Ambient / Minimal / Drone

Suntub’ is the second full length album from ML Buch, a double record of 15 pieces by the Danish composer and producer, entering further into the realm of electric guitars and layered vocals along with exploring new instrumental expressions. With an offset in open tunings on a 7-string Stratocaster, slide and fretless tablet guitars and deep-sampled virtual guitars, the album draws up narratives and locations in a distant time. Props like puddles, well buckets, bone barrels and flesh rags live in these scenes, suspended in air, drifting about, climbing stairs and ladders, all given life through guitar sensibilities and visceral vocals.

The next installment of MFM's popular multi-artist compilation Virtual Dreams: 'Virtual Dreams - Ambient Explorations In The House And Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999'. As with Part One, released in 2020, 'Virtual Dreams II' shines a light on house and techno-adjacent music that helped redefine the definition of ambient music during the 1990s.

The focus of Part One heavily fell on music from techno and house producers in Europe, eagerly exploring new soundtracks for chill-out rooms and re-imagining the potential future of club culture from new perspectives. For Part Two, we narrow the lens to focus on a unique time and place, namely Japan between 1993-1999. Despite missing out on the 'Acid House Fever', club culture was beginning to take shape in Japan during the early '90s. In contrast to the rest of the world, where ambient techno / IDM emerged as a by-product or response to the scene, 'listening techno', as it is known in Japan, was a central pillar of the culture right from the start.

'Virtual Dreams II' aims to shine a light on this unique moment in time where the thread of ambient music weaved its way through the music of an emerging club culture. This period saw the birth of many great Japanese techno labels such as Sublime Records, Transonic Records, Syzygy Records, Frogman Records, and Form@ Records, following in the late '90s. 'Virtual Dreams II' features ambient, chill-out, and intelligent techno from these leading labels alongside other lesser-known but equally influential imprints, as well as ambient deviations from Japanese house producers. Much of the music featured has only ever been released on CD.

'Virtual Dreams II' is compiled by Eiji Taniguchi and Jamie Tiller, who have worked closely together on previous Music From Memory releases such as 'Heisei No Oto' and 'Dream Dolphin - Gaia'. It is also the final project Jamie Tiller worked on before his tragic passing in 2023. Jamie had been researching, planning, and compiling this version of Virtual Dreams even before the first chapter was released, believing that there were many great tracks in Japan that fit the concept of the series. Knowing how much love and energy he put into compiling it gives it an extra special place in our hearts.

Compiled by Jamie Tiller and Eiji Taniguchi with artwork by Kenta Senekt, design by Steele Bonus and liner notes by Itaru W. Mita,

Music From Memory is delighted to present ‘Elevations’, a new album from Manchester based artist Tom Burford, aka Contours. Drawing heavily on his background as a drummer and percussionist, ‘Elevations’ began as an exploration of the Balafon, a Malian tuned percussion instrument, before organically growing into its final form; a delicate suite of compositions centered around rhythmical interactions of percussion, synthesizer and strings. Recorded during the pandemic and the period following, the album reflects a desire to lose oneself in the expanse of nature - the title ‘Elevations’ being a direct nod to the mountainous area of Cumbria where Tom grew up. The album also represents the joy of creating with friends; it features performances from several of his musical contemporaries, many of which were recorded at his home in Manchester. Slowly taking shape, the final result is a record that seamlessly blends electronic and acoustic, operating at the intersection of Minimalism, Jazz, Fourth World and Contemporary Classical music.

Comatonse.000 was the project name, EP title, and catalog number of Terre Thaemlitz' 1993 debut 12-inch featuring the NY Loft classic A-side "Raw Through a Straw," and the bass-heavy ambient B-side that captured the attention of producers like Bill Laswell and Mixmaster Morris, "Tranquilizer." This CD compiles all Comatonse.000 related releases to date, including that other Comatonse EP working the "Scorpio" break so important to the early Loft house scene, Social Material's, Class/Consciousness. This is the first time "Consciousness" has been made available in digital format. The disc also includes a previously unreleased demo version of "Tranquilizer" as a hidden bonus track. Self- released on Comatonse Recordings with custom packaging hand assembled by Terre herself, the package includes one CD in an archival vinyl pouch with one double-sided insert card (100mm x 100mm), phonograph style anti-static inner sleeve, and 4x4 panel poster insert printed on newsprint (472mm x 472mm).
視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 1)
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視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 4)
視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 5)
視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 6)
視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 7)
視聴-comatonse.000 comatonse.000.r3(Excerpt 8)

