Japanese

Satomimagae’s Hanazono is an invitation to revel in your immediate and imagined surroundings, to make time and space for guileless curiosity and garden variety enchantment. A tribute to everyday mysticism, Hanazono is an ecology of simple, cyclical refrains and elegiac entreaties cross-pollinating with ludic and layered folk vibrations.

Limited clear vinyl edition. No matter how long it's been since Phew's debut solo album, made with CAN's Holger Schukay and Jaki Liebezeit in the studio of art punk band Arndt Sally and Connie Plank, he's not about to let us down.

New Decade," her first album on MUTE in almost 30 years, is a resolute rebuttal to the world's self-absorbed phonies, "I wanted to get rid of sentimentality. I guess I'm lucky," she says, "considering my current situation. Last year, I was especially lucky to be alive in a way. As a musician and an artist, it's a privilege to be able to speak your mind openly and honestly under such circumstances, and I felt that I shouldn't abuse it.

This has been a guiding principle for Phew in recent years, as he has created a number of solo works that combine his distinctive vocals with feverish drone synthesizers and brittle drum machines. Long before the pandemic, she was accustomed to working on her productions in the isolation of her home, even keeping her voice down so as not to disturb her neighbors. In "New Decade," the atmosphere is more and more intense, which she attributes to her absence from touring for the past 18 months. The bleak, haunting album is composed of empty words, unspoken screams and moans chanted in English and Japanese against a backdrop of cracked, dubby electronics.

The title "New Decade" used to mean hope and dynamism, but many of the newspaper and magazine articles published at the dawn of the 2020s predicted how much worse things would get in the future. "Thirty years ago, the word 'new' was synonymous with progress and things getting better," says Phew, recalling the expansionism that fueled Japan's bubble economy in the 1980s. "And there's a loose concept of time perception that runs through the album. "In the 80's and up until the 90's, things were moving from the past to the present to the future, but I feel that this has changed, especially since the beginning of the 21st century. Personally, I don't see a future that is connected to the present anymore." This is reflected in the disorienting nature of her current work. Phew is not deliberately retro like many analog synth revivalists, nor does he waste time trying to keep up with the latest trends. Phew's music is timeless, resonating in its own frequency.

We've got a bit of an obsession with Hozan Yamamoto here at Mr Bongo! A legend of Japanese jazz, he is rightly regarded as a true master and was recognised as a "living national treasure" by the Japanese government in 2002. Over five decades he pushed the genre into new directions, absorbing fusion, funk, spiritual jazz and many other sounds, resulting in a discography studded with gems of rare beauty. Exploring his back catalogue has taken us on an engrossing journey that now sees us reissuing another work from this ground-breaking musician. Though not translating perfectly into English 'Akuma Ga Kitarite Fue Wo Fuku', (kitarite has not been a modern expression in Japanese) roughly means 'The Devil Comes Playing The Flute' / 'The Devil Is Coming While Blowing The Whistle' or 'Devils Flute’. It is the original soundtrack to Kôsei Saitô’s 1979 mystery and suspense movie, ‘Devil’s Flute’. The film is based on a story by the famous author, Seishi Yokomizo, and is centred around a much-loved fictional Japanese detective, Kosuke Kindaichi. A Japanese Sherlock Holmes that has been popular for generations. Hozan Yamamoto was invited to compose the soundtrack directly by the producer of the film, Haruki Kadokawa. Mr Kadokawa also hired keyboard player and producer Yu Imai as an assistant producer on the project, resulting in a stunning cosmic, breaks and beats-laden, funk, disco soundtrack extravaganza. When it comes to the soundtrack and the technology of the time, Hozan Yamamoto and Yu Imai got inventive, tripped out, funked up, and experimented, creating a quirky soundtrack masterpiece that needed to be heard more outside of Japan. Differing from the more traditional Japanese music orientation of some of his other albums such as 'Beautiful Bamboo-Flute' (also released on Mr Bongo) the album showcases a number of genres, from lush atmospheric incidental music to disco and funk grooves, experimental nuggets, drum and flute workouts, to neo-classical and more. A special record that showcases the further depths of this wonderful musician's talents.

Kaoru Inoue has been a DJ / producer for over 25 years. Following the latest sold-out album, the latest EP, which was inspired by the traditions of the folkways, was released on vinyl from the New Age division of the famous Portuguese label . It is a work that explores one's love for ancient sounds, rituals, and the power of healing music, and includes all five songs produced in Tokyo. After all, a soundtrack full of different abilities that seamlessly travels between the sound of "there", reality and fantasy, different dimensions, and even the equinoctial week.

Japanese jazz/breakbeat, folkloric mega-rarity as hallowed the likes of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Egon and co. Uniquely combines traditional Japanese instrumentation with Western jazz influences.

