Filters

BESTSELLERS

36 products

Showing 1 - 24 of 36 products
View
Smerz - Big city life (LP)
Smerz - Big city life (LP)Escho
¥4,989

Smerz continue to mark out sui generis wyrd-pop territory on their second proper full-length, this time for the on-fire Escho label, stripping away the club nostalgia and doubling down on oddball R&B harmonies and quirky DIY-cum-downtown NYC production tics - a sort of genius missing link between Astrid Sonne, Cibo Matto and Luscious Jackson.

Catharina Stoltenberg and Henriette Motzfeldt's earliest gear was a torch in a dark digital corridor, a prophetic look at a hazy pop future that blurred genre boundaries and trampled across the borders between the mainstream and the underground. Needless to say, they set the stage for a sound that's more or less orthodox in 2025 - we see Smerz's shadow on ML Buch's world-beating 'Suntub', or Erika De Casier's bedroom R&B groover 'Still', for example. And their contribution to the canon hasn't gone completely unnoticed; the duo co-produced K-pop girl group NewJeans' impressive 'Get Up' EP in 2023 alongside de Casier, and turned in an edit of Astrid Sonne's 'Say you love me' in 2024. If there's a discernible scene coalescing between Copenhagen, London and Oslo, Smerz are operating somewhere near the center.

So four years after threading supersaw-led trance-pop and rattly footwork-pilled kicks through a lattice of offhand skits and classical interludes on their impressive debut album 'Believer', Stoltenberg and Motzfeldt return to an art-pop landscape that's humming with energy. Fittingly, they reply by setting a new sonic benchmark, pruning their productions considerably and focusing on the bumpy, textural weirdness that often lurked in the distance on prior recordings. The best way to get a handle on this one is to scrub thru the duo's archive of NTS shows (they've been producing weekly bulletins for the best part of a decade), where you might hear Klein, Morton Feldman, Leila, Angelo Badalamenti, Young Thug or Kaskade alongside demos and cuts from like-minded peers such as Clarissa Connelly, Lolina and Peder Mannerfelt.

They're enthusiastic, discerning listeners who can cut away some of the cultural baggage to figure out links between vastly different sounds, and that's exactly the experience 'Big city life' provides. From the first few notes of the title track it's as if we've been dialed into NYC circa 1981, with rubbery microsampled half-riffs that project like they're being coughed out of a malfunctioning Fairlight CMI. Trading schoolyard rhymes back and forth, Smerz sing-rap nonchalantly over jerky MIDI piano and strangulated breaks, imagining a mid-point between day zero trip-hop and Craig Leon's enduringly influential 'Nommos'. And that intermixture of casual amusement and heads-y deep digging nourishes the entire record. There's the whipsmart Stereolab-in-dub vibe of 'But I do', 'Close' with its sad lounge and sensual Chicago lilt, and the lead single 'You got time and I got money', that's a raggy doll stitch-up of Air's 'Sexy Boy' and Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony' covered by Neneh Cherry.

And just like on their debut album, it's Smerz's bijou, ostensibly throwaway moments that fully crystallize their narrative. They understand exactly what draws us back again and again to "classic" albums (and good mixes, actually), and pepper 'Big city life' with elegant, eccentric digressions, like the General MIDI player-piano loosie 'What', and 'Street Style', a stripped-back candlelit ballad that couches the bolshy TR-909-led 'Imagine This', a screwed-n-chopped Mantronix moment that accents their vast knowledge of '80s rap and electro. And if you're missing the old Smerz, they throw us a bone with the Autotune-d trance digression 'Dreams', leading us out of the album with a melancholy reminder that the flicker of the club is still there, somewhere, just distorted into a hypnotic, euphoric outline.

塩見允枝子 / Mieko Shiomi - Requiem For George Maciunas (LP+A4 booklet+DL)塩見允枝子 / Mieko Shiomi - Requiem For George Maciunas (LP+A4 booklet+DL)
塩見允枝子 / Mieko Shiomi - Requiem For George Maciunas (LP+A4 booklet+DL)Art into Life
¥4,400

Mieko Shiomi is known both for her avant-garde musical activities with the Group Ongaku collective during her student years and for her participation in Fluxus from 1964 onwards. The Fluxus Festival held in Venice in 1990, to which she was invited, became a pivotal event that brought about a major shift in her subsequent work. That same year, she self-released a cassette requiem in memory of Fluxus founder George Maciunas.

