These are stories without words. First comes the breath, the waves, and the skin.

With Komorebi, his new sensitive and sunny EP, somewhere between ambient and soft piano, Alexis Croisé unveils six tracks that allow us to escape urban nervousness and the exhausting pace of big cities, and rediscover more fluid and organic movements.

A recent study tells us that listening to six minutes of birdsong is enough to calm irrational thoughts and anxiety. In the same way, Komorebi, an untranslatable Japanese word that describes the sun filtering through the leaves of trees, was conceived as a sonic journey to peaceful lands.

In this EP, Alexis Croisé affirms, through music, his commitment to life—he who, in the fall, proposed “solidarity residencies” in support of associations such as Les soulèvements de la terre (The Earth’s Uprisings) and La ligue pour la protection des oiseaux (The League for the Protection of Birds).

The sad gaze of a leopard, for example, exhausted from pacing in its cage and dreaming of elsewhere, like Alexis stuck in the frenetic hubbub of the city, gives the track its title, “Sad Leopard Boi.” Accompanied by Aja’s synthetic layers, the neo-classical piece is initially structured around a central motif, before rising and opening up, as if guided by light.

The memory of Alexis’ Dutch grandfather, close to death and frozen in the immobility of Alzheimer’s, but whose gaze seems brought back to life by a butterfly circling around him, is embodied in the track “Le voyage d’Opa” (Opa’s Journey).

The six tracks on Alexis Croisé’s Komorebi were woven together in this way, from the lives of others and his own. In a constant back-and-forth movement between an instrument, the piano, and the world.

The pianist, for whom this is his second instrumental EP (the first, Superhero, was released in 2024), previously made a name for himself as a musician in several indie pop bands (Biche and Mottomoda), and as a keyboardist on stage with Clara Luciani, Leonie Pernet, and Gaetan Nonchalant.

Here, we are given access to his most vibrant intimacy. And his curiosity, too.

To flesh out these lively or melancholic compositions (which are sometimes reminiscent of Hisaishi’s soundtracks or certain Sakamoto albums), Alexis went out into the open air, all over France. With a recorder, he captured the songs of several types of birds, alone or accompanied by an ornithologist. He also captured the sounds of rivers, the sea, different winds, and voices. Breathing and nails striking the ivory keys of the piano, as well as the friction of the hammers, all blended into the recordings. Step by step, the rustling of the world mingled with his solitude, and the record became like a place apart.

A quiet place, but rich in detail, where one can relearn how to breathe.

Through music, push back the walls a little and let the light in — Komorebi.