Shoko Igarashi

Shoko Igarashi was born in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. An accomplished tenor saxophonist, she is also a versatile flautist and plays alto and soprano saxophone fluently. She has already made her mark as both an arranger and a composer.

Shoko grew up surrounded by dreamlike landscapes of abundant nature in the snowy
countryside of Tsuruoka, a mysterious and surreal region renowned for producing the best quality rice in Japan, where she says, “the water and the air feel the purest and where mountains and shrines overflow with ancient mysticism“. After beginning her musical career in Tokyo, she attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree of music. 
She then relocated to Brooklyn, New York where she began regularly performing live alongside innumerable talented jazz musicians. In 2018, she moved to Brussels, Belgium and founded the group Maniac Maison with her partner, pianist Casimir Liberski, and guitarist Lucien Fraipont.

Since 2018, Shoko has written and compiled a series of well-crafted, colourful electronic
songs curating diverse influences such as Sly and the Family Stone, Earth Wind & fire,
Japanese City-Pop, 70s jazz fusion, and the anime film music that she grew up learning to play. Her nimble and seamless assembly of these very different elements into her unique sound is astonishingly natural.
In addition to her primary group Maniac Maison, Shoko worked with Belgian synth-pop band Telex’s founding member and producer Dan Lacksman on her first official solo Album. Her first Electro pop album released from Tigersushi records on May 2022.

五十嵐祥子　山形県鶴岡市出身。10歳の頃にサックスを吹き始め、高校進学とともに上京。2012年にはバークリー音楽大学に進学。卒業後はニューヨークでの演奏活動を経て、2018年にベルギー、ブリュッセルへ移住。デビューアルバム、シンプルセンテンセスが2022年にパリのレコードレーベルTigerSushi recordsよりリリースされた。

Shoko Igarashi’s tracks

• Belleville by Shoko Igarashi
• Mme. Poisson by Shoko Igarashi
• Hinotori by Shoko Igarashi
• Suzy by Shoko Igarashi