This tape work combines original compositions performed on synthesizer harpsichord and organ with recordings of her own voice played backwards. These sound sources were taken to a studio and edited together with environmental sounds recorded at the Venice venue. The piece also incorporates the voices of key Fluxus artists including La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Eric Andersen, Willem de Ridder, and Ken Friedman. Making use of the specific properties of tape, the piece integrates unique ideas and structures and occupies a distinctive place among Shiomi’s oeuvre.

Tatsuro Murakami - Mita Koyama-cho (LP)Tatsuro Murakami - Mita Koyama-cho (LP)
Tatsuro Murakami - Mita Koyama-cho (LP)Mystery Circles
¥4,243

'Mita Koyama-cho' offers a fresh perspective on today’s ambient music scene, blending acoustic and electronic elements into a rich, evocative soundscape. Murakami, a multi-instrumentalist, weaves together acoustic and jazz guitar, saxophone, fretless bass, and an array of keyboards—including vintage synthesizers, Mellotron, and acoustic piano. The result is a fusion of jazz, new age, folk, Brazilian music, and even 1970s progressive rock.

With an intuitive sense of melody and arrangement, Murakami layers warm cassette textures, vintage amp tones, and intricate string and saxophone orchestrations. 'Mita Koyama-cho' is a deeply personal tribute to the musician’s family and the Tokyo neighborhood they once called home—demolished in 2024 due to corporate redevelopment.

The Heath Brothers - Marchin' On! (Deluxe Edtition) (LP)The Heath Brothers - Marchin' On! (Deluxe Edtition) (LP)
The Heath Brothers - Marchin' On! (Deluxe Edtition) (LP)Strata East
¥6,236
This is a meditative abstract jazz-funk masterpiece that features the mbira, an ancient traditional instrument of the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe that is originally played in rituals to communicate with spirits. Each song has a serene and mysterious beauty behind it, and with the overtones of the mbira, this album has a beauty like a gemstone that sets it apart from many spiritual jazz albums, an exceptional quality. I highly recommend this album to not only spiritual jazz listeners, but to a wide range of music listeners.
Jan Jelinek - Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records (2LP)
Jan Jelinek - Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records (2LP)Faitiche
¥5,349
Jan Jelinek is a German producer of minimal electronic music, and his masterpiece from 2001 has been hard to find for a long time. This is a monotone, minimalist inner-zone piece that uses abstract sampling from old jazz records as the centerpiece, with click and dub textures typical of Pole's ~scape label, and minimalist, small movements that intersect and expand endlessly. The content is universal enough to endure even after 20 years, and nowadays it is highly recommended for listeners other than techno and electronica. Mastered by the trusted Rashad Becker, the sound quality is outstanding.

Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves The Sunshine (LP)Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves The Sunshine (LP)
Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves The Sunshine (LP)Vampisoul
¥4,769

In "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" (1976), Roy Ayers seamlessly blends genres, creating a timeless sound that continues to influence musicians and DJs around the world. He makes the vibraphone the central instrument, a jazz-funk approach that defines his unique style. Over time, the album has remained an essential reference in Roy Ayers' discography and in the history of 70s Black music. Summertime soul classic! 180g vinyl.

Tete Mbambisa -  Did You Tell Your Mother (LP)
Tete Mbambisa - Did You Tell Your Mother (LP)AS-SHAMS
¥4,989

アルバムについて Tete Mbambisa + 3 featuring Basil Coetzee. The ultimate blend of African groove with American modal grace. One of the all-time great albums of modern South African jazz. New generation flat transfer of the original archival tapes with artwork reproduced from Hargreaves Ntukwana's original ink drawing. "The sound that Tete Mbambisa carved in this period was wholly acoustic and is a style that now is often loosely labelled spiritual jazz, a sound that alludes to deep African textures and rhythms balanced with clear nods to American hard bop and modal jazz, sometimes edging toward free improvisation with echoes of John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. The music is often centred around a fulcrum of trance-like vamps with repeated motifs that allow for extended pieces that create a hypnotic effect. The tracks here are warm, expansive and display a wonderful fluency with Mbambisa's piano subtly weaving throughout, leaving plenty of space for the band: Zulu Bidi on bass, Monty Weber on drums and saxophonist/flautist Basil Coetzee." – Tony Higgins (for Eating Standing Records)

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio (LP)The Cosmic Tones Research Trio (LP)
The Cosmic Tones Research Trio (LP)Mississippi Records
¥3,897

New album of peaceful explorations by The Cosmic Tones Research Trio. This, their second record, maintains the space and long tones that made their debut, "All Is Sound" a successful anecdote to the loud and fast times we live in. It also expands their musical palate with powerful rhythmic elements.