Minoru Muraoka plays ‘shakuhachi’ – a traditional bamboo Japanese flute – joined by his band members accompanying him on the ‘koto’ (strings) and ‘tsutsumi’ (drum) amongst others, to create their ‘Shakuhachi Jazz’ sound.

Official Mr Bongo reissue. Gatefold single LP.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, and going by 'Jazz Rock’, nor a record by its title. Though entering into jazz territory and featuring some distorted guitar, 'Jazz Rock' is more a beautiful marriage of funky breakbeat drumming and spiritual jazz instrumentation, combined with traditional Min'yō music performed on the koto and shakuhachi.

Originally released in 1973, the record sounds simultaneously vintage and contemporary. It is akin to something Madlib might dream up whilst lost in Japan collaborating with Min'yō players at a recording session. The record features some amazing shakuhachi (bamboo flute) playing by Hozan Yamamoto, which gives the music a haunting, dreamlike atmosphere. You can almost visualise the long grass blowing in the wind, and hear the bamboo rustling in the distance on a long hot summer’s day. Takeshi Inomata, Tadao Sawai and Kazue Sawai anchor the session. Takeshi’s exceptionally funky-drum work will almost certainly get some producers dusting off and firing up their MPC's. Whilst Kazue and Tadao work their magic on the koto (a traditional string instrument).

Though certainly not an ambient record, 'Jazz-Rock' has the same meditative, other-worldly quality that invites you to sit back, listen and be transported somewhere else. Unfortunately, until now the 'Jazz Rock' album is a scarcity that commanded a high price-tag only for the most hardened of record collectors. So it is pleasure to make it accessible to all, and we hope you dig this lost, obscure future-classic as much as we do.

NTsKi is a Kyoto-based artist and musician. She began making music while living in the UK and began working in earnest in 2017 after returning to Japan. She works seamlessly to create tracks with gentle but somewhat eerie vocals and a mixture of diverse musicality. In 2021, she was selected by Bijutsu Techo as one of the newcomer artists who will open up the 2020s. Her collaboration with 7FO, released through EM Records, was selected as one of the best of the year by Shintaro Sakamoto. In addition to her self-produced works, she has participated in the works of Giant Claw, CVN, Shokuhin Matsuri a.k.a foodman, Dengaryu, KM, etc., and has released through overseas labels including TAR and Orange Milk. Also, she has contributed music to the Japan Pavilion hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry at SXSW 2019, where Yoichi Ochiai was the general director, virtual singer te'resa, and an Australian bag brand. On August 6th, 2021, her debut album "Orca" will be released via Orange Milk / EM Records.

Minamata features music by internationally renowned composer, musician and environmental activist Ryuichi Sakamoto composed for the 2021 film directed by Andrew Levitas. The sweeping, atmospheric and somber orchestral score is a poignant accompaniment to the story of industrial disaster in the Japanese port town of Minamata, as told through the lens of American photojournalist Eugene Smith. Of the film’s music and working with Sakamoto, director Andrew Levitas says “Ryuichi was my dream collaborator – he would be on any film – but on this mission in particular, there could be no one else…The music quite literally needed to represent both the absolute best of humanity as well as the worst…In my opinion, Ryuichi was able to elegantly ride this razor’s edge and deliver on this concept entirely” Also included on the original soundtrack is the film’s end credit song “One Single Voice” performed by Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, who stars in the film alongside Johnny Depp. The vinyl release of Minamata is pressed on a pair of translucent grey with black and gold smoke discs and comes housed in gatefold packaging with a 12” photo insert, credits and liner notes from director Andrew Levitas.

The album also features remixes by Kuniyuki, Bartosz Kruczynski, Knopha, Yoshiharu Takeda and more. The album "We hear the last decades dreaming" (SAGCD035) is the first release under the Chari Chari name in 18 years and marks the return of the independent label "Seeds And Ground" by Kaoru Inoue, who has been active as a DJ and producer for over 25 years. In addition to a series of remix EPs (three analog releases) from "We hear the last decades dreaming" (SAGCD035), the first album under the Chari Chari name in 18 years, a new album with additional unreleased tracks has already arrived.

The fascinating team of remixers includes Kuniyuki, a treasure from the north (Sapporo) who has been active overseas, and Chida, a veteran house DJ who has opened up DJ gigs overseas on his own. Chida, a veteran house DJ who has been active in the underground scene for a long time, and Mamazu (Hole & Holland), a DJ/producer who has been very active in the underground scene in recent years. The album also includes two tracks of self-rework by Kaoru Inoue himself.


