Japanese

The spirit of legendary film score composer Toru Takemitsu looms large over Kotaro Maruyama’s economical yet lush studies, ranging from sublime echoes of Japanese environmental ambient to beatific pulse poems edging on weightless Heinrich Mueller works. "Composing primarily with the piano, Kotaro Maruyama creates music for a variety of visual media, including commercials and short films. Influenced by the composer Toru Takemitsu, he places importance on the “silence” and "ambience" of sound, aiming to create works where the music quietly depicts a scene. Kotaro Maruyama's first solo album, "Vapor Curve," is constructed entirely from the sound source of the OP-Z digital synthesizer. Notably, he avoids the concept of harmony for a single tone, instead pursuing a unique "woven harmony" created by intricately layering multiple independent melodies. Using only the OP-Z, and recording everything in a single take without using a computer, Kotaro Maruyama's "Vapor Curve" is distinguished by its uncompromising production style. The minimalist melodies that are layered to create an ambient soundscape, along with the incidental noise that gives an organic texture to the inorganic electronic sound, showcase the raw appeal of sound that is imperfect."

Avian Hydraulics was originally released by the German label Frei zum Abriss Kollektiv as a limited edition of 50 copies, pressed on a liquid-filled lathe-cut 10-inch. A liquid-filled record is a curious object: colored liquid or oil is sealed between two layers of transparent resin, so that when the record is moved, the fluid drifts and blooms into ever-shifting patterns. The concept first surfaced in 1978, when a prototype was developed for a Disney film — but the sealing technology of the era could not keep the liquid from leaking or evaporating, and the idea was abandoned before it ever reached the market. Since 2015, however, development has advanced toward resins that resist leakage and evaporation, bringing the format to where it stands today — though even now it remains an imperfect thing. The imperfections lie chiefly in the sound. By its very structure, room must be reserved inside the disc to hold the liquid, which means the grooves cannot be cut deeply, driving the playback volume to an extreme faintness — for the liquid itself absorbs the vibration of the stylus. In the case of lathe cutting, the grooves are even shallower because the cutting is performed directly onto a rigid resin—such as polycarbonate—rather than vinyl. The result is a double diminishment: the sound vibrations transmit poorly, and both the sonic pressure and the volume fall away. As an art object, the liquid-filled record is a singular and beautiful thing. But to hear the music as it was truly meant to be heard — at full volume, at full pressure, down to the finest detail — the digital version is the honest answer. Since Frei zum Abriss Kollektiv holds to a policy of no digital distribution, we have chosen to release it here, on Bandcamp. This work began, first of all, with the idea of the liquid-filled record itself. From that single image, the artwork and the titles of the songs were gradually drawn out and refined. Masami Akita

Folded cover sealed with hand numbered sticker. Edition of 50 hand-numbered copies. Recorded & Mixed at Munemihouse March 2026.

This seminal, eponymous post-punk album by Japanese group Aunt Sally, fronted by experimental singer Phew, was first released by the iconic Vanity Records label in 1979. Over the past forty-plus years, Phew has forged a singular path through a wide range of styles - from free improvisation to pop - and has collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, members of Can, DAF, Einstürzende Neubauten, The Raincoats and more. But Aunt Sally is where she got her start and, despite the members’ young ages (still in college at the time), Phew and the band delivered a mature, timeless take on minimalistic punk. Remastered from the original analog tapes, this fully authorized reissue.

