Japanese

HIKARIGASASHIKOMU, the title of Foodman aka Takahide Higuchi’s new album, translates as ‘Light Shines in’ i.e. a Japanese phrase that conveys a sense of hope in a difficult place. This album is a direct evolution from the 2023 EP on Hyperdub, uchigawa tankentai (Exploration of One’s Inner World). The track hoso michi from that EP served as a crucial turning point, opening new creative possibilities that became the foundation for this new, both introspective yet hyperactive body of work. While Uchigawa Tankentai focused on confronting Foodman's creative process and their relationship with music and life during a difficult period, HIKARIGASASHIKOMU represents the clarity and 'light' found after that period of deep self-exploration. While this is a deeply personal record, it also manages formally to capture something near universal, the sound of a brain stretched between 500 open tabs, multitasking into oblivion in a world in which attention deficit is a global media environment, not merely a privatized psychological malaise. Sonically, HIKARIGASASHIKOMU sees Foodman focusing more on the use of their own voice. The album incorporates his looped vocals, singing elements of Japanese children’s songs and playground rhymes, and his everyday thoughts, blending as he puts it "casual everyday humming with my own sonic palette." Despite its charming, cartoon-like innocence, it might require repeated listens to condition yourself to it’s soundworld, as it leaps around manically, fractures and dissolves. Foodman’s voice repeats, disassembles, speeds up and down and is bounced around deliriously, as sound elements call and respond around him. Themes emerge from improvised ideas, structured into songs with their own internal logic, animated mini-dramas thrown into abstract shapes, but always when it seems like it could get too much, it turns to a miniature instrumental moment of respite. hard reclining, for example, even becomes a conventional, laidback song, guiding you through the madness. Structurally and vocally, the record draws influence from footwork (a long-standing element of the artist’s musical identity), ghetto house, and baile funk, all of which are maximally abstracted in Takahide’s hands, while maintaining small touches of his signature woody percussive sounds and bursts of spiralling psychedelic effects, like those heard in his last Hyperdub LP Yasuragi Land.

Swiss unarchivers WRWTFWW give vinyl wings to a cult, 1999 Japan suite of jazz-spurred techno and shine-eyed electronica balanced between Warp’s AI comps and A.R.T.’s future jazz styles A lot of Japan-o-philes will be made-up to see this one on wax after more than a quarter century as a CD only curio and, since ’22, on download formats. All the material is duly given room to breath over 2LP, spinning the ‘Bug in the Bassbin’-era Carl Craig vibes of Missing Project’s ‘Poisson D’avril (Da’ Future Given a Deep Soul Mix)’, thru it soaring ‘Galaxy Dub’, via chunky house wigglers from Virgo, a slow-rolling groove by Tensor, early Black Dog feels in Penance’s ‘Cure of Soul (Fossil Mix), and low-slung trip by Led-M.

Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter is Midori Takada’s very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe, well known worldwide, thanks notably to its version by Paul F. Berliner included on the famed 1973 album The Soul of Mbira.

The choice of this title by Midori Takada evokes the links between traditional African and contemporary music which are the foundation of this work, and it also translates the resolutely multicultural vision of the artist.

Midori Takada explains: "African music is remarkable for its polyrhythms. Not only are there simultaneously several rhythmic motifs, sometimes as many as ten, but furthermore it may be that the part played by each musician has its own starting point and its own pace, all combining to form a cycle. All the cycles progress at the same time according to a single metrical structure which functions as a reference point, but which is not played by any one person from beginning to end. The structure emerges out of the multi-level parts, all different. With the Shona, the musical system is based on the polymelody: one performs simultaneously several melodic lines which are superimposed, each having its own rhythmic organization. It is truly captivating. In Western classical music, one four-beat rhythm induces some precise temporal framework and regular reference points, which come on the strong beats 1 and 3. But in the logic of the Shona musical system, and in other African music, the melody can begin in the very middle of the cycle and be continued up to some other place in an autonomous manner, as if it had its own personality. It’s very rich."

