumental “Voyage,” in May 2019. November brought the more concentrated Auraelia EP, built around deep frequencies and warped vocals and centered on the sensory disruptions and visual changes associated with migraines. October 2020 opened with the initial entry in an extended series of collaborations with new age artist Clare Uchima—the steady, restorative, drone-based piece “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu”—and closed with her own single “Dopamine,” whose restless, mechanical character stood in contrast to the earlier track. Before month’s end she accepted an invitation from former university colleague Oli Jacobs, now head engineer at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios and co-curator of WOMAD at Home, to appear in an online edition of the long-running arts festival. Omori drew atmospheric pieces from her existing files, added fresh field recordings made in the Mendip Hills, and presented the resulting serene, place-focused works during the Real World livestream.
March 2021 added the further tranquil single “Be Here Now,” again with Uchima. Omori next supplied a slow-moving, high-profile remix of the Anchoress’ “The Exchange” that featured vocals from James Dean Bradfield. “Speedwalking,” released in November 2021, extended the line of “Dopamine” with its bright motorik momentum. Early the following year, London’s Houndstooth label extracted three WOMAD performances as singles—“A Journey,” “The Richest Garden in Your Memory,” and “Snow.” March then brought both the third Uchima collaboration, “I AM,” and a one-time joint session with Alison Cotton of the Left Outsides for BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction. As the month finished, Houndstooth released Omori’s debut album, …a journey…, assembled entirely from the 2020 WOMAD recordings.
Albums
Singles