Silly track titles that are mostly in-jokes with my little brother, a.k.a. DJ Denim. A cliché unfair record deal. A conspicuously missing title track. A pretentious looking poem in French about the stupidity of poets. A grid of pillows on the cover that the Japanese audience mistook for bags of heroin, resulting in myths about my being a heavy user. Super nineties Photoshop swirls. A graphic overlay of a UFO turning into an oyster shell that opens to reveal a mountain inside? Those are just a few of the embarrassing things I had to come to terms with when preparing this thirtieth anniversary restored and expanded edition of my first full-length album, Tranquilizer. Originally released in 1994 by the New York label Instinct Records, Tranquilizer is admittedly a bit of a shit-show. The album followed up on my 1993 self-released vinyl EP debut, Comatonse.000, featuring "Raw Through a Straw" on the A-side, and "Tranquilizer" on the B-side. I put out that EP mostly for the experience of pressing a record, with no expectation of people actually buying or listening to it. Lacking a distributor, I loaded up my backpack and lugged copies to all the local record shops, a few of which took some on consignment. As I later found out, most shops never pay for consignment sales, nor return unsold copies, so in the end I basically gave away most of them for free. Then, to my complete surprise, David Mancuso began regularly playing the A-side, transforming it into a Loft house classic. Equally surprising, the B-side caught the attention of ambient producers like Mixmaster Morris and Bill Laswell. Those random bits of buzz caught the attention of Tak Uchida, a US-based buyer for the Japanese vinyl distributor Cisco Music, which would remain the leading supporter of Comatonse Recordings vinyl releases until they went under in 2008. All of that was just enough hype to catch the attention of Instinct, which offered me a textbook fucked up two album record deal. Not wanting to be taken for a sucker, I came in for a contract negotiation meeting with my bona fide real McCoy idiot lawyer who didn't give me an ounce of good advice, the paperwork was signed, and Tranquilizer was underway to becoming a reality. Instinct's plan was simple: grab control of as many tracks as possible on the off chance I (or anyone else they signed) might be the next Moby, who was their cash cow. With typical music industry sleight of hand, the album's title track "Tranquilizer" was cut and released separately on a compilation, contractually requiring me to come up with additional tracks to fill the album. So that solves the mystery of the missing title track. The majority of tracks on this album were actually already done before signing with Instinct. I recorded them as a hobbyist between 1993 and 1994 using heavily edited Korg M1 and E-MU Vintage Keys synthesizers, and two Casio FZ-10M samplers. Despite the silly titles and hobbyist approach, there were social messages to be heard. Many of them stemmed from my longstanding interests in constructivism, industrial ambient records, disco, and queer subcultures. All of these put me at odds with the new age spiritualism and "zippy" techno-hippy raver hooey that dominated ambient music in the US. For example, the opening track "040468," which is the date of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, features a recording of the police radio during the chase and escape of his assailant James Earl Ray. Recorded at a time when King's "I Have a Dream" speech was still being dubbed over house anthems ad nauseam, it was an antithetical choice pointing away from dreams toward hideous reality. As one would expect, all of this was lost on music journalists who - assuming nothing could be more than a simplistic projection of the musician's ego - usually mistook the title for my birthday. "Fat Chair" is a critique of the colonialist fantasies latent in most ethno-ambient music of the time. Rather than taking the listener on a soothing armchair journey to a third world paradise, it focuses on a recording from the Nigerian-Biafran war during the late 1960s, in which a Western journalist's meddling gets a Biafran hostage killed. "A City on Springs" takes its title from a line in a constructivist manifesto calling for the prioritization of engineering over art. While I have never shared constructivism's optimistic faith in humanity's ability to achieve social equality, be it through communism or other means, it did inspire my career long criticism of the social and economic functions of art and music. And "Hovering Glows" features a monologue from a Hal Hartley film about scratched records as a metaphor for abusive family ties. I had planned on including a text on these themes in the original CD booklet to Tranquilizer, but Instinct quickly made it clear that wasn't going to happen. They feared it would alienate their audience. In response, I wrote the "anonymous" little poem against poetics above. Initially in English, I asked my friend/day-job-co-worker/Comatonse-Recordings-label-mate Erik Dahl to translate it into French so that the staff at Instinct would be less likely to understand it. In the end, they included it as a graphic element adding a bit of romantic flair. Still, it left me feeling dissatisfied. Two years later I managed to insert more meaningful imagery into the design of my second-and-last album for them, Soil, but I still was not allowed to include any text. In this thirtieth anniversary edition, disc one depicts the full-length album as I had initially intended it to be released, restored to include the title track, "Tranquilizer." Due to CD time constraints, this meant removing "Meditation of the Mountain Oyster." I also replaced the ending track "Fina•Departure" with its longer, original version. For the completists out there, the 1994 album versions of both tracks appear in their entirety on disc two. Additionally, the second disc includes a rare vinyl mix of "Hovering Glows," featured on Instinct's Untitled Ltd. Edition Ambient Double Vinyl Pack (US: Instinct Records, 1994, EX-291-1). Another rarity is "Get In and Drive," which found limited release through the compilations Muting the Noise (DE: Innervisions, 2008, IV CD02), and Comp x Comp (JP: Comatonse Recordings, 2019, CxC). "20min. Epoch," "Fina," "Fina•Departure (Original Long Version)," and "Hovering Glows (Little Guy Mix)" all get their first proper hi-fi physical release here, having been included as hidden MP3 bonus tracks in my Dead Stock Archive: Complete Collected Works (JP: Comatonse Recordings, 2009, C.018). Considering how few copies of the Archive exist, they are sure to be new to most peoples' ears. Last (and perhaps least?), "Pome" and "Day Off" are previously unreleased. Oh, in case you were wondering, Little Guy was the name of my cat. He loved sitting like a loaf in front of my speakers to feel the 808-style bass hits in "Hovering Glows." - Terre Thaemlitz, 2024