The album comes with in-depth liner notes that include an interview with Midori Takada, a point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and activist Forward Mazuruse, and background information on the project by Isabel Garcia Gomez and Madeleine Leclair from MEG Museum.

The sleeve features an artwork by celebrated Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera.

Part of the budget for the album was donated to Forward Mazuruse’s Music For Development Foundation whose aim is to identify, nurture, and record young but underprivileged musicians in Zimbabwe.

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.

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

Still Way" by Satoshi Ashikawa, one of the pioneers of Japanese environmental music, who founded the famous Sound Process label (Sound Process Design Co., Ltd.) and has brought out famous artists such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Oscilation Circuit, and Satsuki Shibano, has been reissued on CD and LP! Finally, the new age revival/domestic ambient reevaluation has come to an end! Originally interested in contemporary music when he was in college, he worked at Art Vivant, a store specializing in art books and contemporary music, and has been active in experimental performances since the late 70s, collaborating with Mamoru Fujieda, Midori Takada, and Hiroshi Yoshimura. The following year, he passed away at the age of 30. This album has a clear concept of ambient music in the lineage of Brian Eno, and was created as a work that can be listened to casually as a "sound landscape" or "sound object. Four players, including Midori Takada, perform music composed by Satoshi Ashikawa. Although the composition varies from piece to piece, piano, harp, and vibraphone are used. It is a beautiful work that depicts an emotionally rich landscape that passes through contemporary/minimal music and is very simple, but also has the beauty of a Japanese pull. In his own words, the music is like a series of still moments. The cover design is by Hiroshi Yoshimura. Liner notes by Midori Takada, Satoshi Ashikawa and Gareth Quinn Redmond are included.

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.

We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want Records is thrilled and honored to announce the first ever official vinyl pressing of the soundtrack for Mamoru Oshii's critically acclaimed and all around legendary science fiction anime film GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995), adapted from Masamune Shirow's groundbreaking manga series of the same name.

Cut from the original master reels at Emil Berliner Studios (formerly the in-house recording department of renowned classical record label Deutsche Grammophon), the album comes as a LP accompanied by a bonus one-sided 7" housed in official Ghost in the Shell artwork sleeve with silver gilt printing and a Japanese obi, and contains extensive 24-page liner notes.

The haunting score is composed by Kenji Kawai, one of Japan's most celebrated soundtrack composers, alongside Joe Hisaishi and Ry?ichi Sakamoto, whose work includes Hideo Nakata's Ring (1998) and Ring 2 (1999), Death Note (2006), Hong Kong films Seven Swords by Tsui Hark (2005) and Ip Man by Wilson Yip (2008), and countless others. Kawai's compositions see ancient harmonies and percussions uncannily mesh with synthesized sounds of the modern world to convey a sumptuous balance between folklore tradition and futuristic outlook. For its iconic main theme "Making of Cyborg", Kawai had a choir chant a wedding song in ancient Japanese following Bulgarian folk harmonies, setting the standard for a timeless and unparalleled soundtrack that admirably echoes the film's musings on the nature of humanity in a technologically advanced world.

Ghost in the Shell is widely considered one of the best anime films of all time and its influence has been felt in the work of numerous movie directors, including James Cameron (Avatar), the Wachowskis (The Matrix), and Steven Spielberg (AI: Artificial Intelligence).

A collection of ten hypnotic guitar renditions that dive deeply into the traditional compositional musicality that underpins Harakami’s hallucinatory beatscapes before reconsidering them under a fresh, innovative and engaging new light. River: The Timbre of Guitar #2 Rei Harakami signals a new level of awareness and understanding of both Rei Harakami’s significance and Ayane Shino’s undeniable talent.

The musician and DJ Ken Ishii sits right at the pinnacle of techno's most noteworthy, but although a game changer for the artist personally - and for Japanese electronic music in general - his 1994 album 'Reference to Difference' is something of an unsung gem today. Now reissued and remastered, released to mark the 30th anniversary of Musicmine / Sublime Records, and available on vinyl with its original track-list for the first time, this stunning, lesser-known classic is ripe for rediscovery.

