Eli Carvajal - Eyen Forever (2025) Hi-Res

Eli Carvajal’s fifth album Eyen Forever completes a two-record cycle chronicling his time in Japan — a period of love, heartbreak, and personal transformation. Written as a companion piece to 2024’s Eat Shiitake Now, this new collection reflects on his final year in Tokyo, pairing gratitude with a sense of farewell.

Carvajal’s music draws on the poetic traditions of Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and the intimacy of Adrianne Lenker and Bill Callahan. Playing a right-handed guitar upside down with open tunings, he creates a distinctive, spacious sound in which drone notes hover around his voice. His songs avoid conventional structures, unfolding organically as he calls his approach “next-door to storytelling.”

These deeply personal narratives intertwine memories of fleeting relationships, his twin’s struggles with mental health, and Tokyo itself as a central presence. Typhoon storms, bike rides through the city, and classroom encounters with schoolchildren all find their way into the songs. With warmth, vulnerability, and flashes of humour, Eyen Forever offers listeners an intimate portrait of one chapter closing and another beginning.