The long-awaited CD version of the album includes two newly remastered bonus tracks that were only included on the cassette tape version! Japan’s KAKUHAN deliver a futureshock jolt on their incred debut album ‘Metal Zone’ - deploying drum machine syncopations around bowed cello and angular electronics that sound like the square root of Photek’s ‘Ni Ten Ichi Ryu’, Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’, Beatrice Dillon’s ‘Workaround’ and Mica Levi’s ‘Under The Skin’ - or something like T++ and Errorsmith dissecting Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home Of The Brave’, her electric violin panned and bounced relentlessly around the stereo field. It really is that good - basically all the things we love, in multiples. While "Metal Zone" might be their debut, KAKUHAN are hardly newcomers. Koshiri Hino is a member of goat (jp), releasing a run of records under the YPY moniker, and heading up the NAKID label, while Yuki Nakagawa is a well known cellist and sound artist who has worked with Eli Keszler and Joe Talia among many others. Together, they make a sound that’s considerably more than the sum of its parts - as obsessively tweaked, cybernetic and jerky as Mark Fell, frothing with the same gritted, algorithmic intensity as Autechre's total-darkness sets, stripped to the bone and carved with ritualistic symbolism. The album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when KAKUHAN follow their 'nuum inclinations, snatching grimey bursts and staccato South London shakes and matching them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place. It's not a collision we expected, but it's one that's completely melted us - welding obsessive rhythmic futurism onto bloodcurdling horror orchestration - the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era. By the album's final track, we're presented with South Asian microtonal blasts that suddenly make sense of the rest of the album; Nakagawa erupts into Arthur Russell-style clouded psychedelia, while wavering flutes guide bio-mechanical ritual musick formations. It’s the perfect closer for the album’s series of taut, viscous, and relentless gelling of meter and tone in sinuous tangles, weaving across East/West perceptions in spirals toward a distinctive conception of rhythmic euphoria with a sense of precision, dexterity and purpose that nods to classical court or chamber music as much as contemporary experimental digressions. Easily one of the most startling and deadly debuts we’ve heard in 2022; the louder we’ve played it, the more it’s realigned our perception of where experimental and club modes converge - meditative, jerky, flailing genius from the outerzone. Basically - an AOTY level Tip.

Japan’s electroacoustic vanguard reconvene for their second album proper, once again shining light on previously unoccupied space somewhere between Arthur Russell and Autechre. It’s supremely moody, impossibly innovative business, folding Yuki Nakagawa's no-wave'd cello vamps into Koshiro Hino (aka YPY)'s brittle electroid syncopations, absolutely essential listening if you’re into SND, Pan Sonic, DNA, Suicide.'KAK' - what a title - is the next stage of KAKUHAN’s evolution, seemingly self-titled but hiding plenty of clues if you understand Japanese. "KAK" can evoke a number of different characteristics: edge or angularity, core, expansion, agitation or absence. The duo meditate and refract these guiding principles over nine tracks (and a bonus digital addendum) with their usual focus on the interplay between man and machine - something Hino's been exploring for many years with both his solo work as YPY, and with his pioneering band, goat (JP). Working with electronics (drum machines, samplers, oscillators) Hino infuses weightless rhythms with rare fluidity, as if tracing an algorithm trained on Milford Graves. His rubbery, bio-mechanical outbursts are formed into jagged, continuum-confusing trajectories - prismatic spaces where grime intersects footwork and jersey club, and drill corkscrews thru gagaku and Americana.Yuki Nakagawa's emphatic improvisations are just as mind-altering. While he holds back at first, accenting Hino's rapid-fire sequences with hollow, resonant scrapes and junked Downtown distortions, he eventually edges further towards centre stage. Featherlight cello squeals are elongated, imagining a decelerated hoedown, angling folk-y, ecstatic shapes while Hino responds with drum machine prangs. Soon, the duo skewer nervy baroque ornamentation with clockwork whirrs that trip over themselves, the insectoid rhythmic fractals gradually scuttling around a droning cello. By the end of the album, the duo have somehow completely switched roles; Hino's grey boxes now sounding as if they've been excavated from ancient ground, while Nakagawa's strings throb with cybernetic energy, beamed in from a far dimension.

A highly anticipated 7-inch analog vinyl release, "Mr. Maxmetal," by DJ/producer Master Kohta—the owner of the retro gaming cafe "cafe la siesta" in Kiyamachi, Kyoto, and a pioneer who has driven the chiptune scene for many years—is now available from KUMARU Records!