Steve Hiett, who is famous for his only work "At Nagisa ...", which is still very popular as a masterpiece of AOR / Light Mellow with a strange transparency and floating feeling, was spending time as a fashion photographer. This is the first record of an unreleased tape sound source recorded in Paris! Steve Hiett, a famous photographer who also shot JIMI HENDRIX's final performance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 and the Beach Boys, Doors, and Miles Davis. A treasured sound source released in conjunction with the recurrence of "At Nagisa ..." released the other day. It's like a Drutti column played on the beach, and it has a tremendous Breezin'and Mellow, and a bottomless and moody taste. It's very good with a polished sound and a conceptual album composition that I can't think of as an unreleased work! A masterpiece behind the AOR.

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!

Yuri Suzuki, the sound artist and designer known for creating works that explore the realms of sound through exquisitely designed pieces, has become completely captivated by that silver box. Toting that infamous box and relentlessly diving deep into the swamp of Acid House, he drops a new album after nearly six years in LP format. On this record, Suzuki's finely honed squelchy old-school 303 sound, tightly mastered by the sound alchemist Rashad Becker, unfolds with precision and points toward another possible tomorrow. Each track is a sketch, carrying you through a timeless landscape of rhythm and texture and reaffirming Suzuki's unique command over sound and space.

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.

Minami Deutsch is back at it again with their latest LP "With Dim Light". Whilst softening their sound and cushioning the blow, you can expect a more profound diversity in their sound, whilst retaining the principle ingredients that make Minami Deutsch so great such as their signature fuzz, thumping bass and dream like vocals. There is a heavier experimentation in regards to genre exploration. With hints of post punk and nods to late 60s psychedelic rock, this shows that Minami Deutsch is willing to push musical boundaries further whilst retaining a clever songwriting ability to achieve this album Minami Deutsch is back at it again with their latest LP "With Dim Light". Whilst softening their sound and cushioning the blow, you can expect a more profound diversity in their sound, whilst retaining the principle ingredients that make Minami Deutsch so great such as their signature fuzz, thumping bass and dream like vocals. There is a heavier experimentation in regards to genre exploration. With hints of post punk and nods to late 60s psychedelic rock, this shows that Minami Deutsch is willing to push musical boundaries further whilst retaining a clever songwriting ability to achieve this album

Compiled by Hunee, 'Sounds from the Far East' features highly sought after material by legendary Japanese house producer Soichi Terada and fellow producers Shinichiro Yokota, Manabu Nagayama!

Soichi Terada is an adventurous multitalent and over all a good sport. He was born in the sixties, and as a child he loved to play on his fathers’ electric organ. Terada majored in Computer Science and Electric Organ and after he graduated, he founded his Far East Recording in 1989, because he couldn't find a label for his compositions at that time.

The sound of Far East Recording is very much inspired by early nineties US deep house. Soichi Terada went out to parties in the late eighties, were he was equally influenced by house and hip-hop. A few years later, Terada took on producing music by using digital sampling. In the early nineties he occasionally DJ-ed with a DAT player and some reel tapes, instead of using records and turntables.

"Sounds From The Far East" shines new light on Soichi Terada's label and consists of material that was originally released in the early nineties. Next to Terada's music, Hunee also selected a few tracks by fellow artist Shinichiro Yokota for this compilation, as well as 'Sun Showered', a track based on the incredible Paradise Garage gem called 'Sunshower', by Terada and Nami Shimada.

