Perfume in Sepia

Perfume in Sepia is a mid tempo city pop track that portrays a summer afternoon spent using up a vivid memory and letting it go, drawn through the last spray left in a nearly empty perfume bottle.

The dim back of a shelf, a small glass bottle almost drained, a scent once let fall on the inside of a wrist at night, and a final mist released into the air create a quiet, fading scene where a stored memory rises only to be sent off rather than kept.

Performed by the fictional AI singer Akemi, the song captures the emotions of adulthood that confirms the scent someone once called the scent of you was chosen for herself and not for him, and then releases the last spray without letting it reach her skin.

Inspired by the late 1970s to early 1980s Japanese new music and city pop, the track reimagines that era lyrical subtlety through images of a summer city, perfume on a vanity, the air of a room, and a memory slowly turning sepia.

Instead of her skin, she presses the last spray into the air, and lets that summer spread across the room and fade on its own. A name half spoken is held back in her throat as the emptied bottle returns to the shelf, closing a remembrance she has chosen to use up and let go with her own hands.

Produced by nanayon music.