Saga-born neo-soul guitarist Toshiki Soejima will perform at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, London this November. The show follows the June 18th release of his album ‘Komorebi’, which features South London producer edbl, vocalist Carrie Baxter, keyboardist Matt Wilde, and trumpeter Takuya Kuroda.
Soejima reached a far wider audience in April 2025, when Eric Clapton named him during an interview on TBS Television’s Jouhou 7days Newscaster as a Japanese guitarist he had been paying attention to, adding that he would want to attend a Soejima live show. Soejima, who was in Shanghai on a Chinese tour at the time, responded with a video in which he tearfully said, “I’m really happy to be playing the guitar”. The two would later meet in person before Clapton’s 2025 Budokan show.
Many of the ten tracks on ‘Komorebi’ began with little more than a chord progression and a melody played on guitar. ‘Edge’ picks up live drums from Wataru Tanaka, one of two drummers in Soejima’s band, while ‘Mirage’ sets a gritty guitar riff against synths from Mad Keys.
The album also continues Soejima’s working relationship with edbl, with whom he released the collaborative EP ‘Carefree’ in 2024 and who turns up on three tracks here. Elsewhere, ‘Shine’ reworks ‘Bright Sunny Days’ from his 2023 album ‘True’ with vocals from Nagaland singer-songwriter Temsu Clover, while ‘Somewhere’ was co-written with Korean producer Chill The World.
Soejima and his wife, multi-instrumentalist Nahokimama, were also nominated for Best Instrumental Song at MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN 2026 for ‘Moon’, taken from their 2025 collaborative album ‘SCENE’.
Dates and tickets
| Date | Location | Tickets |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Nov 2026 | The Jazz Cafe, London, UK |
About Toshiki Soejima
Toshiki Soejima began his career as a solo artist with the EP ‘Life’ on March 16th, 2021, working in instrumental music defined by scene-setting songwriting and a distinctive guitar tone. His YouTube channel has passed 400,000 subscribers and 75 million total views, and his social accounts hold more than 650,000 followers between them.
His EPs ‘Tokyo’ and ‘Moyu’, released through German label Stereofox, received airplay on the BBC in the UK and KEXP in the US. He toured Japan in 2023 with the ‘True’ tour, playing major cities from Sapporo to Fukuoka, and in 2024 took his live show across Asia with dates in Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and China. In 2026, he has performed in Australia, New Zealand, and France. At home, he has sold out headline shows at COTTON CLUB, BLUE NOTE TOKYO, and BLUE NOTE PLACE.
Away from performing, Soejima runs Soul Guitar Lab, one of Japan’s largest online guitar schools, and published the instructional title Introduction to Neo-Soul Guitar through Rittor Music in 2021.
Toshiki Soejima
Komorebi
Release Date: 18/06/2026
Label: Stereofox
Listen: Spotify | Apple Music | Bandcamp
CD: Official shop
LP: Official shop | Stereofox
