Time Is On Your Side

Chicago alt-jazz polymath Sen Morimoto returns for their fourth LP Time Is On Your Side, on Sooper Records. 

Sen is a Japanese-American multi-disciplinary artist and producer in the jazz, alt-pop and rap scenes from Chicago to Japan. Morimoto’s releases consistently hop from genre to genre, disparate influences bleeding together in dense arrangements and earnest lyricism.

The 9 tracks on Morimoto’s newest offering remain reliably unpredictable, fluttering from rootsy folk, to odd-meter funk and ambient jazz. The lush and careful arrangements mark a decided change in Sen’s approach that finds their cathartic songwriting and intimate vocals at center stage.

Lyrically, Time Is On Your Side takes on the anxiety of the doom scroll era with reassuring patience. “I’m not fighting time anymore,” Sen says, “I treat it as an ingredient. Some of these songs only needed a pinch - a couple of improvised takes. Others sat, fermenting, for years until they became equal parts of my past and future. My hope is that it could inspire the freedom to slow down.”

The album features familiar faces from Morimoto’s band of Chicago collaborators, Kaina Castillo, Ryan Person, Elijah Bradford and Brok Mende. Lush strings and layered vocal harmonies weave in and out of the band’s freewheeling rhythm, nostalgic but inventive, like a childhood memory distorted by time.