Cruciform and Spiral Flowers

“An experimental electronic ambient work shaped around the hidden world of plants.”

Kita Kouhei’s 16th album, Subspecies, serves as a companion and spiritual successor to his 9th album, Neospecies. Each composition in this new collection draws inspiration from different forms of plant life—quiet, resilient, fleeting, or deeply rooted.

The album’s sound palette remains true to Kita’s signature atmosphere: the water-like resonance of the array mbira, the gentle rolling timbre of the wooden slit drum, clouded analog synth textures, deep bass tones, aged tape noise, and fragments of field recordings that drift like wind through leaves.

But in Subspecies, these familiar elements are intertwined with a wide range of percussion—drums and cajón, the ancient frame drum, Middle Eastern darbuka, Indian tabla, the Irish bodhrán, and more. Through the meeting of electronic processes and acoustic instruments, the album constructs an experimental ambient landscape where organic life and sound coexist, echoing the quiet vitality of the plant world.