The Cosmic Tones Research Trio have been breaking new ground with healing / meditation music that also honors their roots in Gospel and Blues...and hints at forward looking Spiritual Jazz. Through their Cello, Saxophone, Piano and Flute playing they bring a new sound to the table. Ancient to the future.

Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green (Clear/Green Swirl Vinyl)Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green (Clear/Green Swirl Vinyl)
Hiroshi Yoshimura - Green (Clear/Green Swirl Vinyl)LIGHT IN THE ATTIC
¥6,574

Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. The 2017 reissue of his lauded debut, Music For Nine Post Cards, along with a slow building cult internet following has helped ignite a renaissance in his acclaimed body of work, much of which has never been released outside of Japan. Known for his sound design and environmental music, Yoshimura worked on a number of commissions following the 1982 release of Music For Nine Post Cards, including works for museums, galleries, public spaces, TV shows, video art, fashion shows, and even a cosmetics company. Originally released in 1986, GREEN is one of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s most well-loved recordings and a favorite of the artist himself. Recorded over the winter of 1985-86 at Yoshimura’s home studio, the compositions unfold at an unhurried pace, a stark contrast to the busy city life of Tokyo. As Yoshimura explained in the original liner notes, the album title in the context of this body of work is not meant to be seen as a color, but is rather used to convey “the comfortable scenery of the natural cycle known as GREEN”—which perfectly encapsulates the soothing and warm sounds contained on the album, although it was created utilizing Yamaha FM synthesizers, known for their crisp digital tones. This edition marks the first reissue of the highly sought-after and impossible to find album. It features the original mix preferred by Yoshimura himself, previously available only on the initial Japanese vinyl release (a limited edition remixed version of the album, with added sound effects, was released on CD in the US). Additionally, this release is the first in our ongoing series, WATER COPY, focusing on the works of Hiroshi Yoshimura.

Market East - French Street (LP)Market East - French Street (LP)
Market East - French Street (LP)Eraserhood Sound
¥3,896

Market East finally shares their most important statement to the world in the form of their debut LP, French Street. The group, composed of Kurt Cain on vocals, Vincent John on vocals, bass, guitar and keys, and Maxwell Perla on vocals, drums and percussion, deliver their signature celestial three part harmonies over arrangements that have never sounded so rich and compelling.

French Street is extremely soulful and the vocals are lush, like if the Zombies recorded at Muscle Shoals. The lyrics are poetic and nostalgic, as the group wrote songs about their bygone “golden” years. Back then, the boys didn’t have much besides each other and their shared love of music. Vocalist Kurt Cain lived in a small rowhome in North Philadelphia on a nearly deserted alley named French Street. It was here that Cain, John, and Perla came together every week to escape reality and get high off sharing music. They developed a deep appreciation for all things 60s and 70s, from Simon & Garfunkel to the Moments, and everything in between.

All these years later, and Market East has created a classic record of their own. From the baroque pop of the title track and the roaring soul of “Roses,” to the Latin flavors of “Echoes of My Heart” and the orchestral flares of “Everyday, Springtime,” Market East shows their impressive range. Recorded to analog tape in Philadelphia, the record was produced by the band and Eraserhood Sound. Grab your copy of this timeless classic today.

芸能山城組 - 輪廻交響楽 (LP)芸能山城組 - 輪廻交響楽 (LP)
芸能山城組 - 輪廻交響楽 (LP)Time Capsule
¥5,989

One of the most innovative and ambitious albums ever made, Genioh Yamashirogumi’s Ecophony Rinne is a sonic masterpiece featuring over 200 musicians that expanded the limits of what music and sound could do.

Before Akira there was Ecophony Rinne. Originally released in 1986, Ecophony Rinne is a four-part symphony of “ecological music” by Geinoh Yamashirogumi that married ancient tradition with technological innovation, and changed the way we listen to music in the process.

Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell, Time Capsule’s high-tech analogue reissue is the first to reproduce composer Ōhashi’s ground-breaking “Hypersonic Effect” theory on vinyl, cutting frequencies beyond the realm of human hearing into wax to capture the full spectrum emotional impact of this extraordinary work.

Founded by genius polymath Tsutomu Ōhashi aka Shoji Yamashiro, Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a shapeshifting collective of over a hundred members from across disciplines. Rejecting professional musicianship, Ōhashi cultivated an ethos where neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, journalists, engineers and students could critique society through artistic expression and pursue their research in ethnomusicological performances that spanned global traditions, Eastern spirituality and Western classical form.

Ecophony Rinne represents the pinnacle of this vision - an expansive orchestral suite made with over 200 musicians that channeled Ōhashi’s thinking about mankind’s relationship with nature, and fundamental questions of life, death and rebirth.

Here pipe organ synths made from sampled Tibetan horns sit alongside field recordings from Central African forests, Buddhist mantras circle dummy head microphones, Javanese Jegog percussion ensembles pulse like verdant ecosystems, and the acoustics of temples, caves and landscapes are conveyed in the mix. Weaving together culture, nature and technology, it is a record that vibrates with the polyphony of life on Earth.

But Ecophony Rinne was not only musically innovative. Noticing the difference between vinyl and CD versions of the album where digital reproduction limited the sound, Ōhashi developed a theory of “Hypersonic Effect”, determining that ultra-high frequencies above 20khz can impact human perception even if they are inaudible. At once a physical and a psychological experience, to listen to Ecophony Rinne is to feel music differently.

The rest is history. After its release, Ōhashi was approached by director Katsuhiro Ōtomo to produce the soundtrack for Akira, the work for which Geinoh Yamashirogumi is best known. Emerging from the shadows at last, Ecophony Rinne was its transcendental blueprint, reissued in its most complete hypersonic form on vinyl for the first time.

Rather than describe nature, Ecophony Rinne embodied it. Rather than reflect culture, Ecophony Rinne defined it. Rather than explore technology, Ecophony Rinne changed it. As a work of art, it is more relevant than ever. You won’t have heard anything like it.

Nashpaints - Everyone Good is Called Molly (LP)Nashpaints - Everyone Good is Called Molly (LP)
Nashpaints - Everyone Good is Called Molly (LP)MIRRORWORLD
¥4,874

Second solo LP by Princ€ss member + Maria Somerville and Mel Keane collaborator Finn Carraher McDonald aka Nashpaints - via new Dublin label Mirror World.

"Nashpaints is Finn Carraher McDonald from Dublin. Following up his debut album "Blindman The Gambler”, recent activity as a member of Princ€ss and production on Maria Somerville’s “Luster” & Mel Keane’s “Airs”, Nashpaints releases his second album "Everyone Good Is Called Molly” via Dublin label MirrorWorld.

"standing so close to someone else vision becomes touch

Standing with ɘnoɘmoƨ, looking at each other in the mirror and not recognising th - htiw gnidnatS

Apparently,

Three people will lie while listening to this album..

Zzz….they will endup in the same place

Generally, this song will be played but,

here is a guy watery eyed on the train"

Nashpaint’s releases his second album

EveryonegoodiscalledMolly. NOT ALL MOLLYS, Never anything else"

Gia Margaret - Singing (LP)Gia Margaret - Singing (LP)
Gia Margaret - Singing (LP)Jagjaguwar
¥3,564

Every artist has to discover their voice. Gia Margaret didn’t find herself until she lost hers. With a vocal injury that kept her from singing for years, she developed other musical languages, mastering the grammar of an intricate, homey form of ambient music pioneered by Ernest Hood and perfected by The Books. Now, her physical voice healed and her artistic voice honed, she comes full circle with Singing, her first vocal album since 2018’s There’s Always Glimmer. Led by soft piano lines that fall like breath on glass, the music on Singing evidences the same jeweler’s sensitivity to detail that she developed in her silence.

“There was a time when I really didn’t know if I would sing again. So once I healed, there was a lot of internal pressure to come back strong,” Margaret says. “I didn’t know who I was anymore. So it felt like beginning again, and reconnecting with these very old, old parts of myself.” This feeling of intermixed alienation and rediscovery is palpable across the album. In opener “Everyone Around Me Dancing,” she watches a party from the wings, aware of how her body keeps her from communal joy while also providing new modes of self-knowledge. Shut out from the scene, she is “closer to the ground, the planet.” In “Alive Inside,” she’s so far away from the source that she’s praying to whoever might hear (“a god, a friend that’s gone, a spirit”). As her voice rises, it seems to be trapped in a web of distortion; it’s as if in her pursuit, she’s pushing at the very boundaries of what can be said.

