Seattle 2014 → · handpan, vocals, flutes, world-percussion · the elements as albums

YAIMA

There is a quality to YAIMA's music that arrives before you can name it — a feeling of walking into a room where the air is already holding something. Handpan bells thread through layered vocals. A low drum settles your spine. Flutes from somewhere you can't quite place enter and leave like breath. The duo describes what they make as a finely tuned container for their audience, and that is what it feels like: sound built as a vessel, not a performance.

YAIMA emerges from two sources — one from the Mapudungun language meaning that which water runs through, and the other from the culturally preserved Yaeyama District of Okinawa, Japan. Two lineages naming water and place; two people making one sound.

Who: Masaru Higasa — producer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, flutes, handpan, bombo, didjeridoo); deep-listening sensibility. Pepper Proud — vocalist and lyricist, guitar in hand; writes words that reach for reverence without performing it. Formed in Seattle, 2014.
Discography: Pellucidity (2014) — given to water OvO (2016) — concept album for wind Antidote (2018) — given to fire CEREMONIA (2020) — fully acoustic, with bassist Jared May and percussionist John De Kadt; recorded at London Bridge Studios Earth Trilogy — One & Two (2021), Three (2022) — for earth Moongate (2024) — ten-year anniversary album; thirteen songs for the thirteen moons; fusion of the four elements
Stated intention: To create a bridge between Nature and Humankind, an expansive experience that encourages growth and graceful passage for the hearts and minds of their listeners.
Public anchors: yaimamusic.com Bandcamp Spotify

A note from this body

YAIMA's archive is at yaimamusic.com, with the full discography on Bandcamp and Spotify. This page recognises their role in this body's conscious-music lineage.

The elemental arc as practice

Their practice has moved through the elements like a long prayer spoken in parts. Pellucidity for water — created for the peaceful being inside of us all. OvO for wind — a concept album following a seed through the turning of a year. Antidote for fire — the dance of passion and renewal, the deep inner work of intention and the cultivated patience of devotion. The Earth Trilogy followed in three chapters — matter, human life finding collective purpose, and the Earth herself as one body. Woven between, CEREMONIA — their first fully acoustic offering, recorded at London Bridge Studios. In 2024 they released Moongate, the ten-year anniversary: thirteen songs for the thirteen moons of an Earth cycle, each one re-worked, re-recorded, re-mixed, re-mastered — re-visioned. A full turn of the wheel coming back around to itself.

Contributions to this body

What YAIMA has given the Coherence Network

Sustained, patient devotion to craft and earth as living practice → pairs with lc-tending-over-producing (ten years of one project at one wheel).
Sound built as a vessel, not a performance → lc-frequency-routes-reception (build at the actual tone; trust the routing).
Two-lineage naming (Mapudungun + Yaeyama) → resonant with the body's practice of holding plural sources without flattening them. Pairs with lc-voice-over-intentions.
Elemental arc as practice → resonant with lc-each-breath-whole (each album whole at its scale; the arc emerges from the sequence).