Glorious vinylization of this 2022 duo session, originally issued as a cassette, documenting the first time Suzuki and Noyes ever collaborated. Ayami Suzuki has become known to cognoscenti for her brilliantly imagined vocal improvisations, through recordings with like-minded folks such as French vocalist/polymath Delphine Dora and avant hurdy gurdy player, TOMO. Rob Noyes has developed a parallel reputation as a master third-generation acoustic guitarist in the post-Takoma tradition. Originally based in the U.S. he wisely relocated to Tokyo several years ago. Which is where this meeting took place, And while I initially assumed the music had been composed to some degree. Rob assured me that was not true, He says, “I think the recording can seem like something we took a lot of time with and discussed/composed to some degree, but we actually just agreed to meet at a rehearsal studio. It took a little more than an hour to track it all, without ever having played together before or even really discussing the approach we were going to take. I just tuned my guitar to a different tuning for each one and we let it roll.” The results kinda speak for themselves, but I was blown away by the notion they had never collaborated previously. The intimate nature of their blend recalls such long-time collusionists as Tim Buckley & Lee Underwood or Loren Connors & Suzanne Langille. Rob's delicate instrumental arcs create a perfect net for Ayami's vocals, which are usually wordless (although they always feel weighted with emotional content). It's a mesmeric pairing of voices. Which I can only hope is the first of many. Classic Fevers and Chills is a perfect soundtrack for spring, Unconditionally magical. --Byron Coley, 2026

For more than three decades, Go Hirano has developed a quietly enthralling sound world on the peripheries of the Japanese underground. Emerging in the 1990s, Hirano released three albums with the revered PSF Records label and established himself as an artist with a unique sense of melody and atmosphere that was both entrancing and intimate. His work, largely recorded at home and in the field, de-emphasized technical perfection in favor of an unvarnished immediacy that imbued the quiet moments of daily life with a dreamlike splendor.

On The Habit, Hirano brings together recordings that span decades of his playing the piano and other instruments on a daily basis. The core of the album was recorded in 2020 at Pianola Records in Tokyo, while other pieces draw from recordings dating as far back as the late 1980s. Through this span of years, a coherent vision emerges, marked by patient, subtle engagement with repetition, space, and resonance. Hirano works with a restrained palette—piano, pianica, wind chime, percussion, and synthesizer—to develop simple melodic figures that gradually shift in harmony and texture. Spacious piano chords expand through soft synthesizer tones. Near-imperceptible rhythmic frameworks intertwine with tranquil phrases that drift and merge with the sounds of the world around them.

This synthesis of music and the environment in which it is created is critical to Hirano's approach. Rather than isolating the music from its surroundings, he embraces the atmosphere of the moment, the room in which each piece is played, capturing the subtle sounds and artifacts of the artist’s daily experience and the surrounding natural world. For Hirano, these “imperfections” are pathways to vibrant, living expression.

While he may share affinities with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hiroshi Yoshimura, and even Brian Eno, Hirano's dedication to “initial, unadorned expression” and processing the environment through his own particular filter sets him apart. The Habit reveals a meditative, melodic language unfolding over the decades and within the many spaces of a life in music marked by a unique warmth and beauty.

A dreamlike dispatch from mid-80's Japan, the first and only Hallelujahs album is an entrancing and gentle work of psychedelic pop brilliance. Friends gathered in the studio by Shinji Shibayama (Nagisa Ni Te), Hallelujahs created a music of deep feeling and wonderment with simple song craft and a guileless magic. The album was the first release by the now revered ORG Records in 1986 in a micro-edition of 300 copies. With affinities to the sounds of the Rough Trade and Flying Nun labels, the Paisley Underground and Galaxie 500, the album is an utterly unique masterpiece that remains a touchstone for generations of like spirited artists in Japan and around the world. Black Editions is proud to present this all-time classic in a deluxe vinyl edition, remastered from the original tapes and presented in a heavy tip-on jacket with textured paper, mounted high quality print, foil stamped finishes and spot colors. Also released with a special limited edition 7" featuring two previously unreleased tracks and hand stamped envelope with seven photo cards.

