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aus + The Humble Bee
CHALYBEATE
FLAU - Cat No: FLAU110LP
- updated:2026-05-28
CD composer/producer Fukuzono Yasuhiko's solo project, aus, spent a month in Ikaho Onsen, Gunma, in the fall of 2024, creating the "Ikaho Surroundings - Ambient Sound Fountain," an installation that was shown locally and attracted a great deal of attention. The Humble Bee, an ambient musician from Manchester, England, has reconstructed the entire exhibition and immersed the sounds themselves in the air and humidity of Ikaho for a year to re-ferment them, resulting in the long-awaited analog LP release of "CHALYBEATE!
Track List
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1. below the surface we shimmer and shine
04:22 -
2. i follow a barren path across the old mountain
05:48 -
3. blushing copper light
06:46 -
4. specular ochre
05:44 -
5. in dark hours, your colours glow their brightest
04:47 -
6. the mulberry and the stone
06:43 -
7. juniper
04:31 -
8. we flow ever downwards, until we blossom
06:10
Chalybeate began as a document of a month-long stay by Tokyo-based producer aus in Ikaho, a historic onsen town in Japan, during the autumn of 2024.
Working from field-recordings captured inside multiple ryokan baths, aus synthesized the subterranean movement of the onsen’s with local details: the bubbling of source water, the hoozuki (lantern plants) and furin (wind chimes) placed at each ryokan (inn), and the surrounding insects and birds. Rather than portraying Ikaho as a landscape, the recordings trace the town’s respiration.
The material was first presented on site as an installation called IKAHO SURROUNDING – AMBIENT ONSEN unfolding across eight different onsen, where visitors listened while soaking in roten-buro (open air hot baths). The project drew wide attention for proposing listening as a bodily act (音泉音浴), inseparable from heat, moisture, and duration.
Chalybeate re-constructs that installation as an album. The recordings were left to sit for a year within Ikaho’s air and humidity, allowing the sound itself to slowly change. The title refers to Ikaho’s iron rich mineral water, known as Kogane-no-yu (golden water), which oxidizes upon contact with air and leaves rust colored traces in its baths. Following this process, the album’s sound was repeatedly re submerged and re worked, gradually absorbing a corroded texture..tape hiss, gentle distortion, and subtle fluctuations rise quietly, like steam. What remains is not documentation but residue.
Mixing was handed over to Manchester based producer The Humble Bee by Craig Tattersall, because aus exhausted himself traversing Ikaho’s steep stone steps. The exchange mirrors the work itself: from bathtub to hot spring, from sound to something that surrounds the body.
Woodwind like tape noise and the movement of water dissolve into one another. The music does not arrive all at once. It settles slowly, as if lowering into warm water.
Working from field-recordings captured inside multiple ryokan baths, aus synthesized the subterranean movement of the onsen’s with local details: the bubbling of source water, the hoozuki (lantern plants) and furin (wind chimes) placed at each ryokan (inn), and the surrounding insects and birds. Rather than portraying Ikaho as a landscape, the recordings trace the town’s respiration.
The material was first presented on site as an installation called IKAHO SURROUNDING – AMBIENT ONSEN unfolding across eight different onsen, where visitors listened while soaking in roten-buro (open air hot baths). The project drew wide attention for proposing listening as a bodily act (音泉音浴), inseparable from heat, moisture, and duration.
Chalybeate re-constructs that installation as an album. The recordings were left to sit for a year within Ikaho’s air and humidity, allowing the sound itself to slowly change. The title refers to Ikaho’s iron rich mineral water, known as Kogane-no-yu (golden water), which oxidizes upon contact with air and leaves rust colored traces in its baths. Following this process, the album’s sound was repeatedly re submerged and re worked, gradually absorbing a corroded texture..tape hiss, gentle distortion, and subtle fluctuations rise quietly, like steam. What remains is not documentation but residue.
Mixing was handed over to Manchester based producer The Humble Bee by Craig Tattersall, because aus exhausted himself traversing Ikaho’s steep stone steps. The exchange mirrors the work itself: from bathtub to hot spring, from sound to something that surrounds the body.
Woodwind like tape noise and the movement of water dissolve into one another. The music does not arrive all at once. It settles slowly, as if lowering into warm water.
The sound source for the installation, which is said to have captured the breath of the town itself, was created over the course of a year from a clear, untainted motif and imbued with the roughness and subtle undulations of tape hiss and the texture of the golden and silvery waters of Ikaho, which is known for its gold and silver. The installation soundtrack is said to be imbued with the roughness and subtle undulations of tape hiss and the texture of the hot water of Ikaho, known for its gold and silver.
As for the mixing baton, Craig Tattersall, aka The Humble Bee, an ambient master from Manchester, England, who has been in contact with aus for many years, reconstructed the entire sound. The fragile, atmospheric sound is created by a delicate sound design that carefully scoops out the overtones that faintly reverberate in the hot water.
The visuals are by Francis Kanai, a local artist from Haruna, which is said to share the same water source as Ikaho, and the LP is a special half-transparent vinyl LP analog version that resembles a hot spring.