midori jaeger connects with nature, and herself, on “dark green”

After a big breakup in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, singer-songwriter and classically trained cellist midori jaeger was feeling isolated in a new London flat, that looked out on a stand of evergreen trees. Alone and unable to visit her parents and extended family in Japan, where she was born, jaeger found a measure of solace in the view from her window.

“I got thinking about green as a symbol of life force and how it permeates everything,” says jaeger, whose first name, in fact, means “green” in Japanese. “I wasn’t consciously thinking about that in the moment, but the word or concept of green felt like a way of connecting with this place I couldn’t go.”

That was the inspiration for “dark green”. A sensuous, subtly propulsive track built around her lustrous voice, airy synths and a rhythmic cello groove consisting of plucked strings. jaeger had her doubts at first about the song. With a simpler structure and fewer lyrics than she usually writes, she wasn’t sure whether it fit with her musical sensibility.

When her co-producer Felix Higginbottom (of Low Island) encouraged jaeger to record the track, “dark green” ended up setting the tone for (Un)planted. Set for release on March 9, it’s the first of two thematically linked EPs that explore ideas of interconnectedness.

It’s a way for her to make sense of her own feelings of dislocation, prompted by a childhood spent straddling two cultures and classical music training that started when she was eight – and eventually came to feel too rigid. “I think through music I've always wanted to find this world that just feels like mine. I’m sure that's connected in some way, culturally, to wanting to find a world that's mine as well.”