Uyama Hiroto — A Son of the Sun (2008)
The quiet continuum of a friendship carried in sound.
By Rafi Mercer
There are albums that feel like destinations, and there are albums that feel like a returning. A Son of the Sun belongs to the latter — not because it is nostalgic, but because it carries the unmistakable warmth of a world you somehow already know. When it landed in 2008, it arrived like a soft echo of something the global listening community had been grieving without fully acknowledging: the silence left by Nujabes. Uyama Hiroto, his closest collaborator and, in many ways, his quietest mirror, approached the task not as a disciple trying to fill a void, but as a friend tracing the light that was still there.
Listening to this album is like sitting inside the memory of a Sunday that never quite ended. The drums are brushed rather than struck, chords stretch out like afternoon shadows, and Hiroto’s saxophone — tender, almost weightless — feels less like a lead instrument and more like an exhale. It is an album built on restraint: no bravado, no showmanship, no search for a “moment.” Hiroto writes in long arcs. Every note is patient. Every phrase is allowed to bloom in full. It is the kind of record that doesn’t ask for attention but offers you presence.
What makes A Son of the Sun so resonant is its sense of continuity. This is not imitation; it is lineage. Hiroto and Nujabes shared an understanding of how jazz could be rethreaded through hip-hop without force, without spectacle. And yet, where Nujabes leaned into the emotional cadence of piano and lyrical introspection, Hiroto gravitated toward the natural world — the river-bend feeling of “81summer,” the wind-carried lightness of “Ribbon in the Sea,” the grounded pulse of “Stratus.” These are not tracks so much as small weather systems, each carrying its own humidity, its own horizon.
Play this album in a quiet room and it changes the geometry of the space. Corners soften. Edges blur. You begin to hear the room breathing with you — a phenomenon I’ve always thought of as the mark of a truly intimate record. Music that doesn’t just fill a room, but rounds it.
In the years since its release, A Son of the Sun has become one of those rare works that listeners treat not as a discovery but as a ritual. It’s the record you put on in the hour when the day has finally loosened its grip. It’s the record you turn to when you need to gather yourself. And, for many who found Nujabes first, it’s the record that quietly, gently, proved that the lineage didn’t end with one man — that the sensibility he nurtured could be carried forward by someone who understood its centre of gravity.
Uyama Hiroto didn’t try to recreate what was lost. He simply continued the conversation.
And that is why A Son of the Sun still feels alive.
Quick Questions
What does this album feel like?
A slow, sun-warmed drift — jazz-infused, contemplative, emotionally weightless.
Where should I listen to it?
Late evening, windows cracked open, soft light, room still enough to hear the texture of each brushstroke.
Why does it matter?
Because it extends the emotional world that listeners found in Nujabes, proving that warmth, patience, and quiet craftsmanship can define a genre.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
