Yumi Iwaki, Carlos Ferreira - Tenderness (2022)

“Tenderness” is the first collaborative album between Japanese musician Yumi Iwaki and Brazilian Carlos Ferreira using unreleased sketches, improvisations, and samples, “Tenderness” is a mosaic of painted sounds that does not end in itself, inviting the listener to inhabit its center.

Porto Alegre based experimental guitarist Carlos Ferreira and Tokyo-based synthesizer hypnotist Yumi Iwaki are presenting "Tenderness" , their first ever collaborative album through Modern Obscure Music. Carlos and Yumi have created this powerful ambient odyssey at the distance. Despite some connections between Yumi's family roots with the Brazilian musical scene, both artists feel a strong attraction about their cultural differences, through Literature, films, scents, colors, and nature… Carlos feels “there are infinite cultural differences between Japan and Brazil, and this can be explained by historical and even geographical factors, but people come together through very strong elements that are able to transcend these differences. Diversity must also unite us.”. Yumi explains that when she met Carlos on Instagram, she was instantly captivated by “his quiet, deep and fantastic view of the world, the feelings we shared seemed to take shape naturally, but it was Carlos' great talent to complete the production that led us to the release of this album”. Both artists share their influences - on his early years, Iwaki was truly inspired by occident artists like Debussy, Satie, and John Cage and also from icons of her own country like Yumi Arai, Akiko Yano, Taeko Onuki, and YMO. On the other side, Carlos influences have a vast spectrum, from legendary Brian Eno, Lawrence English, La Monte Young, and Susumu Yokota to noise fathers like Swans, Boredoms, Napalm Death, and Merzbow.

Yumi also has experience as a song lyricist. Early this year she participated with composer Eishi Segawa in a compilation work inspired by Kumoko, the imaginary spirit of clouds created by SunEye (Akiko & Hashim Bharoocha). Lately, in partnership with, “Fantaspoa - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantástico de Porto Alegre” Carlos have been involved in projects to compose and perform new soundtracks for classic silent films, such as Nosferatu, Der Müde Tod, and Frankenstein... besides these projects Ferreira have been involved in several audiovisual projects with visual artist Leo Caobelli, who uses footages and images recovered from hard drives that were discarded in the trash creating both soundtracks and improvisational performances for these materials.