Cassie Kinoshi's seed. - Gratitude (2024 International Anthem Vinyl LP)

Cassie Kinoshi's seed. - Gratitude | Vinyl LP - 2024 International Anthem (IARC0081)

Cassie Kinoshi founded seed. in 2016. She studied composition at Trinity Laban Conservatoire under Andrew Poppy and Stephen Montague, and has since composed for London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Jazz Festival. She was previously a member of Kokoroko and received a Mercury Prize nomination in 2019 for seed.'s debut album Driftglass. Gratitude is her first record for International Anthem and was commissioned by the Southbank Centre.

The commission was for a suite Kinoshi could perform with seed. in the Purcell Room. She wrote it as a personal document — her mother keeps a daily gratitude book, and the composition draws directly on that practice as a way of working through her own relationship with mental health. In March 2023 she premiered the piece in front of a sold-out crowd, seed. in augmented formation alongside turntablist Nik-Nak and strings from the London Contemporary Orchestra. That performance, with additional recording at Livingston Studios in November 2023, makes up the four-movement Side A — movements i through iv with two interludes, running just over twenty-one minutes.

Side B is a single track, "Smoke in the Sun," recorded separately at Total Refreshment Centre in April 2021 and played at 45 RPM. The album was pressed at Pallas in Germany with lacquers cut at SST.