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Kiku, the third release from Jon Thompson under his Oppressed by the Line moniker, was written while on holiday in Japan during July/August of 2006. The tracks were unearthed and finished during the autumn of 2008. Kiku follows on from the well recieved albums “The Cause of the Colour” on UK label Club AC30 and 2008’s “Soft Focus” (Drifting Falling).
“Mountain Mist was written after visiting Fuji and Hakone. Sunset From the 16th Floor was written while sitting on a wide window sill in Oita looking out at a beautiful sunset. Paper Cranes was written in Hiroshima. One Thousand Red Stars was written on a high floor in a hotel in Tokyo over looking the city at night. Shinkansen was written on a bullet train en route to Oita.”
Thompson grew up in a small industrial town outside of Houston, Texas. Close to the coast, it’s the sort of small American town where his only window into the bigger world of music was staying up until 1am on a Sunday night to watch 120 Minutes on MTV. Perhaps it was this, as much as anything else, that led him to pick up a guitar and seek solace amongst the rhythm and the sound.
After a visit to the Tate Modern in London, he christened his project Oppressed by the Line; named after a quote on a placard under a painting of a blue void by Yves Klein. The quote read, “I adopt the cause of the colour oppressed by the line”.