Black Editions presents the expanded and definitive edition of White Heaven’s brilliant third album Next to Nothing. Originally released in 1994 by Tokyo’s Noon Disk, the full album was only ever available in a limited vinyl pressing of 250 copies. Since then, it has become one of the most sought-after artifacts of the 90’s Japanese underground and is regarded as a highpoint of Japanese psychedelic rock. Led by vocalist, songwriter and conceptualist You Ishihara, the album finds the group in a phase of refinement. Taking a more intricate and open approach, the music is buoyant and light yet at the same time, nocturnal and introspective. Next to Nothing marks the first time guitarists Michio Kurihara and Soichiro Nakamura appear together on record after having separate turns as lead guitar on the group’s first two albums. The pairing is revelatory as they weave luminous melodic lines, sometimes in parallel, sometimes opening into sustained intricate counterpoint. Bassist Koji Shimura and drummer Ken Ishihara shuffle and swing in parallel with a fluid, sinuous rhythm, while flourishes of synthesizer, mellotron and the introduction of Go Hirano on keyboards and piano deepens the group’s sound with orchestral colors and a soft cinematic haze. Across the album, clear, shimmering guitar tones and gentle chord progressions are layered with bright arpeggiated figures and darker minor-key passages. The songs develop through gradual changes in tone and dynamics as Ishihara's voice reveals a gentle yearning and wistfulness. An extended version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Look of Love” serves as the album’s entrancing focal point; Stretching the song’s familiar lounge-pop swagger, the group renders it as a slow-burning, psychedelic meditation crackling with electricity as it drifts into the night. Available for the first time on vinyl in over 30 years and for the first time ever digitally (a truncated four song CD EP was also released in 1994). Remastered and expanded to include a second LP featuring three previously unreleased song versions cut at 45RPM. Presented in a heavy tip-on gatefold with metallic and ink pigment foil stamping, spot colors as well as a gatefold insert. House in a custom vellum wrap with a mirror metallic sticker seal. Lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Mastering, pressed at Record Technology Inc.

Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player Masayoshi Fujita returns with Migratory, his masterful new solo album, where his sonic explorations into the unknown continue.

In 2020, after 13 years of living in Berlin, Fujita returned to his native Japan with his wife and their three children, fulfilling his life-long dream of living and composing music in the midst of nature. The family found their new home in the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho, Hyōgo, three hours west of Kyoto.

Once settled in, Fujita spent his time turning an old kindergarten into his own music studio, Kebi Bird Studio, which became the birthplace of Migratory. On his new album, the composer and producer masterfully reimagines and mesmerises with his trademark sounds of vibraphone, and resumes his experimentation with the marimba and synthesisers that he first incorporated on his 2021 album, Bird Ambience, which followed the release of his acclaimed vibraphone triptych: Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018).

On Fujita’s ever-evolving list of collaborators, Migratory introduces vocals from Moor Mother on ‘Our Mother’s Lights’ and Hatis Noit on ‘Higurashi’, as well as shō and saxophone to its soundscapes.

Whilst at a music residency in Stockholm in 2021, Fujita met Swedish shō player Mattias Hållsten. Although it was a brief encounter, the two musicians stayed in touch. During a visit to Japan, Hållsten stopped by the studio and played on three of the tracks, including the alluring album closer ‘Yodaka’, exceeding Fujita’s own expectations.

Another collaborator, American poet Moor Mother asked Fujita to contribute vibraphone to her upcoming album, and in return lent her powerful voice to the Migratory’s centrepiece, Our Mother’s Lights — “it carries a kind of African and Asian vibe, a perfect match for the energy of the piece,” he adds.

As with Bird Ambience, Fujita continues to be inspired by our feathered friends. The album’s title, Migratory, originates from an image that came to him of migratory birds, travelling somewhere between Africa, Southeast Asia and Japan, imagining them hearing the music from the land underneath, and how their point of view of the world from above blurs the boundaries of music and land.

Expanding on this, Fujita says: “these ideas and images were inspired by my experiences of living abroad and returning to my homeland, as well as by the artists featured on this album who also somehow travelled or lived in other countries across the boundaries, and being influenced by the music of other lands but at the same time somehow led to their roots."

Masayoshi’s parents too made a life abroad in Thailand for over 15 years. After returning to Japan, Fujita’s mother passed away in the beginning of 2023. So he invited his father to come for a visit, to spend time with him and his grandchildren. A lifelong musician in his own right, the two of them soon found themselves holed up in Kebi Bird Studio. Fujita senior had brought his saxophone, which he played on top of the then unfinished recordings, resulting in three breathtaking pieces. The slow jazz-tinged ‘Blue Rock Thrush’ stands out, with the saxophone and marimba blending harmoniously reaching new artistic heights.