The Story Behind "Rhythm Matter” The origins of Rhyth Matter trace back to 2011, shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake. While visiting Yony in New York, the artist Marter recorded a series of demos. When Marihito heard these recordings, he immediately saw the potential for a full-length project and envisioned a concept centered on "Live Dub" with a distinct Basic Channel influence. Over several years, the project evolved through a rigorous analog process. The multi-track recordings—originally captured on cassette tape, 4-track, 8-track, and reel-to-reel—were eventually digitized into Pro Tools to be meticulously shaped into the final album. At the time, Marihito was releasing an album through Bill Laswell’s label. When he shared the works-in-progress with Bill and asked if M.O.D. (Laswell's label) would be interested, the answer was a definitive yes. Initially, the album was set for release via a licensing deal with M.O.D. However, complications during the vinyl production phase at M.O.D. led to the difficult decision to scrap the record release. Refusing to let the vision of a physical LP die, Marihito took the project back to his own label, Personal Affair, finally releasing it on both vinyl and digital formats as it was always meant to be heard.

“Noneness” is a work by shakuhachi player Lenzan Kudo, featuring reinterpretations of traditional honkyoku and long-form improvisations rooted in Zen philosophy. Recorded in Hakone, Kanagawa, the album incorporates natural sounds and reverberations, maximizing the breath and spatial resonance of the shakuhachi. The title “Noneness” signifies ‘emptiness’ or ‘void,’ capturing traces of personal spiritual practice and dialogue with nature. The credits include acknowledgments to Ryuichi Sakamoto and Zen master Nanrei Yokota, with a written comment from Yokota also included. Transcending the boundaries of ethno, jazz, and ambient music, the album carries both spiritual and cultural depth.

A collection of short-form compositions by shakuhachi player Lenzan Kudo, rooted in Zen spirit. In contrast to his long-form work “Noneness,” each track on this album spans approximately 2 to 5 minutes, distilling intense focus and spiritual depth into concise musical expressions. Utilizing the breath and overtones of the shakuhachi, the pieces incorporate ambient spatial processing, remaining grounded in the instrument’s traditional sonic world while embracing a contemporary resonance.

