midori jaeger – hunted

Following the announcement of her forthcoming EP (Re)planted, due for release on August 26th, London-based cellist and singer midori jaeger (pronounced MID-uh-ree YAY-ger) returns with her second single, “hunted”.

Drawing a parallel between the cello, once a living tree, and her own journey as a child uprooted several times and forced to build roots in different soils, ‘(Re)planted’ continues to transmute midori’s experiences of migration and mixed cultural heritage into songs written from the cello. Where its predecessor EP ‘(Un)planted’, released earlier this year, wrestled with displacement and identity, ‘(Re)planted’ embraces a gentler, more expansive language, allowing her signature groove-led approach to evolve into something softer and more fluid.

Since unveiling the forthcoming EP’s opening track “planted” last month, midori’s audience has grown exponentially.

An intimate acoustic performance of the track spread rapidly across social media, even catching the attention of Jamie Oliver, who deemed it pukka enough to add to his “Kitchen Party Tunes” playlist. The momentum has since led to support from BBC Radio 6 Music and praise from The New York Times, who wrote that she “builds her songs atop pizzicato cello parts that sketch harmony, counterpoint and shifting meters as they hop around her voice.”

Now, “hunted” reveals another facet to midori’s songwriting. Moving away from the bristly, upbeat pizzicato tracks highlighted by The New York Times, her new offering was built around the piano, trading rhythmic propulsion for a smoother, more liquid and rippling language that reveals an elegance and weightlessness to her voice.

“‘hunted’ was inspired by a dream,” explains midori. “It asks why sometimes the scenes we create in our sleep can have such a strange allure after waking.”

From the ground, the tree. From the tree, the wood. From the wood, the cello. From the cello, a human—wrapping herself around it.

For London-based musician midori jaeger — who has collaborated with Imogen Heap, Patrick Watson, Christian Löffler, Daughter, Courtney Pine and Tanita Tikaram — this intimate bond has been one of her only constants amid a life marked by incessant uprooting and replanting.

Born in Japan and relocated to the UK at five, she later returned to Tokyo at sixteen before settling in London to study music full-time two years later. Each move was a replanting, each city a new soil.

Midori has played the cello since she was eight. Classically trained at the Royal Academy of Music, she eventually diverged from the rigid traditions she was schooled in. “Classical training made me feel quite insecure,” she says. “I started feeling like, what’s the point in me practising nine hours a day to just play this as well as someone else who can already do it? I kind of want to do something that only I could do.”

There is no better descriptor for Midori’s work: something only she could do. That insistence on personal expression defines her two latest EPs. Each song came quickly into being during the immediate aftermath of a long-term relationship, while jaeger still lived in the bedroom she shared with her ex. After a gestational period, she later recorded the EPs over ten intense days in Lisbon, playing cello, bass synth, synth, and cavaquinho, with drums by a close friend. Every note reflects a recalibration of roots — unplanting old certainties and replanting fresh truths through incandescent emotion and visceral groove.

Live dates:
25th Oct – Shrewsbury (UK) – The Darwin Room, Shrewsbury Library

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