Nature has always been a source of inspiration for Fujita, and on Migratory it takes centre stage. You can hear it on the album’s peaceful and considered field recordings, but most importantly, Masayoshi highlights – “nature is there as the image to be evoked by the listener from the music.” On the record’s sleeve notes, written by renowned novelist and travel writer Pico Iyer, we learn about the Japan that he hears as he sits down and listens to the music. It educates and encapsulates us, in the same way Fujita’s imaginary birds vividly depict the essence of musical migration. 

In the final month of 2024, Meitei arrived in Beppu, a city long steeped in vapor, myth, and mineral memory. Invited to create onsen ambient music commemorating Beppu’s 100th anniversary, he immersed himself in the city’s geothermal psychogeography, where sound rises from the ground and time clings to mist.

Known for his Lost Japan (Shitsu-nihon) works, which channel forgotten eras into flickering auditory relics, Meitei took residence in the warehouse of Yamada Bessou, a century-old inn perched by the bay. Over two weeks, he listened intently to steam, to stone, to the atmosphere itself. The resulting work, Sen’nyū, traces the inner spirit of onsen culture. Like water finding its path, the music emerged with quiet inevitability, shaped by Meitei’s synesthetic sensibility and deep attunement to place.

Equipped with a microphone, he wandered Beppu’s sacred sites: Takegawara Onsen, Bouzu Jigoku, Hebin-yu, and the private baths of Yamada Bessou. There, he captured the breath of the springs, bubbling mud, hissing vents, wind against bamboo, and the murmurs of daily visitors. These field recordings became the sonic bedrock of Sen’nyū, an act of deep listening that attempts to render even the rising mist and shifting heat into sound.

Unfolding as a single, continuous piece, Sen’nyū drifts like fog through sulfur and stone. It traverses the veiled madness of Bouzu Jigoku, the spectral resonance of Yamada Bessou’s inner bath, and the hushed voices of Takegawara Onsen. It is a gesture of quiet reverence, for water’s patience, the land’s memory, and the hands that have bathed here for generations.

Where Meitei’s earlier works conveyed his personal impression of a fading Japan, Sen’nyū is grounded in tactile presence, music not imagined but encountered. Here, his practice moves closer to the spirit of kankyō ongaku, environmental music born from place, shaped by it, and inseparable from it.

As part of the project, Meitei conceived a two-day public sound installation inside Takegawara Onsen, culminating in a live performance. Bathers soaked in mineral-rich waters while submerged in sound, an embodied ritual of place, body, and listening.

Sen’nyū marks Meitei’s first full-length work centered entirely on onsen and opens a new chapter of his Lost Japan project under the expanded title 失日本百景 (One Hundred Lost Views of Japan), a series exploring extant sites of longing still quietly breathing within contemporary life. The album will be accompanied by Meitei’s first photo book, a visual document of his time in Beppu. A new layer is added to the world he has, until now, built only through sound.

Sen’nyū continues Meitei’s devotion to Japan as subject, while opening new terrain: both ritual and remembrance, an immersion into the mineral soul of Beppu.