If Surround can be listened to as music that’s as close to air itself, allowing us to enter each listener’s sound scenery, or as something that exists within a new perspective, expanding the middle ground between sound and music, and transforming it into a comfortable space, it would be much appreciated. — Hiroshi Yoshimura Originally released as an album in January 1986, Surround was recorded by Yoshimura as a commission from home builder Misawa Homes, intended to function as an “amenity” designed to enhance the company’s newly built living spaces. In his original notes for the album, Yoshimura recommends that Surround be placed in the same family of sounds “as the vibration of footsteps, the hum of an air conditioner, or the clanging of a spoon inside a coffee cup.” And, as he suggests, “with the addition of city noise from outside the window,” you may hear Surround in a completely new way. A pioneer in the field of environmental music, Yoshimura’s previous works included Music For Nine Post Cards (1982), originally produced to be played back inside a museum space, and designing sound environments for public spaces and subway systems. Surround was recorded almost concurrently with the acclaimed and popular GREEN (1986); the two albums are described by Hiroyoshi Shiokawa in his liner notes as being Yoshimura’s yin and yang. 12月上旬入荷。遂に満を持して登場。あの『Green』を凌ぐ人気を誇る、長年失われていた吉村弘最高峰のアンビエント・クラシックこと1986年作品『Surround』が〈Light in the Attic〉配給の〈Temporal Drift〉レーベルより待望の公式アナログ再発！日本の環境音楽のパイオニアであり、都市/公共空間のサウンドデザインからサウンドアート、パフォーマンスに至るまで、傑出した仕事を世に残した偉才、吉村弘。その最難関の音盤として君臨してきた幻の一枚が、今回史上初の公式アナログ・リイシュー。ミサワホームから依頼されて録音された作品で、これらは同社の新築居住空間をより充実させるために設計された「アメニティ」として機能することを目的としていた環境音楽作品。吉村自身による当時のライナーノーツに加え、オリジナル・プロデューサーであった塩川博義氏による新規ライナーノーツも同封（日／英）。 MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On their second album together, Vilnius-based Indonesian composer and instrument builder Johanes "Mo’ong" Santoso Pribadi, best known as one half of Raja Kirik, and Berlin-based Japanese producer Shigeru Ishihara (aka Scotch Rolex) survey their surroundings, dreaming up a vibrant fantasy landscape that teems with life. Manifesting their personal experiences as a sequence of poetic freeform experiments and dancefloor rituals, the duo realize a vast patchwork of resonant, anomalous sonic environments that form a mystifying new landmass. Pribadi and Ishihara see 'ABU' as a guide of sorts to an imaginary volcanic island that they've consolidated from the various physical locations and psychic topographies that have formed their separate identities. Constantly shifting, the "island of ash" vanishes between the borders of the three core sites where it was recorded - in Yogyakarta, Švenčionėliai and Berlin - absorbing local soundscapes and intermingling them, forming unstable, hallucinatory terrain. "On 'ABU', identity dissolves like sound in fog," they explain. "What remains is the pulse of movement, the echo of a voice crossing water and the endless reconstruction of home through noise." This might sound like familiar territory for Pribadi, who's worked extensively with Javanese traditional sounds, rupturing the timeline on 2021's acclaimed 'Rampokan', but for Ishihara it's a more alien process. While the producer has rallied against genre purity for decades, haphazardly searching out the sweet spot between breakcore, trap, dub, chiptune, hardcore and extreme noise, he's rarely examined his own cultural inheritance. So, once the duo had engaged with gamelan in Yogyakarta, working with found objects and self-built instruments, and channeled the Baltic air in Švenčionėliai into breathwork and vocal experiments, they finally reconvened in Berlin where Ishehara allowed himself to reconnect with the rituals, rhythms and soundscapes of Japan. Watching the island of 'ABU' flood with lava, burn and then regenerate itself, Ishihara handled the final mixdown himself, translating the pulse of taiko into rhythmic shockwaves that punctuate the record, echoing through the volcanic topsoil. The resulting record isn't Indonesian or Japanese, European or Asian, it's a sonic ecosystem that's not fixed on any map, floating perpetually. That means the tense, ceremonial atmosphere of opening track 'Hai no uta' isn't all it might appear to be on first blush. An intermixture of Javanese gong hits, rattling wooden percussion and xenharmonic flute blasts thats interspersed with unsettling electronic vibrations, it sounds unusually biomechanical: live and organic, and at the same time meticulously terraformed. The same feeling emerges as the title track takes shape and hoarse chants roll over the duo's unique cocktail of rhythms: tuned, gamelan-like resonances tumble through ordered electro-plated taiko structures, evolving into fractured free improv and harmonizing with syrupy drone metal before the track's complete. And while there's a sense of coherence throughout, the album keeps shifting, fluctuating every time it's properly perceived. On 'Api', the tense ceremonial sounds seem to flirt with hard dance textures, inviting heavy electronic kicks into the mannered mass of flutes and metallophone hits. And on the deafening 'Hino-Tori', Pribadi and Ishehara are no longer teasing, matching their shouts and acoustic instrumentation with carnivalesque synths and hardstyle rhythms. 'ABU' is an island that rewards the boldest wanderers, providing for those who can meet its energy head-on, drifting between continents with the same friction, the same mess of harmonies and dissonances. Wash up on its shores with an open mind and its mechanical tides and digital rituals will reshape your wildest hallucinations.

Kiyoshi Sugimoto, Ryo Kawasaki, Yoshiaki Masuo, and Masayuki Takayanagi. This classic album brings together musicians from different generations and with diverse musical styles, each fully showcasing their unique personalities and exceptional technique.