Barely known to the international public, the Electone pioneer and virtuoso Shigeo Sekito is the man behind four LP volumes titled “Special Sound Series” published by Nippon Columbia between 1975 and 1977. One of his masterpieces from “Vol. 2” titled “The Word II” gained great popularity after inspiring Mac DeMarco to cover it creating one of his most acclaimed tracks to date, an unforgettable tribute to Sekito’s blissful compositions. Quavo feat. Travis Scott, Eevee and others followed sampling this track to create new tunes. During the past years youtube’s music recommendation algorithm also did its part popularizing this track and the whole vol.2 LP online as well as creating an unsatisfiable demand for the highly sought-after 12” which hadn’t been reissued to date. Shigeo Sekito studied piano as a child and aspired to become a composer, studying composition at Osaka Kyouiku University. He was later attracted to a new Yamaha instrument called “the Electone”, and won the first prize at the National Electone Competition in 1967. He was one of the leading figures in the world of the Electone, while teaching younger students. He also performed and composed music on the piano under the name of Ken Akishino (秋篠健) and published some of his works on his YouTube channel before passing away in 2021. Originally released in 1975, Shigeo Sekito’s “Special Sound Series Vol. 2” is one of the best examples of his Electone works as a composer and pioneer. As a Malaysian newspaper described in a 1991 article: “His fresh, energetic, rhythmic and sometimes humorous style of playing is attracting a growing number of fans and enthusiasts to try and play Electone, and is expected to develop new possibilities in the Electone world. He is actively engaged in numerous concerts and recordings, both at home and abroad, practicing up to 14 to 15 hours a day. Sekito’s music can be described as “careful as the devil and daring as the angel itself”. His selection of tone color and miraculously sound manipulations make us find ourselves all of a sudden pulled back to our past inner experiences or thrown away into an opened future cosmic space. This is indeed a demonic work and may also result from the sweetness and purity of the angelic whisperings."

Ryuichi Sakamoto held a no-attendance online solo piano concert "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 12122020" on December 12, 2020. The live performance was directed by Rhizomatiks and filmed by Zakkubalan, and was simultaneously broadcast worldwide from a studio in Tokyo. The live performance was a one-night-only event with no archive, making it a rare and precious event that will never be seen again.

WRWTFWW Records is very happy to present a new collaborative album by Japanese ambient/environmental legend Takashi Kokubo (Ion Series) and Italian & Swiss trombonist Andrea Esperti (Esperti Project): MUSIC FOR A COSMIC GARDEN. Recorded during the heights of the pandemic and completed in February 2021, the splendid ethereal soundscape created by Kokubo and Esperti is available in limited double LP, digipack CD, as well as digital. Takashi KOKUBO is a Japanese environmental musician who produces healing music that gently resonates with people’s hearts. He has recorded “sound scenes from nature” in countries around the world using a binaural “CyberPhonic” microphone of his own invention, and incorporates these dimensional sounds of nature in his work. The founder of Studio Ion, he has released more than 20 albums that include the highly sought-after Ion Series. His track "A Dream Sails Out to Sea, Scene 3" was featured on Light in the Attic’s Grammy-nominated Kankyō Ongaku compilation. Andrea ESPERTI is a Swiss trombonist and composer originally from Puglia (Italy). He plays in multiple genres (classical, pop, world, electro, jazz) in an eternal approach of exchange and encounters. He travels the world, listening to others and interacting with their cultures, crystallizing his globe-trotting emotions through music projects. More info at andreaesperti.bandcamp.com For fans of environmental, ambient, cosmic escapes, meditative atmospherics, and gardening in space.

First ever vinyl release for the cozy ambient jazz gem from the brilliant mind behind Home Decor and Shower. Originally released in 2021 on cassette only. Desert music inspired by the city. A serene soundtrack of contemplative synth and mini pleasure-grooves, sure to gently pacify the emotionally conflicted. For fans of: finding solace in this world of madness.

