Back in 2022, when Empress Nouveau was completed, A Journey of Giraffes (aka John Lane) had already planned for a companion album to be titled Emperor Deco. As Lane explains, “Empress Nouveau had been something where I tried to honor & worship some aspects of a feminine aesthetic. With Emperor Deco, I wanted to create her partner — a little more rough-edged, slightly less gentle as the masculine other half.”

Emperor Deco attempts to fuse jazz with ambient & experimental. Influences for the compositions drew from Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Sam Gendel, Rei Harakami, and Lane’s mentor-in-spirit, Susumu Yokota.

“When all is said and done, this is meant to be a jazz album with enough dream-like curves & twists that perhaps make it something else entirely.”

A Journey of Giraffes: Emperor Deco will be released on limited CD and digital March 7, 2025 on Somewherecold Records.