Also based in Warsaw, Poland, Takeda's rave-revival sound production under the name Earth Trax has become a hot topic, and under his own name, he has been releasing excellent new music on the popular German digger label Growing Bin. "Bartosz Kruczyński, who is based in Warsaw, Poland, and has released two excellent New Age-style albums under the name Earth Trax, and Knopha, a popular underground DJ in Xiamen, China, whose two previously released analog EPs sold out in an instant. The album also includes a number of reworks by overseas artists.

Often regarded as Japan’s first female singer-songwriter, Sachiko Kanenobu created an enduring legacy with Misora, a timeless classic of intricate finger-picking, gently soaring melodies, and rustic Laurel Canyon vibes. Originally released in 1972 on URC (Underground Record Club), one of Japan’s first independent record labels, the Haruomi Hosono-produced album remains one of the most beloved works to come out of Japan’s folk and rock scenes centered around Tokyo and Kansai areas in the early 1970s. Born and raised in Osaka in a large, music-loving family, Kanenobu picked up the guitar as a teen just as the “college folk” boom swept through university campuses in the Kansai area in the mid-60s. The Pete Seeger and American folk-leaning scene didn’t appeal much to her, however, and instead gravitated towards the British sounds of Donovan and Pentangle, teaching herself guitar techniques by listening to their music. Kanenobu made her songwriting and recording debut as part of Himitsu Kessha Marumaru Kyodan, whose sole single was released on URC in 1969. After years of being pushed aside by the label in favor of newer male artists who were more “folky” in a traditional sense, it was her friendship with the groundbreaking band and labelmate Happy End that ultimately helped her secure the opportunity to record a solo album. With Hosono on board as producer, Kanenobu spent seven days recording the songs that would become Misora, with most songs recorded in a single take. By the time Misora released in September 1972, Kanenobu was gone. She had left for America, eager to start a new life with Paul Williams, a music writer who had founded Crawdaddy Magazine in 1966. Without the artist to promote it, “_Misora_ was asleep for a long time,” she said. Meanwhile Kanenobu settled near Sonoma in Northern California, retiring from music and concentrating on raising her two children. It wasn’t until Philip K. Dick, the famed writer and family friend, heard Misora and encouraged her to get back into music, that Kanenobu felt the urge to pick up the guitar again. Soon new songs started flowing, and Dick helped finance a single for Kanenobu in 1981. He was committed to producing a full length when he died unexpectedly in 1982. While she enjoyed success (especially in Germany) with her hard-hitting group Culture Shock in the 1980s, and continued to release albums in American and in Japan in the 1990s, it’s Misora that keeps coming back to her. Every few years a new generation of fans discover the album. Devendra Banhart, Jim O’Rourke, Steve Gunn, and many others continue to tout its greatness. Kanenobu played a series of sold-out homecoming shows in Japan in 2018, playing Misora in its entirety. Surviving members of Happy End came out to support, some even playing in her backing band. Audience members included old and young, some young enough to be her grandchildren. “I love it,” she said. “They love Misora, they’ve heard it so many times. And here it rose from death…because for them, they can’t believe it—she’s still alive!”

Over the last fifty years few musicians or performers have created as monumental and uncompromising a body of work as that of Keiji Haino. Through a vast number of recordings and performances Haino has staked out a ground all his own creating a language of unparalleled intensity that defies any simple classification. For all this, his 1981 debut album Watashi Dake? has remained enigmatic. Originally released in a small edition by the legendary Pinakotheca label, the album was heard by only a select few in Japan and far fewer overseas. Original vinyl copies became impossibly rare and highly sought after the world over.

Watashi Dake? presents a haunting vision – stark vocals, whispered and screamed, punctuate dark si-
lences. Intricate and sharp guitar figures interweave, repeat and stretch, trance-like, emerging from dark recesses. Written and composed on the spot – Haino’s vision is one of deep spiritual depths that distantly evokes 1920’s blues and medieval music- yet is unlike anything ever committed to record before or since. Coupled with starkly minimal packaging featuring the now iconic cover photographs by legendary photographer Gin Satoh, the album is a startling and fully realized artistic statement.

Here is a portal to a vast and relatively unknown world, the Japanese cyber-occult underground media scene of the early 1990s; our guide is the late Henry Kawahara, a media artist and electronic music producer whose expansive and visionary conception of digital technology merged with a desire to break free of the constraints of mere rationality. This collection, the first-ever archival release of his work, is drawn from recordings released during the period 1991-1996, an exceptionally fertile time for Kawahara. Originally released on CD by a few Japanese independent labels including Hachiman Publishing, a cyber-occult/new-age book specialist, the releases were available mainly in book stores, so this sumptuous and prescient music has remained relatively unknown. The original titles and tag lines of the CDs give clues about Kawahara’s interests and the music itself: Digital Mushroom, Subtropical Illusion, Never-ending Asia, and so on. This 15-track gateway compilation is available on double 12” vinyl and DL; the CD version has two extra discs featuring sound from two art installations entitled "Dysteleology - α" and "Dysteleolog - β" from the 1990s. All formats feature extensive English liner notes. 

