Artist Spotlight is our regular feature introducing you to Cities and Memory artists around the world with an in-depth interview. In this edition, we introduce you to Tokyo jazz pianist and sound artist Daisuke Matsubara, who feels freedom sitting at a piano, and whose sonic journey in life began with Pokemon. 

My area of interest has gradually shifted from performing music for attention toward creating music that quietly blends into a place, a landscape, or a moment in everyday life. I started playing jazz piano and doing street performances in Tokyo when I was around 14 years old. Through those performances, I met strangers, connected with people passing by, and sometimes received tips. I’ve continued playing in public spaces for nearly twenty years.

Over time, though, I became increasingly interested in music that doesn’t stand apart like a “stage performance,” but instead naturally dissolves into the atmosphere of a space. Because of that, when I perform with my regular jazz trio, I pay close attention to adjusting the sound so it feels organically connected to the café, bar, or environment we’re playing in, rather than overwhelming it.

More recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time in nature with my dogs and my child — going to mountains, lakes, and forests around Japan. That led me to wonder what kind of music truly belongs in those environments.

Naturally, I began making field recordings, and eventually started improvising piano alongside those recordings. This became an ongoing project called Sketch, where each piece is named after the date it was created. Whenever inspiration comes, I record the environmental sounds of that specific place and day, then improvise piano over them to create a composition in the moment. The pieces function almost like sonic diaries or soundtracks of ordinary life.

Last month, I appeared on FM Yokohama, a Japanese radio station, and performed some of these piano pieces live. The response from listeners was unexpectedly emotional and helped me realise that there is a kind of “quiet pianism” at the centre of my music.

Since then, I’ve been continuing to upload these works to Spotify and other platforms — documenting beautiful sounds from daily life and layering piano onto them. I think of them less as songs that demand focused listening, and more as music that gently accompanies someone’s environment, similar in spirit to works like Emi Stüdyo Stories. Rather than listening to a single piece intensely, I hope people experience the music through playlists, letting it blend naturally into their surroundings and daily routines.

Although I live in Tokyo, which is full of urban noise and the constant energy of the city, my home is actually behind a temple. In Japan, many temples preserve surrounding forests called chinju no mori — sacred groves protected for generations.

Because of that, there is a rich forest just behind my house, and I often hear birds singing and the sound of the temple bell echoing through the trees. It’s a surprisingly peaceful and beautiful soundscape to live in.

I also live with two dogs, so there’s the gentle sound of their footsteps around the house, which is always comforting and cute. They are rescued former stray dogs that were born and raised in the Japanese countryside and mountains.

When I think about where my love of sound came from, I realise it may not have started with piano or even with the sounds of nature — it probably started with video game soundtracks.

Growing up with Pokémon, I naturally memorized the creatures’ cries and sound effects, and those sounds became deeply embedded in my memory. Looking back, that was actually a very significant moment in my relationship with sound. Interestingly, I now work as a producer at a game company, and part of my work has involved projects focused on making game music and audio assets more accessible and easier to use.

The reason I first started playing piano was because I wanted to copy the music I heard in games and anime by ear. That process — listening carefully, figuring things out through sound, and recreating them myself — was my first real musical experience. So even as a child, I think I already understood, in a very natural way, that I simply loved sound itself.

What I love most about my creative work — especially my music practice — is simply playing the piano. When I touch the piano, it feels like a part of my brain that I normally don’t use suddenly starts moving. I feel deeply connected to the world, and it makes me think, “I’m really glad to be alive in this way.”

With the piano, I can move completely freely. It almost feels like my fingers move before my thoughts do. I can enter a state that’s very close to meditation while playing. One challenge with piano, though, is portability.

Even with digital pianos, I honestly still want a full 88-key instrument, so bringing one deep into the mountains isn’t very realistic. Because of that, when I’m in nature, I focus instead on carefully recording sounds like birdsong and the atmosphere of the forest.