The process of making Singing was one of learning how to trust each of those feelings. The album was partially recorded in London with Frou Frou’s Guy Sigsworth, who helped Margaret unify the spree of ideas she had for “Good Friend,” an album highlight that includes Gregorian chant by ILĀ and turntable scratches, among many other things. David Bazan and Amy Millan also make appearances, as do Kurt Vile and Sean Carey, while Margaret’s longtime collaborator Doug Saltzman plays on and co-produces much of the record. Deb Talan, previously of The Weepies, lends her voice, piano, and guitar to the album's closing—and definitive—statement, "E-Motion."

Gia Margaret is always singing. Every note of this album sings a warm requiem to her past selves; every layer sings her future self into being. Across the album, she applies the lessons of speechlessness—the quasirational ways we communicate without communicating, the way formless sound can cut to the heart of things like a scalpel—to her own artistic voice.

Roberto Musci - Tower Of Silence (2LP)Roberto Musci - Tower Of Silence (2LP)
Roberto Musci - Tower Of Silence (2LP)Music From Memory
¥5,987

Music From Memory returns with their penultimate release of 2016, this time bringing together a compilation of works by the Italian composer and musician Roberto Musci. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

Combining personal documents of music and sounds deeply connected to the history and cultures of those lands, with his own explorations and experiments with cutting edge sound technology Roberto Musci would develop through his music a very unique and at times wholly mystical space, where ancient and modern would evolve into a new musical language.

As well as making his own music, during the 1980’s and 1990’s Roberto would also regularly broadcast radio shows of experimental and indigenous music on Italian radio stations such as Rai and Radio Popolare. Deeply connected to the arts he would also compose and perform numerous pieces of music for theatre, dance and performance art pieces as well as soundtracks for film and television.

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

V.A. - XKatedral Anthology Series I (An Anthology Of Slowly Evolving Timbral Music) (2LP)V.A. - XKatedral Anthology Series I (An Anthology Of Slowly Evolving Timbral Music) (2LP)
V.A. - XKatedral Anthology Series I (An Anthology Of Slowly Evolving Timbral Music) (2LP)XKatedral
¥5,296
XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.
Ruth Parker -  Otherwise Occupied (LP)
Ruth Parker - Otherwise Occupied (LP)Flippin Yeah Industries
¥4,398

From Melbourne, Australia, singer-songwriter Ruth Parker releases her album, Otherwise Occupied, featuring a rich tapestry of acoustic instruments like guitar, ukulele, accordion, bouzouki, cello, and mandolin, all woven together with her delicate and intimate vocals. The sound, which carefully preserves quiet space, places the album squarely within the indie-folk and singer-songwriter lineage. However, its lush textures and mellow resonance also give it a dream-folk quality, resonating with listeners and allowing them to relive moments of introspection and subtle emotional shifts. Rather than focusing on grand gestures, it's an album that rewards those who lean in to appreciate its finer nuances, wrapping you in a gentle and profound sense of depth.

Flying Lotus - 1983 (Gold Splatter Vinyl LP)Flying Lotus - 1983 (Gold Splatter Vinyl LP)
Flying Lotus - 1983 (Gold Splatter Vinyl LP)Brainfeeder
¥5,453
1983, the 2006 debut album from Flying Lotus, will be officially re-released on vinyl as part of Record Store Day, as well as released on streaming platforms. The album, which was remastered for this occasion, will be available to stream on April 17th, while the physical release happens the following day on RSD. Brainfeeder Records proudly shares the release in a very full circle moment for FlyLo’s own imprint, and the title track ‘1983’ serves as a teaser for the album. A career that includes modern classics such as You’re Dead!, Cosmogramma, and Until the Quiet Comes began 20 years ago with 1983, Steven Ellison’s first LP as Flying Lotus. Made in the comfort of his grandmother’s bedroom, it broadcasts early transmissions from an artist just beginning to test his talents. Those talents are displayed in the music’s style, which draws from J Dilla, jazz, and Brazilian syncopation in a way only he could weave together. The Brazilian influence in particular played a significant role in Steve’s understanding of rhythm, a revelation delivered by a lesson from a street vendor in Copacabana. “It flipped my whole wig,” Ellison says, laughing at the memory. Lessons such as the vendor’s, along with his jazz heritage, interest in soundtracks, and interning at Stones Throw Records, are evident in these sonic collages. Though at its beginning stages, the sound present here is not that of a novice but of a visionary who saw what possibilities lay ahead, something encouraged by the label, Plug Research. “Give us the weird shit,” Ellison recalls them saying. It’s what ended up paying off in the end as 1983 kicked off a run of six studio albums, a body of work that encompasses just one scope of Flying Lotus’ output and influence.
Harlan Silverman - Music for Stillness (LP)
Harlan Silverman - Music for Stillness (LP)Mississippi Records
¥3,989

