To understand Thank You Kirin Kiri, the ambitious and stunning debut album from jazz and ambient multi-instrumentalist Rindert Lammers, it’s essential to get the proper context. In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 film Shoplifters, Japanese actress Kirin Kiki plays the grandmother of a family who have all fled or lost their own families. In one of her final scenes (both onscreen and in her real life), Kiri looks at her family and says “thank you” twice, an improvised moment for the actress, who passed away later that year.
This moment had a profound effect on Lammers, a Dutch musician born in 1994 who was raised in a musical family and influenced by jazz and progressive rock. Experiencing the sudden loss of three loved ones while studying history in college, Lammers found solace in cinema and applied this inspiration to the moving jazz-leaning soundscapes in his music.
Thank You Kirin Kiri can be best described as a quiet, sophisticated jazz album with generous helpings of ambient soundscapes, made all the more impressive by Lammers playing most of the instruments (aided by Canadian multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason, who plays saxophone on four tracks, as well as Martronimous and Stijn Gruisen, who play trumpet and guitar, respectively, on one song). Piano, bass, and drums tend to make up the lion’s share of instrumentation, but are often peppered with bits of percussion, ambient sounds, guitars, and synths.
“Summer in Shibuya” opens the record with an irresistible aura of ambient textures, as Shabason’s saxophone cuts through the sustained, orchestral-sounding waves of sound. However, primarily due to Lammers’ elegiac piano, “Opening Credits” brings in a soothing, woozy aura of jazz, aided by dots of synth notes, bright strings, and field recordings of cars and outdoor ambience. Lammers’ music soothes while also inviting an air of mystery.
The title track follows similar lines, but, after a gentle intro of synths and nature sounds, it becomes something of a sparse duet between Lammers on piano and Shabason. The appearance of Martronimous and Gruisen progresses the album even further, and rain sounds, electric piano, and a voice sample of a speaker reading a comment from a YouTube video of Hiroshimi Yoshimura, a pioneer of Japanese ambient music, add layers of sound that are unusual and seemingly incongruous but ultimately soothing and calming.
“Closing Credits” fittingly brings the record to a too-soon conclusion, and is fairly standard downbeat, melodic jazz fare, with Lammers and Shabason luxuriating in the composition’s relaxing tempo and organic vibe. The music Lammers conjures up here is definitely within the realm of the jazz genre, but is also reminiscent, perhaps unsurprisingly, of the lush, lyrical feel of film scores. Rindert Lammers may use his love of cinema and music as an escape from death and sadness, but he gives that form of escape right back to the listener, in the form of 25 gorgeous minutes of deeply felt songs.