aimi Returns With New Single “SUN”

aimi releases SUN on August 26 via Love Ocean Records. It’s her first new track since the EP Tell Me You Love Me Too, out in December 2025. Around eight months between the two. Production by Modesty Beats, her regular collaborator. The arrangement includes a brass section: saxophone by KenT of Soulflix, trumpet by Yamada Jozo (山田丈造).

The release notes lay out the context directly: aimi went through roughly six months of writer’s block. Nothing moving forward, sleepless nights, an inability to sit down and compose. She describes going back to basics, morning sunlight, listening to herself again. SUN came out of that process. The track is entirely in Japanese, a choice that stands out in her catalog. She says she wanted to express herself in her first language this time, from a more direct place. Musically, the register is different from her previous releases: more organic, with gospel and UK soul shading. The lyric circles around the idea that the sun is always there, even when hidden, a metaphor that in other hands would read as a cliché, but the biographical context here gives it real weight.

The key phrase in the chorus is “心は晴れるや” (Kokoro wa hareru ya, “the heart clears“). She sings it with a conviction that makes sense once you know what she went through to get there. A release event follows on October 25 at GOOD TEMPO in Ikejiri Ohashi, Tokyo. aimi performs with pianist GAKUSHI and surprise guests. Entry is ¥4,000 in advance (¥5,000 at the door), drinks not included. Tickets are available via LivePocket from August 26 at 6 PM.

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