Myth of Tomorrow, the second album by composer-pianist Erika Dohi, is a sonic meditation on catastrophe, resilience, and rebirth. The album is a representation of Dohi’s artistic growth and exploration, seamlessly combining elements from dance, jazz, ambient, and classical composition to create transcendent, otherworldly soundscapes. Inspired by Taro Okamoto’s striking mural of the Hiroshima bombing by the same name, Myth of Tomorrow merges historical trauma with Dohi’s own personal upheaval in 2020.

Dohi began working on Myth of Tomorrow soon after she finalized her hypnotic debut album, 2021’s I, Castorpollux. That record, which combined delicate piano with towering soundscapes built from her keyboard, garnered international acclaim from outlets like the New York Times and BBC. But Dohi knew she wanted to challenge herself on her follow-up: “I wanted to push myself to do something different,” she says. “I didn’t want to just make I, Castorpollux - Part 2. I started listening to a lot of different music.”

Expanding her already eclectic sonic palette, Myth of Tomorrow incorporates traditional Japanese instruments, the iconic Fairlight CMI synthesizer, and her own mesmeric singing.
As an artist in residency at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 studio in partnership with Forgotten Futures, Dohi had access, for the first time, to a galaxy of new instruments and production tools that led her to integrate elements of electronic and hip-hop into her music.

The record, produced by Grammy-winning composer/producer William Brittelle and with support from Metropolis Ensemble, is both distinctly Dohi’s own, yet unlike anything we’ve ever heard from her before. On “Ame Onna,” we hear Dohi’s processed vocals, warbling as if sung underwater, over fluttering synths and the steady beat of a cymbal hit. But then, just after her voice crescendos, the song transforms into something fit for a deep sea rave: a thrumming bass drops into the song, shuffling and doubling on itself until it melts into the surrounding instrumentation. The album’s title track centers Dohi’s vocals, her repetitions of “you know I care/you know I do” leading to springloaded melodies and a shuddering drum that send the song into orbit. “In The Wild” synthesizes these disparate modes, its combination laser-like synths and saxophone recalling what a jazz club might sound like on Mars.

Yet alongside that exuberance and radiance is an underlying sense of melancholia: “Transplante,” featuring spoken word from Dohi’s best friend, poet Carol Féliz, is a simmering meditation on belonging and identity. “Shahzad + Erika,” recorded in collaboration with Figure 8’s Shahzad Ismaily, is a captivating and discordant dialogue between two veteran musicians, reverberating with the productive tension between Ismaily’s studio wizardry and Dohi’s piano.

Dohi began writing Myth of Tomorrow in the earliest days of the COVID-19 lockdown, recording alone on her phone in her apartment. The resulting song is the album’s final track, “First Responders April 29, 2020.” Opening with pitch-shifted vocals and a skittering beat, the song soon transforms into something murkier, less certain, her piano almost hesitant as Dohi’s voice memo takes hold. “Only you can change it. And by it, I mean you are changing yourself,” she says plainly. As the chiming sound of pots and pans striking each other takes hold in the album’s final moments, a reminder of the early pandemic collective support of first responders, it’s a reminder of the ways isolation and hardship can bring rebirth and change. Born from solitude and stillness, Myth of Tomorrow represents universal interbeing, inviting listeners to explore their own confines and find solace in collective resilience and strength.


-Arielle Gordon