Leeds post-prog band Yoshizawa reveal plans for debut album, For Tomomi

Bringing together drums, guitar, flute and synthesisers, For Tomomi combines prog ideas with dance momentum as vocalist and songwriter Amelie Yoshizawa chronicles a timeline of the hardest years of her life, "using this album almost like a diary."

Lead single "Empty Space" emerges directly from this place, as Yoshizawa explains: "I felt this complete emptiness, a vacuum of emotions where I was almost like a zombie to speak to." Partway through writing it she stopped, and the band finished it together in a rehearsal basement, looping the interlocking keys and guitar, adding a unison flute and bass line, and building to what synth player Ruben calls "this big cathartic payoff, where we're all sprawling out and then coming back together." Yoshizawa adds: "They were the only people who could lift me out of that nothingness, and that's what they did in the song, turning my miserable song into a fiery ball of fun."

For Tomomi is also named as a dedication to a family member, with the album also being a prayer for hope. "I wanted to write something uplifting that was like a prayer," says Yoshizawa. She wrote the music reflecting on a period when reality became completely detached from itself, with every song starting as a demo that Yoshizawa built in a DAW, with the band building upon it with experimental textures. "The only way I've been able to reflect on this time of my life is expressing it through art, and that might be why the music has so many turning points and a world of its own," she says.

For Tomomi artwork

For Tomomi tracklist

"Empty Space"
"Fish Eyes"
"Unknown"
"Alien (the film)"
"What A Boring Life"
"Stop Start"
"For Tomomi"