On the cover of his new album “Jumon” (“Spell”), Yuta Orisaka sits in a slightly old-fashioned kitchen, like one you might find at a grandparent’s home. There’s a bowl of what looks like parsley sitting on the counter; one of the cupboard doors is crooked. Look closely and you might notice a feline theme: a cat-shaped teapot on the windowsill, a maneki-neko (beckoning cat) figurine perched on a drying rack.
Another minor detail: the 34-year-old songwriter seems to have grown a furry tail. It isn’t his home, in case you were wondering. Orisaka borrowed someone else’s place for the shoot, “but they asked me not to say whose kitchen it was.
” This image of off-kilter domesticity carries over to our interview, at an office space in central Tokyo. Orisaka is joined by his 8-year-old son, whose school is taking the day off; he sits quietly, playing on a Nintendo Switch. It’s normal for managers or label staff to sit in on an interview, but this is the first I’ve conducted in the presence of an artist’s child.
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