WRWTFWW Records furthers its collaboration with Japanese electronic/ambient group Interior by releasing their never-heard-before soundtrack for environmental artist NILS-UDO's 1987 Laserdisc Sculpture of Time (Apocalypse). The intriguing sound design/kankyō ongaku/new age album is available as a limited-edition LP housed in a heavyweight 350gsm sleeve and comes with a obi strip. In 1987, Intermission published a Japan-only Laserdisc showcasing one hour of works created by renowned German environmental artist NILS-UDO. To accompany the visuals, they commissioned electronic music group Interior, fresh off their Haroumi Hosono-produced self-titled debut (also available on WRWTFWW Records) and their Windham Hill Records-released sophomore album Design. For the first time ever, the soundtrack is now available in full HD glory, demonstrating Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto's precise, subtle, and spellbinding approach to ambient sound design. Calming nature sounds, ritualistic synths, meditative atmospheres, and eruptive forays into darker territories mesh superbly in a four-part soundscape that flirts with oeuvres such Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass and Hiroshi Yoshimura's Green, making Sculpture of Time one of one of the best kept secrets of kankyō ongaku -- a must have for mystery hunters and levitating music lovers.

TRACE is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of his Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on sound for these spaces.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers and using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that the time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

TRACE: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. "Reflection" is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played at entrances of spaces, at events, in cafes and bars. "Voice from Past Technology" expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, TRACE is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ishikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

*Vinyl only - No digital* WRWTFWW Records is very happy to announce the official vinyl reissue of the highly sought-after Haruomi Hosono-produced Interior self-titled debut, originally released in 1982 on legendary label Yen Records. The LP comes in a heavy 350gsm sleeve. Interior is Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto. Their classic 1982 debut, produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono, is one of a kind - a very rare breed of feel-good ambient music blending instrumental synth-pop, soft electronic minimalism, and cozy sound design in the most heartwarming ways. It evokes the intimate pleasures of daydreaming in a hotel lobby, holding hands in a museum, or napping by the pool. It depicts the urban landscape as a caring environment, where simplicity and repetition is mind soothing and smile inducing. Interior takes you into an alternate reality, where nostalgic modernism makes the present time feel like the fondest memories. The unique sound of Interior caught the attention of William Ackerman and Anne Robinson who re-released the album in 1985 on their famed label Windham Hill Records (with a slightly different tracklisting) and then proceeded to put out their follow-up, Design, in 1987. After that, members of the group continued their careers separately, Daisuke Hinata notably recording an overlooked but absolutely amazing solo album, Tarzanland, in 1988. A1 Technobose A2 Giant Steps A3 Flamengo A4 N.F.G. B1 Reply B2 Timeless B3 Cold Beach B4 Luft B5 Ascending B6 Park

Works of the great Somei Satoh / Mandala Trilogy + 1 bonus track - Shomyo Buddhist chant vocalization and infinity ambient abyss transform into superb mystic and meditative harmonics.

"Mandala", "Mantra" and "Tantra" were recorded separately in 1982, 1986 and 1990. "Mandala" was included on the album Mandala/ Sumeru that was released on ALM (Kojima Recordings) and it was recorded at the NHK Studio of Electronic Music. "Mantra" was a NHK commissioned work (recorded at the same studio). "Tantra" was recorded at Victoria University of Wellington’s Lilburn Studios for electronic music and recording. Although each composition’s production comes from a different era, they all use Satoh’s own vocals as sound as well as electronics.

Includes bonus track "Mai", a composition commissioned by harpist Ayako Shinozaki recorded at the Kioi Hall in Tokyo on November 11th 2004. The piece was conducted by Tetsuji Honna and performed by the Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo. Satoh says: "The harp is one of my favorite instruments. Also, by combining my affectionate percussion instrument, the chromatic gong and steel drum, with the harp’s most beautiful tone, I attempted to bring out a mystical sound." Although it is not an electronic music piece, this composition complements the world that Satoh expresses in Mandala Trilogy.

Deep deep deep into the abyss.

In the midst of a series of great domestic new age/ambient reissues this year, including works by Mkwaju Ensemble, Motohiko Hamase, and Joe Hisaishi, here comes the long awaited pure ambient masterpiece! The monumental 1983 debut album by Inoyama Land, a synthesizer unit formed by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita, former members of the still active techno-pop and avant-garde group Hikashu, has been digitally mixed down from the original multi-track tapes. The original 1983 album was digitally mixed down from the original multitrack tapes and reissued for the first time in 35 years.