“Music for Stillness” unfolds slowly, inviting rest and quiet presence. The bansuri flute leads the sound, its vocal-like quality weaving melody atop cello and ambient textures. Influenced by Indian classical music, Japanese environmental music, and Western ambient music, the album leaves space for the listener to choose how deeply to engage. The music offers a single question: What might peace sound like?

Save 28%
Bon Iver - VOLUMES: ONE (SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND) (LP)Bon Iver - VOLUMES: ONE (SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND) (LP)
Bon Iver - VOLUMES: ONE (SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC CONCERTS 2019-2023 BON IVER 6 PIECE BAND) (LP)Jagjaguwar
¥2,680 ¥3,739

VOLUMES: ONE, the first non-studio release from Bon Iver, captures 10 distinctive live performances, recorded between 2019 and 2023, showcasing Justin Vernon and his band at their most whole. There’s a warmth and exuberance across the album, as well as the sort of muscular sound you can really only get at a live show. For the uninitiated and die-hards alike, these recordings could well be the defining versions of the tracks, no doubt made possible through the essential live engineering of Xandy Whitesel and performances from bandmates Jenn Wasner, Sean Carey, Michael Lewis, Matthew McCaughan, and Andrew Fitzpatrick. Vernon began working on VOLUMES: ONE in 2020, and he spent a considerable amount of time combing through concerts to pull out the right songs to define Bon Iver. “This is what we became,” Vernon comments. “This is really us at our best. This is it.” VOLUMES: ONE, as a result, is something greater than a compilation or live album. It’s entirely new but still familiar, offering a prismatic look at an old friend, seeing them for who they were and who they are, all the goodness of which they’re capable but maybe too shy to show at times. With VOLUMES: ONE, Vernon begins a new Bon Iver archival series that he’s modeled after Bob Dylan’s iconic Bootleg Series and the ever-delivering Neil Young Archives. The series will present the many eras and facets of Bon Iver, spanning live shows, demos, unreleased recordings, and more. “This particular 10 songs is like, here, if you’ve never heard Bon Iver, or you have and you didn’t like it, this might be for you,” he says.

Marion Brown - Awofofora (LP)
Marion Brown - Awofofora (LP)Aguirre Records
¥5,864

First time reissue of JP / US free jazz rarity. Old-style Gatefold LP with rare photographs & liner notes by Ed Hazell. Edition of 1000 BUY HERE: www.aguirrerecords.com/products/marion-brown-awofofora-lp The 1970s were Marion Brown’s most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition. After leaving New York for Europe in 1967, Brown began reshaping his music into what he described as “a more deliberate kind of music that had more structure to it,” pacing it so that moods and modes could develop over time. Albums such as In Sommerhausen, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections, and Sweet Earth Flying trace this evolution: rhythmic structures moved to the foreground, harmony receded, and composition became a matter of orchestrating interlocking rhythmic parts as one would polyphonic lines. Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour. In retrospect, it is entirely consistent with Brown’s methodology. As he admired in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the stimulus comes from within the community. Here Brown filters Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk through his own sensibility, abstracting their structural qualities rather than adopting surface style. “La Placita,” making its first recorded appearance, layers distinct rhythmic phrases in a manner reminiscent of African drum ensembles, over which Brown and trumpeter Ambrose Jackson spin extended improvisations. The standard “Flamingo” is reshaped through diasporic rhythm and lyrical soloing, while “Pepi’s Tempo” and “Mangoes” harness crisp funk and reggae grooves to generate what Brown called a “manifestation of community” through collective improvisation. Even the overdubbed solo feature “And Then They Danced” reflects his structural thinking, ingeniously re-voicing a duet composition for two alto saxophones performed by one player. This was the only recording by a short-lived band that briefly polarized audiences during festival appearances in 1976. Yet Brown consistently sought unity across change: different sounds, same principles — rhythm as structure, melody as architecture, collective improvisation, and above all, the primacy of tone. Awofofora stands not as a departure, but as a vivid synthesis of the elements he had been refining since the late 1960s, its grooves and golden alto lines conveying a sound drawn, in his words, “from life and from the world of experience.”

