The title of Keisuke Yoshizawa‘s debut EP is an equation. Raised in Tokyo’s old downtown, the composer and keyboardist grew up with a quiet melancholy and a restless madness side by side, found both again during two years in London, and on Zero let them collide until they cancelled out. What remains is a starting point, and the EP treats it as a rebirth. Released on January 30th, Zero is fully instrumental, three pieces of ambient texture and piano that together run under five and a half minutes.
It opens with very cool, jazzy chords straight away. “Zzz” begins with spacious harmony that evokes the dreamy and the abstract, with the push and pull of the tide. As a music nerd, I enjoyed the unconventional chord changes, which are very cool indeed, literally, because it sounds cool as opposed to a warm sound, but not cold in an uninviting way. It is cool in the way you set the AC to so you can fall asleep better.
It is incredible how the simple pulse in “birth” creates a sense of momentum and the start of something, especially after the stillness of the previous song. A faint heartbeat runs beneath the piano, and the track doesn’t linger long before we move back to the land of dreams on “SiF,” a very introspective piece that combines elements of the two preceding songs. It has a consistent pulse, though fainter, as if in the distance or somewhere in the back of your head, and simple piano melodies cut through the ambience at moments. I listened to “SiF” on repeat as meditation, and it is very effective at giving rise to calming streams of consciousness.
“SiF” was co-written with the London creative team State is Flow, and it closes with a real recording of the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral, whose dome Yoshizawa could see from the studio window. Before going solo, he played keyboards and composed and arranged for the bands 166cm and Sijima, and during his time in London he co-composed music for the feature film OUT (2026).
Since Zero, he has released a second EP, TWIN, in April, played a solo set on the main stage at HYPER JAPAN Festival at Olympia London in July, and appeared as a special guest at London band Barbican Estate’s Tokyo show in September. For anyone who wants calm, immersive instrumental music with a personal story behind it, Zero is a short, rewarding listen and a good place to begin.