The original 1983 album was released on MEDIUM, a subsidiary of the YEN label hosted by Haruomi Hosono. The original version of the album was released in 1983 on MEDIUM, a YEN label owned by Haruomi Hosono. The original version was known to be one of the most sought after by enthusiasts around the world, and both the LP and CD versions were extremely expensive. The origin of the album title comes from a childhood memory of Yamashita's friend playing with the song "Dan jin dan posidon! The title of the album was taken from the scene where Yamashita's friends used to play while saying "Dan jin dan posidon! The album was recorded using the "Water Delay System," a method devised by Hosono in which microphones and speakers are installed in a tank of water to create a unique, crystal-clear sound. From the ambient sounds colored by meditative synth layers, to the lovely home recordings, to the premature electronica feel, to the occasional avant-wave appearance, this is a masterpiece of originality and a playful piece of work. This is the pinnacle of unique music that lies somewhere between new wave and ambient. This is a masterpiece that is highly recommended for all environmental music and new age fans, including Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada, Yumiko Morioka and others!

In the 1980s, there was a unique music in between new wave and ambient. In the 1980's, there was a unique music between new wave and ambient, and Japanese music released in that period is now being heard around the world. Inoyamaland is one of the rarest of them all, and has not been forgotten. I was still involved in the release of the album 35 years ago, but the submission of the lost homework was a fresh surprise. The strange comfort of the region called Inoyamaland, like listening to a weather report, has not changed.
Harumi Hosono, July 11, 2018

Midori Takada (1951-) is a composer and percussionist who is very popular overseas as one of the last treasures of Japanese ambient, new age, and minimal new music. WRWTFWW in Switzerland and Palto Flats in New York! After making her debut as a soloist with the Berlin Radio Symphony, she began to explore traditional music in the 1980s, traveling throughout Africa and Asia. In the 1980s, he began to travel around Africa and Asia to explore traditional music. He has had many sessions with musicians from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Korea, etc. (in Japan, with Masahiko Sato and Tadashi Suzuki, a director), and has established his own musicality with spirituality by integrating the dynamic musicianship of Africa and the static spirit of Asia based on the integral concept of consistency between sound and the human body. He established his own musicality with spirituality. In addition to the oriental and misty ambience, there is a minimalist piece with marimba reminiscent of Steve Reich, and a shamanic and spiritual percussion piece that seems to be a mixture of Japanese drums and African percussion. Perhaps it is because he is also familiar with ambient and experimental music, but this is a masterpiece that you can listen to over and over again, with a spirit that is completely different from the New Age works that abound in the Western world.

A miraculous reprint of a great masterpiece. This is a work that still fascinates many listeners. Biokinetics", the ultimate masterpiece in the history of dub techno/ambient, was released by Porter Ricks as the first release for Chain Reaction, a sub-label of the sacred Basic Channel, and has been reissued by Mille Plateaux on 2LP and CD. Following three 12" releases, this was the label's first album release and is still considered one of its best. This is a masterpiece that reconstructs the spacious ambience pioneered by label bosses Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald into a gem of techno sound, infusing it with cold, isolated experimentalism and minimalism like early Plastikman.