Rod Modell - Frequencies In The Fog (LP)
Rod Modell - Frequencies In The Fog (LP)13 (SILENTES)
¥4,679

Rod Modell returns with Frequencies In The Fog, a deeply immersive work built from minimal structures, patient motion and finely judged restraint. Pads, discreet electronic details and slow, enveloping bass lines form the core, while distant, treated voices and subtle textural creaks surface like echoes caught in mist.

The music unfolds in gentle cycles, where circular movement alternates with moments of liquid stasis and near-silence. Sounds appear and recede without warning, revealing fleeting impressions of place before dissolving again into a shifting haze. There is a sense of suspension throughout — as if the listener is drifting through intangible terrain, guided more by atmosphere than direction.

As with much of Modell’s work, the power lies in the details: the careful balance between density and space, the tension between motion and stillness, and the way each element feels inseparable from the whole. Frequencies In The Fog invites deep listening, rewarding patience with a quietly absorbing journey through blurred environments and half-remembered forms.

V.A. - チベット~ギュト寺タントラの声 (2CD)
V.A. - チベット~ギュト寺タントラの声 (2CD)Ocora
¥3,524
The long-awaited repress of the recording of the shōmyō of Gut Temple, which was a place for tantra (practice to realize enlightenment) from the prestigious French folk music label OCORA! !!
In the early 1970s, before hundreds of thousands of Tibetans were forced into exile, about 100 monks at Gut Temple went into exile in India. Originally, it is a shōmyō that seems not to be released to the outside world, but due to the sense of crisis that the tradition may be erased, they began to perform many guest performances and recordings abroad after that. .. This recording is the earliest live recording made in Paris in 1975.
The sound of bells, the ascetic Tibetan horn, the drums being beaten, the thick bass that you can't think of as a human being, and the overtones that make you feel cosmic are layered, but at first glance, it's a harsh sound world. As I listened to it as if I was meditating deeply, all the extra things gradually disappeared, and eventually it appeared as a harmony, and it was a ridiculous content that led to a kind of trance state! Immersion intensity and depth are different! !!
Of course, I would like people who listen to traditional recordings in various places and those who are exploring music to listen to it, but I also want people who like dark unbind / drone, industrial, etc. to listen to it once. .. With Japanese commentary

Disc 1
"Secret Rally" or "Secret Single" Tantra / Excerpt from the Abhisheka in the ritual of Yamantaka, where the wrath of the Bodhisattva Manjushri appears / Excerpt from the ritual of dedication, Rapune

Disc 2
Daikokuten / Golden Libation / Auspicious Prayer
Morton Feldman - Piano (5CD Box)
Morton Feldman - Piano (5CD Box)Another Timbre
¥8,264

5-CD box set presenting virtually all of Morton Feldman'smusic for solo piano. Performed by Philip Thomas, who also writes a 52-page booklet that is included in the box (and a pdf of the booklet is included with download sales)

Artwork by David Ainley

Fling ii (LP)Fling ii (LP)
Fling ii (LP)Black Sweat Records
¥3,995

Despite their Michigan roots, but with their hearts anchored in the golden age of 1970s German Krautrock, Fling ii celebrate the sound of that sensational season of experimentation. In the chords of the band dwell the typical motorik style of Neu, the percussive obsessions of Can, as much as the pulsing, hypnotic electronic textures of Cluster and Kraftwerk. The absolute protagonist of this adventure back in time is the legendary Boss Super Phaser PH-2, the dual-circuit modulation pedal that shines through the entire development of all the tracks; it's the main demiurge of deep resonances, of impulsive intergalactic excursions, of dust and mists in perpetual motion. The sound is as dreamy and cosmic as ever, revealing such instrumental rigour in which the strongly emotional blend of the original sources of inspiration finds a perfect balance between rhythm and dynamics.

Recently viewed