青木ヶ原, 樹海 - Aokigahara, The Black Sea of Trees

“Surrounded by beauty, one thinks of life and death and the ephemeral nature of it all; the album’s winds may blow cold, but they whistle words of encouragement.”
Richard Allen , A Closer Listen

Aokigahara, The Black Sea of Trees is an abstract visual and sonic story-telling which takes place in a forest located in Mount Fuji, Japan. The forest of Aokigahara, has a world-wide fame for the thousands of suicides which took place there and now has an almost mythological statue.

The forest is spread all through with ephemera and items such as photographs, letters and instruments left behind by the leavers, all untouched due to respect. almost entire forest is covered with long ribbons people used to be able to return if they changed their mind. therefore, the entire land is embodied with the vicarious objects that depict the sense of memory, loss and hope.

The auditory side of this album can be related to musical genres such as ambient and drone, but also of importance to this album is film and film abstraction; the experience of light moving in time, as for example the work of Stan Brakhage. An audio story-telling which derives from the contrast between dark and intense sounds to more delicate and quiet auditory landscapes, where the sense of an intrinsic lament is always present, and stepping into the oblivion gets distilled into pure sensation, that of belonging to life and hope. Asphodel puts an emphasis on the romantic, that of life relived through the forest.

Released as CD format at 2012, by Wounded Wolf Press
Released as vinyl format at November 19, 2015 by Invisible Birds

Produced by Atay İlgün & Alper Yıldırım
Mixed by Atay İlgün

Vinyl edition cover photo by Tarrl Lightowler,
design by Matthew Swiezynski
mastered by A.F. Jones

Review of CD edition from A Closer Listen
Review of vinyl edition from A Closer Listen
Review from Santa Sagre

Aokigahara, The Black Sea of Trees - 30’ 15’’
A half an hour movie of Asphodel’s album Aokigahara, The Black Sea of Trees.

Exhibited in Nesrin Esirtgen Collection’s event Open Call // Open Door in 2015.