“A mesmerizing Japanese ambient techno masterpiece that that completely rewires how you perceive music” Electronic Beats A Mountainous Masterpiece. A powerful testament to rave culture’s establishment and the birth of a new scene in Japan emerging in the mid ‘90s. One of Yokota’s most celebrated work that merges Japanese new age and minimal techno. Alex From Tokyo Prat (Japan Vibrations, world famous, Paris) On July 26th Susumu Yokota’s venerated 1994 classic ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is reissued in expanded, deluxe fashion, as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the label that originally presented it. Japan’s Musicmine – specifically it’s electronic subsidiary Sublime – released the album on June 29th 1994, simultaneously with Ken Ishii’s ‘Reference To Difference’, as their inaugural joint offering. ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is an enchanting mix of mystical ambient acid and futurist minimal techno, taking the listeners on a psychedelic pilgrimage, where 303, synths and electronic percussion are scented with reverb, echo and forest recordings. Merging Japanese new age and sparse electronica, the recording is free, organic, and energized – proffering a unique blend of early 90s western styles and the essence of his home country. Yokota originally planned an ambient record, but ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ evolved into a concept work featuring the Roland TB-303, which he recorded live at home alongside a sampler, yielding experimental and innovative results. The long player found its muse in the famed 18th-19th century artist Hokusai’s red rendition of Mt. Fuji, known as ‘Red Fuji’ or ‘Akafuji’. Part of the painter’s renowned ‘Thirty Six Views of Mt. Fuji’ series from the 1830s, ‘Red Fuji’ depicts the iconic sacred mountain aglow in red at dawn, symbolizing spirituality and creativity. With references to Japanese folklore, nature and shrines, tracks like ‘Kinoko’ and ‘Meijijingu’ invite the listener to immerse themselves in the album’s spiritual depths. Yokota’s own homage-to-Hokusai drawing graces the record’s cover, and was inspired by the concept of wa (harmony) – highlighting his diverse skills not only as a musician, but an artist and designer too. ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ is a powerful testament to the establishment of rave culture in Japan, which rapidly developed within just two years, from 1992 to 1994. Largely due to praise for the breathtaking originality of the LP, within this burgeoning national techno scene, Yokota rose to prominence as one of its key figures. He then became one of the most renowned artists to emerge from his homeland and enter the global electronic pantheon. He inspired a new wave of Japanese producers and DJs, contributing significantly to the growth of the techno movement in Japan. Yokota was a solitary figure, an artist who expressed his life through the continuous creation of music. For those seeking something different; mystical, soothing, pristinely ergonomic and uniquely Japanese, this record stands as iconic as Mt. Fuji itself. - This triple vinyl Deluxe Edition includes the original album’s eleven tracks alongside five raw and jacking rare gems, available on wax for the first time, which were previously included only in the Japanese 2016 Deluxe Edition CD. There are also two digital-only bonus tracks. One is a live performance by Yokota, titled ‘Live at Shibuya Beam Hall’, which was recorded at Sublime Records’ label launch party, held in September 1994. It was previously only released on the aforementioned 2016 Japanese CD edition. This event, titled ‘Sublime Records Presents New Style of Electronic Ambient Party’ featured performances by Susumu Yokota, Ken Ishii, Yoshihiro Sawasaki, Speedy J and DJ Wada. This ten minute long, rare live recording captures Yokota playing a dynamic, fast paced acid house live jam, using two TB-303s and a drum machine. The other digital only bonus track is an alternative version of ‘H’, which was discovered recently whilst excavating a DAT. The liner notes are written by DJ/producer Alex From Tokyo, who was a good friend of Yokota, and experienced the 90s Tokyo club scene first-hand as an insider. His compilation ‘Japan Vibrations Vol. 1’ captures this golden era, and features music by Prism (Susumu Yokota), Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Yasuaki Shimizu, Quadra (Hiroshi Watanabe) and more.

“Originally released on the lauded Green Energy label from experimental maverick Henry Kawahara, Forest Jams is thrilled to present the official re-issue of Nami Hotatsu’s sophomore album – revised and re-christened “Ultra Hyper Cosmic Voice” by the artist herself. Equal parts beguiling and inviting, Nami’s mixture of vocals and driving propulsive beats still sound as fresh and as captivating as when they were originally released in 1994. Now, thirty years later, we invite you to discover Nami’s “perfect world of being” in its totality – awakening yourself to the unknown world inside through what lauded producer Haruomi Hosono hailed as a “shamanistic” vision!” – Hsu Jui-Ting

Meditations Bestseller! Steve Hiett's only album "At the Shore..." is still very popular as a masterpiece of AOR/light mellow with too much unusual transparency and floating feeling. The album has been co-released by Melbourne's Efficient Space and Be With Records for the first time on vinyl! Steve Hiett has worked as an art director and designer, and has also worked as a photographer for top fashion magazines such as VOGUE and MARIE CLAIRE. The original album, released by CBS/Sony in 1983, is known to be extremely rare and hard to find. The album was released only in Japan and was not distributed worldwide, despite the fact that it featured a superb lineup that represented the Japanese music scene at the time: Toru Okada of the Moonriders, Hirofumi Suzuki, Masahiro Mukawa, and Kazuhiko Kato. This is a very rare album. Remastered from the original master tapes. Don't miss it!

12月下旬再入荷。あまりにも嬉しい〈Efficient Space〉からの奇跡の2024年リプレス！オーストラリアに沸く現代ニューエイジの屈指の泉、Andras Fox = Andrew Wilsonが描くやすらぎ盤の第2章...
本作はAndrew "Wilson" 1人だけでなく、Not Not Funからデビューしたヴェイパーウェイヴ & AORの哀愁インスト紳士、あのEleventeen Eston = John "Tanner"とのプロジェクトです! メルボルンとパースの海辺や夕陽、都市の街なみをバックに想い想いのダンスでアンビエントなたけを演奏してきた彼ら。今作はその想い想いな部分が小さく小さく、空気やムードなレベルにまでおだやかに、しかしこれまでになく色濃い境地にまで達してます。Tannerのクラリネット、Wilsonのシンセが舞うA1 "Sun Room"からしてどうしましょう...
グラフィックと音楽が同じ土台でむすびつく、オーストラリアならではのアートワークもすばらしい。Emotional RescueやPalto Flats、Music From Memoryがそうしたように、数十年たっても語り継がれてほしいアンビエントの傑作です。

