About Hana & The Forest
Hana & The Forest are a seven-piece collective from Kyoto, united by a shared obsession with the intersection of ancient Japanese musical traditions and contemporary independent folk. Founded in 2019 by vocalist and koto player Hana Kimura, the group's membership has shifted organically over the years, but their core ethos has remained fixed: music that sounds like it belongs to the forest.
Their sound draws from a remarkable breadth of sources — the ceremonial textures of gagaku court music, the mountain folk songs of central Honshu, the sparse beauty of Irish acoustic traditions, and the layered arrangements of contemporary Japanese indie acts like Tenniscoats and Quruli. In live performance, the seven members play a rotating cast of instruments: koto, shakuhachi, acoustic guitar, upright bass, violin, hand percussion and voice.
Their debut album Mossgarden (2021) received glowing reviews in Japan's music press and was shortlisted for the Japan Record Award. It established them as one of Kyoto's most distinctive musical voices. Their follow-up record Spirit Songs (2023) expanded the sonic palette further, introducing field recordings from Japan's mountain forests alongside the band's acoustic arrangements.
At GRVF 2026, the band will perform an extended set at the Forest Stage — a bespoke stage set amongst a grove of bamboo and wisteria on the inland edge of the festival grounds. The setting was, quite literally, built for them.
Instruments
Releases
A deeper, more immersive journey than the debut. Features field recordings from Yoshino forest and Kumano Kodo trail, woven into the acoustic arrangements. A record that asks to be listened to with eyes closed.
The debut that announced Hana & The Forest to Japan's indie scene. Eight songs of immaculate acoustic beauty, rich with koto harmonics and layered voices. Essential listening.
The seeds of everything that came after. Four lo-fi, intimate recordings that introduced Hana's distinctive compositional language — sparse, spacious, and devastatingly heartfelt.
"We don't play music. We let the forest play through us. Our job is just to get out of the way."
The Heartbeat of
Ancient Rhythms
Percussion is at the spiritual centre of Hana & The Forest's live performance. Rather than a drum kit, the band uses a shifting array of hand drums, frame drums, tsuzumi, and found objects — stones, bamboo tubes, clay bowls — each with its own specific resonance and ceremonial significance.
Percussionist Daiki Mori spent two years studying taiko in Kyoto before joining the band, and his approach brings a ritualistic quality to even the lightest pieces. "Every song starts with the drum," he explains. "The rhythm isn't decoration — it's the ground beneath your feet."
In the context of GRVF's Forest Stage — surrounded by bamboo, at the close of the third and final day — the band's percussive foundations will anchor a set that promises to be one of the most moving, intimate experiences of the whole festival.
