82-page chapbook designed and produced by Loupe, featuring writings/art/poems by Patrick Shiroishi, Dylan Fujioka, Jon Irabagon, Kozue Matsumoto, Lesley Mok, Paul Lai, Tashi Dorji, Mai Sugimoto, Dustin Wong, Eyvind Kang, Amirtha Kidambi, Sharon Chohi Kim, Pauline Lay, Susie Ibarra, Jason Kao Hwang, Che Chen & Rob Sato. Photo to be replaced once proof is in hand.

Includes digital pre-order of Hidemi. You get 1 track now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.shipping out on or around October 29, 2021

edition of 100

All physical media comes with a digital download card

Patrick Shiroishi
Hidemi

1. Beachside Lonelyhearts
2. Tule Lake Like Yesterday
3. Jellyfish In The Sky
4. What Happens When People Open Their Hearts
5. Stand Up And Let Us Go And Witness This Ourselves
6. To Kill A Wind-Up Bird
7. Without The Threat Of Punishment There Is No Joy In Flight
8. The Dowager's Clipped Wings
9. The Long Bright Dark


“The concentration camps that Japanese Americans had to go through has been a major part of my work for the last couple of years,” says Los Angeles based composer and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi. His last album Descension was heavily focused on the experience inside Japanese-American concentration camps, but his new album Hidemi, a solo multilayered woodwind journey, is more on the personal experience of his grandfather after getting out. “His name is Hidemi Patrick,” Shiroishi explains, “so I was named after him, but I never got to meet him, as he passed away before I was born.” As Patrick’s name is in memory to his grandfather, Hidemi is too, and across the album’s nine tracks, Shiroishi brings the listener through tension and release, showcasing something unfiltered, beautiful, and ultimately hopeful, a testament to perseverance and grace.

If you’ve ever wondered what trios, quartets, and quintets of Patrick Shiroishi’s sounded like, Hidemi was made for you. All of the album was written and performed by Shiroishi who sang and played alto, baritone, tenor, C melody, and soprano saxophones, stacking up layers of harmonies often each recorded in one take. The album’s opening blasts on “Beachside Lonelyhearts” blow the doors open, but are quickly replaced by loping, interplaying melodies that swell, recede, then slowly, methodically shuffle off. Other songs like “To Kill A Wind-Up Bird” start with woodwind flurries and free jazz that metamorphosize into something serene before Shiroishi’s baritone sax, breaks open the piece, and brings back the beginning’s composed but frenetic energy.

Shiroishi wanted to allow for community expression, too, to be a part of Hidemi regarding the Asian-American experience, so he curated and edited a chapbook featuring writings and art by fellow Asian-American artists - Tangled. The book was made to provide a platform for thoughts considering the recent rise of violence against Asian-Americans due to racism spurred by misinformation on Covid-19, and features artists such as Dylan Fujioka, Mai Sugimoto, Tashi Dorji & Susie Ibarra.

In an evocative, personal essay from Tangled, Shiroishi explains the Japanese concept of “‘gaman,’ which means to endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity, or simply put, to bite your tongue.” It’s a chilling, profound passage in which the history of Japanese-Americans have had to “gaman” with Shiroishi ultimately stating that “We can no longer ‘gaman.’ We must be loud and speak up, so what our grandparents and ancestors went through will not be forgotten or taken for granted.”

Hidemi functions as a warning, but there is ecstasy and hope in it, too. In the last song “The Long Bright Dark,” a short, blossoming tear-jerker that crescendos with Shiroishi’s vocals, the artist cries out in Japanese “Is This The End Of The Storm?” It’s the sole sung passage in Hidemi, but its effectiveness is chill-inducing - it contextualizes everything, pushing forward while acknowledging historical evil. It’s moving and impactful, moving towards a society where - in his essay he writes - “our children and future generations may live without fear. So that they won’t have to “gaman.”

released October 29, 2021

Mixed & Mastered by Felix Salazar
Co-produced by Patrick Shiroishi & Felix Salazar