Carrying Colour presents 'Sen Am', the third album by Duval Timothy. The album is the product of Duval spending the last two years living between London, UK and Freetown, Sierra Leone. 'Sen Am' is a Krio phrase that means 'send it' or 'send him/her Throughout the record friends and family from Sierra Leone appear through Whatsapp voice notes that speak over solo piano and layered instrumental compositions. Also featuring: 6pac, Aminata, Aruna, Emmerson & Sydney. The LP was recorded in London (UK), Bath (UK), Freetown (SL), Tokyo (JP), Kyoto (JP). Recorded and engineered by Duval Timothy Copyright Duval Timothy

Following the release of the well received Rave ‘Till You Cry compilation of unreleased versions from the vaults in 2019, Disciples follow it up (a mere 5 years later!) with a new album from Rephlex alumni Bogdan Raczynski, complete with another manifesto style title: You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever.

A collection of warmly melodic electronic sketches, with tracks alternately drifting beatless on the breeze or underpinned by lo-fi drums, sometimes barely held together with a delicate construction of odd synth patches and ping-pong percussion. Each piece is short and to the point, a record of perfect miniatures. Whilst this description may sound utopian, the album is conceived around themes of late stage capitalist brutality, hyper consumerism, online doom and alogorhithmic apocalypse. Beauty in the face of planetary collapse and 24/7 livestreamed genocide. The theme summed up by the front cover which just features a giant (readable) QR code, that most ubiquitous of modern symbols. We’ve asked Bogdan on several occasions for more background information on the creation of these tracks, but received a different answer each time. One of the below statements might be true, though it’s equally possible that none of them are, just like the real news.

1) All these tracks are a result of Bogdan asking AI to make an EDM album.

2) These tracks originated in a desperate bid by Bogdan to crack the lucrative mood / chill / coffee / gym algorithmic playlist market.

3) All of these tracks were commissioned for a Tesla infomercial but rejected when Elon Musk heard them.

4) The music on this album is over ten years old.

5) The music on this album was made in a furious weekend of creative inspiration in early 2024.

The QR code on the cover takes listeners to an ever-evolving page on Bogdan’s website which may delve into some of these theories in more detail, or ignore them completely.

We leave you with Bogdan’s text in the booklet that accompanied Rave ‘Till You Cry as the closest we may ever get to some kind of logical reasoning:

“Burn the damned art labels. Ambiguity is wonder. Information is an affront to expression, a death knell to spontaneity. For if an explanation is required, then a connection has failed to be made. Art should be like an overtone, resonating invisibly with your history to form an ethereal experience. Either it hits you or it’s wrong time, wrong place. To hell with the dawdling interviews and vanity shots. One turns to music precisely because it least resembles what’s in the mirror. Put away the arrogance and pride, and boast and bias. With each word uttered, your mystery wanes. Your shimmer dims. In my nostalgia, your light show is drowned out by the ricochet of soundwaves. Art is best when all else is drowned out. Black as though the moon forgot to come out. Let the night cover my flailing humanity like a veil. Gangly arms tangled, feet aflutter, yet all but silent against the din. This is not an escape. This is me screaming, happily, inside, out through my fingertips. This is my beck and call. Carefully assembled to drw forth some other form of you. May we partake in this moment together, for just a little longer.” 

how it thrills us, the bird's clear cry...
any cry that was always there.
children, playing in the open air,
children already go crying by
real cries. cry chance in. through crevasses
in that same space whereinto, as dreaming
men into dreams, the pure bird-cry passes
they drive their splintering wedge of screaming.
where are we? freer and freer, we gyre
only half up, kites breaking
loose, with our frills of laughter flaking
away in the wind. make the criers a choir,
singing god! that resurgently waking
may bear on its waters the head and the lyre.

The seven compositions on this album, written between 2022 and 2024, form a conceptual suite and an observance of the mental dances that we construct to understand acts of passage; the ways that we commune and memorialize and carry symbols back into the world beyond representation.

To this end, THE HEAD AS FORM'D IN THE CRIER'S CHOIR engages two references to the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus: Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, a collection of poems from 1922, and Claudio Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo, an early baroque opera from 1607. The myth of Orpheus tells the story of a musician who, grief stricken by the passing of his wife, Eurydice, descends to Hades to persuade the deity of the dead for her return. Along the way, Orpheus seduces those who would block his passage with the deeply lamenting music he conjures from his lyre. Hades agrees but with one condition: Orpheus is not to turn around and look at Eurydice until the pair once again breach the world of the living. Not surprisingly, as they approach the surface, Orpheus grows anxious and turns around to confirm Eurydice’s presence behind him, therein sending her back to the underworld forever. As the story goes, Orpheus then sings for death to take him away; with his wish finally granted by a group of maenads, Orpheus’ detached head and his lyre float down the river, continuing their mournful song.

