Any Joy? Is an international collaborative project between Nagoya based musician and university professor Ikko Shibayama and Liverpool based singer songwriter Ali Horn. Formed in the summer of 2024, from a chance meeting at a folk event at the Jacaranda in Liverpool, the two met, exchanged songs and influences, hit it off and were compelled to spent the last year recording their debut album. Unlike the recent trend of digital transfer and online recording, Ikko traveled back and forth between Japan and the UK to record everything physically. Any Joy? blend Japanese and British sounds, swirling City Pop, Folk sensibilities with Horns poetry perfectly complimented by Shibayama’s arrangements. Quirky and experimental...or rather, it's not eccentric at all. Rather, it successfully blends the sometimes contradictory traditional Japanese and British rock styles, resulting in a unique, genre-less sound. Over the next year, they plan to release a single, an album, and hold concerts in the UK and Japan. Soon the Any Joy sound will cross the ocean and resonate all over the world.