Masayoshi Fujita - Smoking Tigers (Original Score) (2025) [Hi-Res]

Japanese vibraphonist, marimba player and composer Masayoshi Fujita has announced the release of his original score for Korean-American filmmaker So Young Shelly Yo’s debut feature, Smoking Tigers. The full score is out on June 19 on Erased Tapes Music.

Coinciding with today’s digital release of the film, Fujita offers a tranquil first glimpse with ‘Model Home Magic Moment’. “It was maybe the most difficult scene to score because of its emotional dynamics, and also the music had to match every little timing of the actors’ movements,” he adds. “I’m quite proud of how it came out.”

The film is set in Los Angeles in the early 2000s, and is a portrait of a lonely Korean-American teen named Hayoung who is taken under the wings of three wealthy students she meets at an elite academic bootcamp. As she falls deeper into their world, Hayoung works harder to hide her insecurities about her problematic family and lower-income background, only to discover the bittersweet pains of adulthood that will forever shape her life.

“Growing up, we are told stories of happiness — suburbia, a nuclear family, a two storied house with white picket fences and a pool — but when our lives don’t reflect these picturesque portals, how does it affect us? How do these ideal forms of family and lifestyle poison our minds and pressure us to make choices we wouldn’t otherwise?”, explains director So Young Shelly Yo

Unconstrained by traditional styles, techniques, or compositional theories, Fujita continuously explores new possibilities for his percussive instruments and crafts sonic landscapes that are unmistakably his own. He prepares the bars with beads, strips of foil, and similar objects, resulting in new sounds, akin to distortions, that help to expand the vibraphone spectrum without eroding the instrument’s intrinsic character or even abandoning it altogether. The score features Hiroko Murakami who performs the piano on ‘Mama’s Piano’.

The original score Smoking Tigers follows the release of his critically acclaimed 2024 album Migratory, which arrived in September and featured a collaboration with Moor Mother, along with sleeve notes by author Pico Iyer. Fujita will be touring Japan in June and July with longtime collaborator Jan Jelinek before he returns to Europe for his much anticipated Migratory Tour in the fall — dates to be announced soon.