KITCHEN. LABEL is proud to present AGATE, the latest album by Japanese artist MEITEI, marking a deepening of the world he first shaped through his Kofū trilogy released between 2020 - 2023. Named after the mineral agate, a stone formed through slow accumulation, pressure, and time, the album reflects MEITEI’s patient approach to sound. AGATE brings together extended and newly rearranged works from across the Kofū cycle alongside new compositions and passages, refining material developed through years of performance and sustained practice. The album presents seven tracks: HAŌ (Previously unreleased track) SHIN-OIRAN (Remodeled from Oiran I, Kofū 2020) SHIN-SADAYAKKO (Remodeled from Sadayakko, Kofū 2020) SHIN-WAROSOKU (Remodeled from Wa-rōsoku, Kofū III 2023) KYŪGEKI (Remodeled from Shinobi and Akira Kurosawa, Kofū II 2021) SHIN-OIRAN II (Remodeled from Oiran II, Kofū 2020) SHIN-EDOGAWARANPO (Remodeled from Edogawa Ranpo, Kofū III 2023) Across these works, MEITEI expands the musical vocabulary first introduced in Kofū, a sound he once described as “lost Japanese mood.” While Kofū drew from fragments of folklore, theatre, ghost stories, and forgotten urban memory, it was never an act of historical reconstruction. Rather, it reflected a sensibility of the past observed from the present. With AGATE, this worldview is clarified as Shinpu, a process of discovery in which historical awareness becomes a foundation for contemporary creation rather than a constraint. During five years of Kofū tours across Japan, Europe, and Asia, MEITEI performed this material in a wide range of spaces, from underground live houses and listening rooms to culturally significant sites. These environments influenced pacing, dynamics, and structure, shaping how the material evolved over time. AGATE is therefore not only a studio album, but the result of material refined through repeated performance. If the Kofū albums were windows into forgotten eras, AGATE explores what lies beneath, sediment and strata formed through time and pressure. MEITEI’s approach to sound mirrors the nature of agate itself. Grains become texture. Texture becomes narrative. Voices drift through decaying layers of sound, while ancient instruments are used in non-traditional ways, forming distinctive percussive rhythms and melodies that appear and vanish without fixed resolution. The album’s visual materials were developed under MEITEI’s direction through physical art-making processes. The cover artwork originates from a letterpress print created by Kamisoe, a Karakami atelier in Nishijin, Kyoto, using Kyo-karakami paper. The original artwork, produced through traditional woodblock techniques on handmade washi, was subsequently reproduced on print for the album edition. Kamisoe continues to reinterpret this historical Kyoto craft with a contemporary sensibility. The title calligraphy was created by Bio Xie, whom MEITEI personally invited to participate in the project. During his performances abroad, MEITEI encountered in Taiwan a lingering atmosphere reminiscent of “Shitsunihon” — a sense of old Japanese memory that quietly endures beyond time. He was deeply drawn to Bio Xie’s distinctive use of Chinese characters, which resonated with this experience, and asked him to contribute to the visual expression of AGATE. In parallel, MEITEI continues to reinterpret Japanese sensibility through his concept of “Shitsunihon,” presenting it as a contemporary musical language. The refined Kyoto motifs envisioned by Kamisoe and the distinctive calligraphic expression by Bio Xie intersect with MEITEI’s singular artistic direction, weaving together a newly articulated worldview. The accompanying visual imagery, including the liner photographs, was created by photographer Hiroshi Okamoto, who was also responsible for the visual direction of MEITEI’s previous work, “Sen'nyū.” It draws from MEITEI’s lived experiences of winter seas, solitary cliffs, and breaking waves. These scenes symbolize the inner conflicts of the ten years he spent living in Hiroshima, and his confrontation with solitude and the sounds he creates. AGATE will be released on 17 April 2025 via KITCHEN. LABEL on 180g vinyl, CD, and digital formats. The album is mastered by Kelly Hibbert, known for his work with Flying Lotus, Madlib, and J Dilla. With AGATE, MEITEI returns to the material of Kofū with greater focus and discipline, continuing an ongoing process of working forward with inherited material.

This is a solo percussion work recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 by Masahiko Togashi, one of Japan’s foremost percussionists and drummers. After the accident that left him partially paralyzed, Togashi developed his own techniques and performance methods, using drums, bells, gongs, and a wide range of percussion instruments to capture the unique sound world he envisioned. This album documents that deeply personal sonic exploration.

A drummer who shone brightly in the Japanese jazz scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hideo Shiraki recorded this album in Berlin in 1965.

The moment when the energy of Japanese jazz shines brightest: Terumasa Hino’s May Dance returns nearly 50 years after its creation as the sixth release in the Spin This Now! series.