Then later, back at home, I play piano alongside those recordings. By separating the acts of field recording and piano performance, this current project, “Sketch,” has become something that feels especially natural and deeply fitting for me.

Outside of Cities and Memory, I think the project that best represents my usual artistic practice is my solo music project called Sketch. It’s a very personal and slow-paced project where I record environmental sounds from the places I happen to be on a given day, and then improvise piano over them to create compositions.

Rather than the jazz-oriented music I usually perform in cafés and live venues, this project is much closer to ambient, electronica, and field recording-based sound art. I really like this approach because it feels like a way of connecting my piano playing with the sounds of forests, nature, and the surrounding environment. It allows me to blend improvisation with the atmosphere of a specific place and moment in time.

One piece I’m especially proud of is a sketch I submitted to Cities and Memory, built around the call of the Daurian redstart — a small bird with an orange back that lives in Suwa District, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. I sampled the bird’s voice and layered piano around it.

The piece was created during a camping trip with my family, early in the morning when the air was cold and incredibly clear. I remember my mind feeling unusually sharp and quiet at that moment, and I think that atmosphere naturally found its way into the music.

It’s a very small and simple sketch, but it feels deeply memorable to me because it captured a real moment in my life — the sound of nature, the presence of family, and the feeling of being fully awake in the morning landscape.

One of my favorite writers and artists is Teruoki Mishina, who runs a small general store in the Nishi-Ogikubo neighborhood of Tokyo. I really love his essays. He writes about how our lives are now overflowing with objects, but at the same time, apps and online marketplaces have made it possible to constantly buy and sell things freely.

Because of that, he questions whether “owning” something today simply means temporarily placing it inside your house until you decide to sell it again someday. In contrast, he describes how objects inside a real shop can feel as if they are already being lived with. Things are arranged with care and atmosphere, and the boundary between “product” and “personal belonging” becomes unclear.

I found his way of thinking incredibly beautiful and inspiring. His writing made me think deeply about the relationship between objects, memory, daily life, and the spaces we inhabit.

One sound that holds special meaning and importance for me is probably people’s names. That might be a little different from music or sound art, but when I thought about it carefully, that was the answer that felt most true to me.

A person’s name can instantly bring them back into your mind. It reminds you of your family, the dogs you live with, the friends you love — all the people connected to your life in a deep way. So for me, names are incredibly important sounds.

My son is two and a half years old now, and he’ll be starting kindergarten soon. Lately I’ve been writing his name over and over again, and every time I do, I find myself thinking what a beautiful sound it is.

I like compact gear as much as possible, so I really love things like the Yamaha Reface CP, the OP-1 field, and gear from Teenage Engineering. Surprisingly, I also use the iPhone Voice Memos app a lot — it’s incredibly convenient for field recording while playing with my son or walking with my dogs. I also like how easy it is to export WAV files into GarageBand and quickly turn small everyday moments into music or sound sketches.

For jazz performances, I use the Yamaha CP88, which is an 88-key stage piano with wooden keys. I still sometimes think about how nice it would be to play a real grand piano, but when I want sounds like a Fender Rhodes, electric pianos are simply much more practical and flexible. Right now, I enjoy combining different kinds of instruments and tools depending on the situation and the atmosphere I want to create.

One thing I’m deeply interested in right now is the place where I recently built my home — a small community next to a satoyama forest surrounding a temple called Ryodenji in Tokyo. The people living there are incredibly interesting, and many of them are interested in ambient music, quiet sound practices, and exploring how live performances can exist naturally within a temple environment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to create subtle and peaceful sounds that connect with everyday life and nature, rather than separating music from the environment. In the future, I’d love to connect this kind of activity with the Cities and Memory project as well. The temple itself is very unique — it hosts cultural events, music gatherings, and artists from different backgrounds. Even Aurora once stayed there, which was amazing to hear. It’s a place where nature, spirituality, sound, and community all blend together in a very organic way.