butaji - Thoughts of You

Name: butaji - Thoughts of You
Brand: Space Shower Music
SKU: PEJF-91062
Price: 1221.0 TWD
Availability: InStock

Genre: INDIE ROCK / POP / FOLK JAPANESE

Format: Japanese 1LP Limited Edition

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Japanese 1LP Limited Edition
Release Date: 15/4/2026
Label: Space Shower Music

“Thoughts of You” is music that rises up through thinking of someone.

Their previous album, “RIGHT TIME,” released in 2021, was highly praised for its solid artistry.

Singer-songwriter butaji has been weaving melodies and words that reach a wide audience through outstanding songwriting, including “Presence,” “Summer Ride” by timelesz co-written with STUTS, and “Mirage,” created as Mirage Collective with STUTS and YONCE (Suchmos, Hedigan’s). Now, butaji’s first full-length album since 2021, “Thoughts of You,” is complete.

Butaji has long been fascinated by the music of the era when the great jazz pianist and singer Nat King Cole colored popular music—rich arrangements that feel alive, gently drawing close to the listener. With the desire to leave a work in today’s world that carries that kind of resonance within his own songwriting, and to deliver music that can be savored slowly in a time when everything becomes visible at high speed, production for this album began.

As a result, an exceptionally large number of musicians came together for this project, carefully shaping butaji’s music through their performances. Built around band performances, with a modern band sound that still holds a longing for that earlier era, and layered with string arrangements, the album becomes a singer-songwriter record that you can feel as body heat. While evoking the textures of 50s–60s pop and classic singer-songwriter works, butaji’s melodies and words—also shaped by a love of 90s J-pop—offer those of us living in 2026 a moment to breathe, and a quiet space to pause.

The origin of this journey goes back to “Koe ga kikitai.”, an experimental short drama by NHK that butaji worked on in 2021 as butasaku, a unit with musician Arai Yusaku. The drama features only one on-screen character, and the other person’s voice is never heard—only the act of talking on the phone is shown for ten minutes. While sketching ideas around the question, “What kind of music would I add if it were me?”, the song “In silence” was born, and it now opens the album. Even if honestly reflecting the air of the times does not always yield something bright, this song—singing the feeling of thinking of someone—became one guiding reference point for the album as a whole. For “In silence” and “Lost Souls,” producer Okada Takuro (widely acclaimed for work with Shibata Satoko and Yuka) joined the project, with strings arranged by contemporary composer Koda Yuma. On four other tracks, strings were handled by Machida Kyo, further enriching each song’s expression.

Also, as evident from butaji’s own work and collaborations with STUTS, his vocals pair exceptionally well with track-based production: for “sofar,” Shinoda Miru joined as track arranger, and for “Isolated blues,” MET participated as track arranger. The closing track, “remission,” has all its tracks handled entirely by butaji himself. In addition, the album’s only pure solo performance—“Sayonara wo iu mae ni,” sung over the piano of singer-songwriter Ichi Takashi—interlocks with the other band-performed songs to become a key element that shapes the flow of time across the album.

A self-cover of Miura Toko’s “Tento,” a song butaji previously wrote for her, is also included as a track that naturally sits alongside the rest of the album. Miura Toko herself participates in the vocal chorus, adding gentle depth to the song.

In the latter half of production, another pillar of the work emerged through butaji’s encounter with Takamori Junko, who has served as the secretary-general of Hanshin Daishinsai wo kirokushitsuzukeru kai since 2010. Learning about the existence of more than 100 public memoirs—collected through an open call and published online to mark the 30-year milestone—became a major trigger. Butaji was living in Kobe at the time and experienced the disaster as a child. Afterward, his family was forced to move, and his relationship with his father grew distant—among other ways the earthquake affected both his inner world and his reality. This album vividly reflects, as poetic imagery, the emotional landscape of continuing to face oneself across the span of thirty years since the disaster.

In 2024, butaji encountered works by Kobe-born photographer Yoneda Tomoko at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art exhibition “1995 ⇄ 2025 30-nemme no watashitachi,” and was deeply moved. The jacket photo uses an image taken by Yoneda, who was back in Japan from the UK at the time, photographed in the Hyodoridai housing complex in Kobe where butaji grew up, with the design handled by Hata Yurie.

Thinking of someone, and holding on to memory—those quiet acts are breathing as music within this album.

[Participating Artists]

Ichi Takashi, Uchida Kirin, Ogi Akihiko, Okada Takuro, Okimasu Natsumi, Kabayama Taichi (Taiko Super Kicks), Kishida Yoshiya, Koda Yuma, Sakaguchi Mitsuo, Shinoda Miru (yahyel), Sekiguchi Masafumi, TAIHEI (Suchmos, Sai, N.S.DANCEMBLE), Makiyama Haruna, Masumura Kazuhiko, Machida Kyo, Matsuura Yoshinari, Mishina Mio, Miura Toko, MET, Yamamoto Yoshiyuki (Triple Fire), Yokoyama Kazuaki, Yoshida Atsuki

Japanese 1LP Limited Edition

01. In silence
02. so far
03. Eien
04. Kaiju
05. Isolated blues
06. Birthday
07. Tento
08. Lost Souls
09. Yosuga
10. Tasogare
11. Sayonara wo iu mae ni
12. remission