For many years, I sought to largely separate my studio practice from my live performance practice, with the awareness that the unique limitations and possibilities of each domain were almost sacred to their individual characters. THE HEAD AS FORM'D IN THE CRIER'S CHOIR is a supplement of sorts to TWO SISTERS (2022) and ANTIPHONALS (2021), which were attempts to begin bridging this gap between the fixed electroacoustic pieces that emerge in the studio context and the somewhat open and slow-paced chamber writing that I do, in which each performance presents a new structure and in which each iteration offers the path to a new composition and deeper meaning. I am, as always, greatly indebted to the talented and incredibly sensitive musicians who appear on this album, many of whom are regular interpreters of my music: Andrew McIntosh (viola, Los Angeles), Mattie Barbier (trombone, Los Angeles), Lisa McGee (mezzo-soprano, Los Angeles), Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba, Montréal), Eyvind Kang (viola d’amore, Los Angeles), and Rebecca Lane (bass flute, Berlin), Sam Dunscombe (bass clarinet, Berlin), Michiko Ogawa (bass clarinet, Berlin), M.O. Abbott (trombone, Berlin), and Weston Olencki (trombone, Berlin) of the Harmonic Space Orchestra (Winds). For my part, I again return to my favourite keyboard instruments on this album: Mellotron (in particular, the brass and woodwind samples that I so adore), electric organ (the Korg CX-3), synthesizer (the Prophet 5 and Korg PS-3100, which are both extremely useful in their tuning capabilities), and, of course, pipe organ.

There are four pipe organs featured on this album: a mechanical-action instrument built by Tamburini in 1968, located in the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi of Bologna, Italy; an electric-action instrument built by Veikko Virtanen in 1969, located in the Temppeliaukio Church of Helsinki, Finland; a meantone mechanical-action instrument built by John Brombaugh in 1981, located at Oberlin College’s Fairchild Chapel in Oberlin, Ohio, USA; and, a mechanical-action instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1864, located in the Église du Gesù of Toulouse, France. The organ pieces on THE HEAD AS FORM'D IN THE CRIER'S CHOIR focus more heavily on the instruments’ pedals as well as the textural variations made possible by the mechanical tracker actions that most possess. The Brombaugh organ at Oberlin College offered a particularly meaningful compositional opportunity both in its use of the meantone temperament that was typical of the early seventeenth-century organ designs it’s based on, and in its use of split accidental keys, which accommodate for the lack of enharmonic equivalence in an extended meantone system. ‘Possente Spirto’ is a loose conceptual reference to the aria ‘Possente spirto, e formidabil nume’ in l’Orfeo. As in Monteverdi’s version, my piece also emphasizes the use of strings and brass and observes a particular order in which they enter and exit, and also incorporates a sort of continuo framework. I depart from there to focus on a slow-moving chord progression and its variations in voicing, inspired by renaissance concepts of harmony as a vertical structure, set within a standard quarter-comma meantone temperament. The piece employs the same structure that I use in most of my chamber writing, where each iteration of a performance is slightly different, calling on players to respond in real time and engage in a more direct form of listening. Several different colours of interval are heard throughout: the typical meantone minor third of 310 cents, the wolf minor third of 269 cents, the wolf fifth of 738 cents, and finally the standard meantone major third of 386 cents, which is one of a few intervals that this tuning system shares with just intonation. As with essentially all of THE HEAD AS FORM'D IN THE CRIER'S CHOIR, this piece is also quite variable in duration. ‘Trio for a Ground’ continues this feeling of partitioned instrumentation, with the organ providing the continuo throughout and the choir handing off to a duo of strings. In this recording, I chose to work with baroque strings – the viola da gamba and the viola d’amore, the latter of which incorporates a set of sympathetic strings that exist entirely for resonance. ‘Res Sub Rosa’ was composed specifically for a wind quintet formation of Berlin’s Harmonic Space Orchestra, and employs a system of septimal just intonation as well as a similarly variable structure that allows the players some discretion in how the piece is shaped at any given moment and which encourages different harmonic and acoustic encounters in each performance. ‘Constants’ functions as an electronic counterpoint to ‘Res Sub Rosa’, substituting human decisions with the natural interruption and decay cycles of sound-on-sound tape delay to achieve a similar sense of pacing and unpredictability.

- Sarah Davachi, 2024

(Limited quantity/Includes Japanese obi/Includes Japanese commentary)Richard D. James, a.k.a. the Aphex Twin, released "Selected Ambient Works Volume II" in 1994 at the age of 22, a major ambient album that has gone down in music history. This monumental work, which was also the first album for the Aphex Twin after they moved to WARP, is now being released in a new expanded edition with additional material to mark the 30th anniversary of its release.