Bootie Grove retraces a journey through Japan on ‘Japan Trip’

Some journeys stay with you long after you return. On Japan Trip, Bootie Grove revisits his travels through Japan in seven tracks, each connected to a place, a moment or a feeling. The EP is out now through Origins Inconclusive.

Released on 25 September 2026, Japan Trip began with the Toulouse-based producer and multi-instrumentalist looking back at how he felt during different parts of the journey. Composing became a way of returning: revisiting a particular place, remembering its atmosphere and finding a musical form for what had stayed with him.

Travelling a second time

That invitation sits at the centre of the record. In his own account of making the EP, Bootie describes wanting to experience the trip again through composition. Each track has its own memory behind it, while the collection gives those individual impressions a shared home.

The titles make that personal geography tangible. “Ikebukuro” and “Shibuya to Kabukicho” sit alongside “Sumida River Walk”; further into the tracklist come “People in Aizu Wakamatsu”, “Ouchi Juku” and “Hakodate Line to Otaru”. Places, people and journeys between them become the names through which he shares the experience.

A jazz bar, a city in motion

The first glimpse arrived with “Jazz Spot Intro”, released as the EP’s lead single on 28 August. Inspired by the Tokyo jazz bar of the same name, the record draws on the city’s bustle through restless rhythm and layered jazz textures. It captures one particular moment within the larger trip.

Now placed third in the full seven-track sequence, the single finds its wider setting. Bootie approached Japan Trip with room to experiment across a broader range of styles, keeping the warmth and musicality that connect his work. He values the project as a whole and the individual tracks equally, with plenty for longtime listeners to recognise as he explores further.

A photograph can take you back

The cover shares that sense of looking back. Travel photographs surround a map of Japan: streets, food, interiors and landmarks, gathered into a collage. The map gives the journey an outline; the pictures preserve the smaller things encountered along the way. It is an apt introduction to a record built from particular memories.

For Bootie Grove, the EP continues a run of releases with Origins Inconclusive that includes Cours Dillon and the six-track EP me., released in July. Japan Trip brings a different organising idea to that catalogue: seven pieces of music held together by an experience he wanted to revisit and share.

Japan Trip — the tracklist

1. Ikebukuro
2. Shibuya to Kabukicho
3. Jazz Spot Intro
4. Sumida River Walk
5. People in Aizu Wakamatsu
6. Ouchi Juku
7. Hakodate Line to Otaru

Japan Trip is out now on Origins Inconclusive, catalogue OI125. Choose your listening platform and take the full journey, from “Ikebukuro” to “Hakodate Line to Otaru”.

Published 25 September 2026