Sen Morimoto

Sen Morimoto handles multiple instruments while writing songs, singing, and producing, and he shares ownership of Chicago’s Sooper Records. Across his 2020 self-titled album and the 2023 release Diagnosis, he builds densely layered art-pop pieces that draw from jazz, hip-hop, indie rock, and R&B, emphasizing rich vocal harmonies alongside complex melodic lines.

Born in Kyoto, Japan, Morimoto spent his childhood in Western Massachusetts. Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers instructed him on saxophone, after which he independently mastered several additional instruments. In the early 2010s he performed on drums for the noise-punk outfit Big Nils, whose frontwoman was Coco Hayley Gordon Moore, daughter of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. At the same time he immersed himself in the regional underground hip-hop community, teaming with DJ Lucas, founder of the Dark World label, for the 2013 album Black Mass.

After relocating to Chicago, Morimoto issued the 2015 LP For Me & Ladie through Tip Top Recordings. He soon began working with numerous figures from the Chicago music community and farther afield, among them Nnamdi Ogbonnaya (also known as NNAMDÏ) and Joseph Chilliams. Following the self-released 2017 EP It’s Late, Ogbonnaya asked Morimoto to record an album for Sooper Records. The resulting 2018 project Cannonball!, issued jointly by Sooper and the 88Rising collective, presented an elaborate collection of abstract jazz-rap tracks that highlighted both Morimoto’s reflective lyricism and his vivid saxophone work. He subsequently joined Sooper as co-owner and lent his talents to projects by Lala Lala, Resavoir, KAINA, Vagabon, and additional artists. On his 2020 full-length Sen Morimoto he largely set the saxophone aside in favor of a dreamy progressive-pop sound featuring appearances by several frequent collaborators. Diagnosis, released in 2023, offered an introspective and stylistically broad set of songs that moved through jazz, R&B, alternative rock, and orchestral pop while addressing late-stage capitalism, childhood, nostalgia, and American identity.