“Independence,” an improvised jazz recording from 1969 by the jazz group “New Directions”—comprising Masayuki Takayanagi (g), Motoharu Yoshizawa (b), and Yoshisaburo Toyozumi (d)—which was recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan Studio on September 18, 1969, from 6:30 p.m. for approximately six hours, has been reissued.

a masterpiece of Japanese jazz-rock by Jiro Inagaki. one of the leading saxophonists in the Japanese jazz scene, Soul Media’s "Woodstock Generation" is a landmark album that captures the frenetic musical movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Centered on jazz, it boldly incorporates elements of rock, funk, and psychedelia, delivering the exhilarating sound unique to the Japanese music scene of that era.

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.

Originally released in 2016 on Constellation Tatsu, Body Trip introduced Japanese ambient composer H. Takahashi’s quietly immersive approach to minimal electronic composition. Built from delicate synth tones, meditative repetition, and understated melodic movement, the album has become a lasting favorite within contemporary ambient circles. Over the past decade, Takahashi has developed an internationally respected body of work spanning releases such as Raum, Low Power, Escapism, Elegy, and Paleozoic. Beyond his solo output, he has collaborated through projects including UNKNOWN ME, ATORIS, and H TO O, contributed music for installations and exhibitions, and performed throughout Japan’s experimental and ambient music communities. Body Trip (Remixed & Remastered) revisits the original 2016 album with a newly remastered edition alongside reinterpretations from a cross-generational group of contemporary electronic artists. The collection connects H. Takahashi’s meditative ambient language with artists working across contemporary experimental electronics, dub-informed minimalism, ambient techno, and modern new age composition, extending the album’s original aesthetic into a broader contemporary context. Fans and listeners have frequently described Takahashi’s music as calming, minimal, comforting, and deeply transportive, with recent online discussions continuing to highlight Body Trip and Escapism as standout works in modern Japanese ambient music.

Originally released in 2016 on Constellation Tatsu, Body Trip introduced Japanese ambient composer H. Takahashi’s quietly immersive approach to minimal electronic composition. Built from delicate synth tones, meditative repetition, and understated melodic movement, the album has become a lasting favorite within contemporary ambient circles. Over the past decade, Takahashi has developed an internationally respected body of work spanning releases such as Raum, Low Power, Escapism, Elegy, and Paleozoic. Beyond his solo output, he has collaborated through projects including UNKNOWN ME, ATORIS, and H TO O, contributed music for installations and exhibitions, and performed throughout Japan’s experimental and ambient music communities. Body Trip (Remixed & Remastered) revisits the original 2016 album with a newly remastered edition alongside reinterpretations from a cross-generational group of contemporary electronic artists. The collection connects H. Takahashi’s meditative ambient language with artists working across contemporary experimental electronics, dub-informed minimalism, ambient techno, and modern new age composition, extending the album’s original aesthetic into a broader contemporary context. Fans and listeners have frequently described Takahashi’s music as calming, minimal, comforting, and deeply transportive, with recent online discussions continuing to highlight Body Trip and Escapism as standout works in modern Japanese ambient music.

Takashi Kokubo, one of Japan’s leading ambient musicians and sound designers, is best known for creating sounds such as the Earthquake Early Warning alert and payment confirmation tones. From his “Aeon Series” released in the 1990s, the highly popular title *Wind Oasis II: A Tale of Forest and Water* is finally being reissued!

Takashi Kokubo, one of Japan’s leading ambient musicians and sound designers, is best known for creating sounds such as the Earthquake Early Warning alert and payment confirmation tones. From his “Aeon Series” released in the 1990s, the highly popular title *Wind Oasis II: A Tale of Forest and Water* is finally being reissued!

A 2026 release from Japanese sound artist Chihei Hatakeyama. Spanning six tracks and roughly 43 minutes, the album unfolds without dramatic shifts, letting subtle fluctuations and delicate changes in texture gradually expand across each piece.