Kotaro Maruyama - Grainy Film
Label: Personal Affair – PAEP-001
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Japan
Released: October 2026
Genre: Electronic
Style: Ambient, Drone, Experimental
A new release from the back alleys of Tokyo. Kotaro Maruyama — best known for his debut solo album Vapor Curve — returns with grainy film, a mini-album that completely eschews computer-based DAW software in favour of a strictly limited hardware setup: synthesizers, samplers and delay units exclusively. The constraint is generative rather than restrictive, producing a meticulously woven, highly original take on minimal harmony that pushes further into abstract, dubby and deep soundscape territory than anything he has made before.
At the core of the record lie exquisite ambient textures and beautifully shimmering synthesizer arpeggios, layered with the organic warmth of the sampler — vividly sketching out a contemporary sound of Tokyo that is at once nostalgic and entirely present. The gritty, lo-fi texture of the sampler, as the title suggests, evokes the imagery of a vintage low-fidelity film reel. Maruyama describes it as music for a cigar — not assertive, not demanding to be the centre of attention, but possessing an overwhelming power the moment the needle drops to transform the very particles of the room's air. The nostalgic and melancholic melodies, much like the shifting and fading trails of cigar smoke, embody shogyo mujo — the impermanence of all things. A supreme deep-listening experience guaranteed to transport you.
