The end of the week arrives with little fanfare, but there is a spring in my step as I head home. I know a new album is waiting for me, an early release sent on to us from No Beats Aloud for the purposes of review, and review we shall! (Truth be told, I must also make some progress on a dreadful shower which has suffered from both neglect and mildew, that dastardly duo).
Yes, you’ve read the exclusive here: I am a dirty, dirty man with a dirty, dirty shower. But I’ve got a plan, an angle, an “inside man” to help me get through this task. Surely David Harrow and his reportedly excellent new album Johatsu will propel me through this domestic chore with ease?
Before we press play, a word on that title. Johatsu is a Japanese term, meaning “evaporation” in the literal sense, for people who voluntarily and deliberately vanish from their families, jobs and communities without leaving a trace. One day they are at the office, the dinner table or the corner pub, and the next they have lifted off like steam from a kettle, with no forwarding address and no explanation. David Harrow takes this unsettling phenomenon as his subject, and the album is his musical representation of it.
The journey starts slowly. High-register piano twinkles like starlight over a steady drone in “60s”, and “Ace” follows with pads, arpeggiated piano and a deep bass pad fading in, a trip already under way. “As It Ends” goes without drums, with a synth panning between the speakers, a halting lead up high and a warm, organic bass, and it harks back to Yokota’s Sakura period. Then “Between The Cracks” takes the wheel. Glassy strings shimmer over a drone until short, deep bass bursts start poking at the calm, and the tension builds patiently before a gorgeous synth arpeggio finally lets us exhale. Clever, and very good.
Sunshine breaks through next. Twinkling piano in “Eel Pie” melts into a bright, summery collage of electric synth notes and backwards flourishes, with some notes tripling and quadrupling through repeats, and the whole thing feels like an Orbital-sanctioned praising of Kraftwerk. It’s fun and lovely. The title track, “Johatsu”, leans on South Asian hand drums, a few hits echoing with reverb repeats, while pads rise and fall in waves and a simple piano melody nudges everything along lazily.
“Nick&Jono” goes without drums but keeps the pulse, as piano chords, stoic bass and a glassy synth lines move together beneath backwards-recorded chimes, calm and luminous. Then comes a shoutout for “Twicebroken”, easily the most inventive of the bunch. Twittering synth and plucks give way to chimes that sound like grandfather clocks performing a concerto, slow, plodding and quite cinematic.
The back stretch plays with pattern. “One Room” scatters piano like raindrops on skipping stones, settles into a lazy repeat, then breaks it just as it forms. “The Night Movers” is dreamy and whimsical, with no hint of darkness. “All The Letters” drifts into a formless, dissonant collage of lazy hand drums and broken piano flourishes, and “No Loyalty” begins sparse and metallic before blooming into organic synth, bright plucks and field-recorded wind chimes. The album’s closer “Ultimatum” rings out harp-like plucks over deep pads, hope renewed. A lovely way to disappear.
The reports of this album’s quality were accurate, and the shower is spotless. Somewhere between the starlit piano of the opener and the hope-renewed harp plucks of the finale, the mold & mildew vanished without a trace, committing a small johatsu of its own. David Harrow has made an inventive, warm and frequently gorgeous record, patient when it needs to be and playful when it can be, and Johatsu turned a dreary chore into a stroll beneath the stars. Highly recommended, with or without grout.
Johatsu by David Harrow was released on 23 October 2026 on No Beats Aloud
