The musical universe of Manami Kakudo

In May, I had the opportunity to catch a brief set from Manami Kakudo. It’s a show that’s been on my mind almost ever since. What I learned on that day was not just that she’s an incredible performer, but she knows how to make anything musical. And she might even control the weather. This is not going to be a comprehensive biography, though I’ll dive a bit into her proper releases, but an example of how Kakudo channels everything around her into music, including a handful of publicly available videos.

Maybe it’s her background in percussion, hearing music and feeling the rhythm in everything she experiences. She’s a world travelled marimba player, someone who’s collaborated with big names ranging from Sam Amidon to Ichiko Aoba to the legend himself, Haruomi Hosono, and even Terry Riley. She’s even been a support member for cero.

That ability to find the music in everything is evident right from the first moments of her first album, A Dream Is Flying Above Time, its opening track “Kiss”. Kakudo simply kisses the microphone twice, before launching into “Ne Tiha Tiha”, which features her on piano and singing percussively and worldessly. The pairing encapsulates the tenderness that can be heard in every release afterwards, as well as the unrestrained creativity that radiates from Kakudo. That record comes to a close with a two-headed monster, “Bye”. Its early moments quiet and ambient, before it erupts into distorted guitar and heavy drums – a stark contrast from every other moment on the record.

And her second record, Ya Chaika, is a bona-fide masterpiece. It takes the best parts of her debut, polishes them up just enough, and the result is perfect. Some songs are beautiful romps, others are moments of time encapsulated, and some are just experimental and boundary-breaking. She’s not one to leave the listener in one place long.

Then there’s this video. Kakudo sings one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I’ve ever heard in my life, “November 21”, gently finger-picking her guitar while Ichiko Aoba prepares some fruit in a blender, occasionally lending her voice. The reverbed sounds of Aoba ripping and cutting the vegetables adds even more to the already ethereal sounds. As Kakudo slows the song down for its conclusion, Aoba powers on the blender, and the sound of the electric motor and the blades cut through the intimate moment like a knife, and they both laugh at the ridiculous moment before Aoba and Kakudo harmonize and share the smoothie they just created. It’s silly, but it encapsulates so much of what makes both Aoba and Kakudo such special artists.

2020’s Oar was Kakudo’s major label debut. Still distinctively Kakudo, featuring songs with dates as titles, and some true stunners with “Lark”, “Rokugatsuno Mado” and the aforementioned “November 21”. And somehow, she still charts new territory, with the folky “Lullaby”, and even with a gorgeous cover of Fishmans‘ “Ikareta Baby”. Kakudo’s version legitimately brought me to tears the first time I heard it.

And now we head to another YouTube video, of Kakudo creating music out of literally anything. During the pandemic, Assembridge Nagoya, a program that features artists in residence, started a video series “To Meet Again at the Port Town”, as they waited to re-open their doors. Kakudo was the first artist to participate, and in her video, she’s playing acoustic guitar through the Nagoya Port Building. While the focus is on the acoustic guitar, the sound of the world around leaks in through an open window. She descends in an elevator, and a pre-recorded message plays. She then performs out in the park, similarly capturing the sound of life around her. There’s 5 minutes of her dragging a stick along a fence. She even plays a song with a crosswalk chirp as her backing track. Everything around her is an instrument at her disposal.

And that’s how we get closer to today. 2024 was a massive year for Kakudo. She released the stellar Contact, which expanded her sound even more, somehow. With its pristine production not washing anything out, but creating a more immersive soundscape, especually on tracks like “Tako No Onna”, with so much percussive action happening. Contact also features Kakudo’s collaboration with Amidon, which, to no surprise, is an absolute stunner.

Kakudo also performed at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, and with it came the video below. It’s a perfect 12 minute encapsulation of a Manami Kakudo performance. Starting on Marimba, then the band joins. Kakudo never stays still, next thing you know she’s at the piano, and singing wordlessly. She wanders again, lightbulbs pulsing to every beat and note as she directs the band, eventually just being overcome by the sound and with a joyful leap she points over to the drummer who launches into a solo, as Kakudo sets up on harmonium, after she establishes the drone, she motions over for someone to take over and she’s onto her next thing – a melodica. Everyone else has one, and it’s a bit chaotic, but my is it incredible.

Also in 2024, Kakudo had her aforementioned collaborations, with Terry Riley, and even joined Haruomi Hosono’s band as a full-time member. Her talent has made her such an in-demand musician to collaborate with. Hosono brought her to England on a recent tour, and she’s collaborating with Aoba again.

This leads us to May 31, 2025, and me at a rainy Hibiya park. I had landed that morning at Haneda from New York and pretty much directly went to the park for a free music festival. I wasn’t even really sure what I was getting myself into with the other artists, but I knew I needed to see Kakudo. She’s someone I wasn’t super familiar with, but people compared her to Joe Hisaishi, and what I had heard reminded me of Julia Holter, that’s a pretty big combo.

Then, as I’m standing in front of the stage at Hibiya, the wind and rain kick up as Kakudo sings her first notes, a wind chime starts to sound. As the music ebbs and flows, so does the weather. It’s a harmonization between art and nature in a way that I haven’t experienced in years. And while it may be absurd to think that maybe she indeed could control the weather, it’s not absurd to think she could channel that energy into her performance. She’s someone who finds music in everything, from a park fence to an orchestra, she can turn anything into an instrument, and to find the music in a heavy downpour on a random early afternoon is completely within the bounds of the musical universe of Manami Kakudo.

Note/Edit: Not even a week after I posted this blog, Kakudo posted this video on her YouTube of the very Hibiya performance that inspired this post:

Connect with Manami Kakudo:
Manami Kakudo: insta / website
Cat Typing Records: insta / x / website