Photo credit: Inigo Blake (click for high res) "A subtle work that thrives on nuance. Utilising understated sonics, midori’s work has a probing quality, with each piece becoming a space for emotions to be explored in full." - Clash
"Immersive, genre-defying sounds... I for one can’t wait to immerse myself in more of her captivating folk-strewn musicality and shimmering heartfelt emotion." - Get In Her Ears
"A sensuous, subtly propulsive track built around her lustrous voice, airy synths and a rhythmic cello groove consisting of plucked strings." - The Line of Best Fit
"Energetic, catchy and deeply expressive" - Loud Women
"midori jaeger has created something singular here: A world unto itself, percussive and human, feverish and tender." - Atwood Magazine
“midori jaeger is the real deal... An intriguing and accomplished offering." - Is This Music?
Today, London-based cellist, singer and songwriter midori jaeger (pronounced MID-uh-ree YAY-ger) releases her new EP ‘(Un)planted' - listen to it in full now. The EP release comes alongside a London live date at St Pancras Old Church on April 22nd.
'(Un)planted' is a musical painting of uprooting and rerooting. Drawing a parallel between the cello - once a living tree - and midori's own journey of root-building on different soils, the EP depicts experiences of mixed heritage, partnered-ness and aloneness, to eventual solace found in creativity.
'(Un)planted' listening links: https://linktr.ee/midori_jaeger
Dug from the soil and shaped into song, the cello is the most human of all instruments. It vibrates at a grounding frequency and rumbles throughout the body. Its player doesn't merely clasp it by the neck but tightly swaddles it. For London-based musician midori jaeger — who has received cosigns from Adrianne Lenker and Moses Sumney, among others — 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 began playing the cello at eight, a decision that would entwine her identity with the instrument. Classically trained at the Royal Academy of Music, midori 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 new EPs - '(Un)planted' is the first part, with the counterpart due to follow later in 2026.
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.
midori jaeger will play London's St Pancras Old Church on April 22nd. Ticket info here.
‘(Un)planted’ EP track list:
1. dark green
2. exasperate
3. bones & mirrors
4. exterior
5. particles
Links:
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