Invisible Island’ sees Berlin-based Japanese pianist and sound designer Midori Hirano explore a subtly unsettling, frayed nerve strain of neo-classical ambience upon her return to Sonic Pieces Following up the imaginative, playful scope of 2016’s ‘Minor Planet’, Midori’s new side is best defined by its bittersweet edge and queasy textural/atmospheric backdrops that create an absorbing, quizzical gulf of detachment between the notes and the textures. While ostensibly working with clean, simple piano phrasing, the devil really lies in Midori’s filigree post-production that makes everything appear slightly unsteady and seemingly lost to its own thoughts while we listen in. The experience of ‘Invisible Island’ almost feels voyeuristic, as though we’re watching from a distance a play of emotions fleeting across someone else’s silent face, morphing from melancholic introspection to pangs of cutting anguish and, eventually on the B-side, a sense of breezy relief and resolution that comes through as the bitterness of the A-side subsides like night to morning. Really, the difference between the impending feel of opener ‘Ocean’s Disconnect’ and the resolution of ‘Invisible Island’ at the end could hardly be starker, with the magic lying in the way Midori very stealthily transitions between these shades of mood.