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Henry Kawahara has been called “the Jon Hassell of Japan”, but upon closer inspection one finds that his work operates on very different terms. Like Hosono's forays into computerized Ryukyu folk “sightseeing music” or Tsutomu Ōhashi's Ecophony trilogy, Kawahara's world projected ancient musical traditions and notions of cultural identity onto the modern digital plane through a fusion of cybernetic thinking and pan-asian cultural introspection that makes Western attempts to do the same seem quaint in comparison. Kawahara's omnidirectional sound “illusions” were constructed not as albums but psychological experiences, billowing with a then-nascent notion of early 90s cybernetic spirituality that was proliferating on both sides of the Pacific as the hyperlinked state of global connectivity we know today was just beginning to crystalize. Through digital representations of folk instruments, shifting MIDI sequencing and custom binaural recording technology he aimed for psychoacoustic effect as much as artistic, all via a countercultural form of distribution untethered from the commercial expectations of post-bubble modes of artistic production. This EM collection draws out the best of his fruitful early-mid 90s period into a revelatory sequence, generously opening Kawahara's world to all. —Spencer Doran (Visible Cloaks) 

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Henry Kawahara's deal is Intimate, Intuitive, Adventurous, and Acidy! Spice is added to all, whether its ethereal guitar, nature effects, gamelan club trance, or LSD experimentations. In the vibe of Coil's “Love Secret Domain” and out there clubgamelan. The creative force of the jungle is mutated and interchanged with further sound palettes, and his effex palette has the schwing of a 90s grunge guitarist. His musical tendencies are natural and his scope and variety are dangerous. —Spencer Clark (The Star Searchers / Pacific City Discs)

This collaboration by Tokyo producers/musicians Shintaro Sakamoto and VIDEOTAPEMUSIC is the first of two EM Records 12-inch vinyl-only “tribute releases” in support of the film “Bangkok Nites”, produced by Kuzoku. Based on samples from Dao Bandon, Hongthong Dao-udon, Phairin Phonphibun, Thailand and Tokyo dreamworlds meet in these songs.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Backfire of Joy, a previously unheard recording from Phew, John Duncan and Kondo Tatsuo, documenting a concert at Tokyo’s Hosei University in 1982. Though the fertile exchange of ‘zines, tapes and records between the Japanese underground and the Los Angeles Free Music Society meant the artists were familiar with each other’s work, this performance (occurring on Duncan’s first visit to Japan) was their first meeting and only performance as a trio. Duncan is heard on his signature shortwave radio set-up, while Kondo performs on synth, tape loops and echo-drenched piano, providing a spacious backdrop for Phew’s astonishing performance of spontaneous, free-associative song moving between Japanese and English. A testament to the unhinged exploration of the 1980s experimental underground, the trio careen wildly between crashing percussive tape loops, deluges of shortwave noise, insistent piano figures and playful synth melodies. On the B side, we are treated to a remarkable ten minute sequence moving organically from spaced-out synth and radio textures to a stunning finale of improvised balladry centred on piano and voice, unexpectedly broken up by electronic interjections. Beautifully recorded in crunchy vintage fidelity, Backfire of Joy arrives accompanied by archival photographs and newly authored liner notes from all three participants.

Seminal Japanese jazz album from 1971. Journeys through jazz fusion, soul and big band moods. Impossible to obtain in its original format, these days. Hozan Yamamoto was recognised as a "living national treasure" by the Japanese government in 2002. This highly sought-after album from the Japanese wood flute player is more upbeat and swinging than some of his other records. The big band he recorded this album with (Sharps & Flats) played a big part in the genesis of the album’s groove. Forming in 1951, they helped to make jazz popular in Japan after World War II. Yamamoto's flute lines weave over the heavy brass sound and groove, creating an MPS label blending of funky jazz and Japanese vibes. The closest comparison would be Dorothy Ashby's grooviest albums for Chess / Cadet – substituting Yamamoto’s flute for the harp. Licensed courtesy of Universal Music Group Limited.

約50分に及ぶ4つの未発音源も追加収録！吉村弘、高田みどり、イノヤマランドにも並ぶ国産ニューエイジ/アンビエント最大級の再発案件が到来です！日本が誇る孤高のアンビエント作家、広瀬豊がそのカタログ2としてMisawa Homeレーベルに残した1986年の唯一作が、高田みどり、Colored Music、Normal Brainと日本の音楽秘境も発掘してきたスイス発の最重要再発レーベル、We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want から拡張版となって初となる公式CD/ヴァイナル・リイシュー！元々は、1986年から1988年にかけて、ミサワホームのプレハブ住宅のための『Soundscape』シリーズの一環としてリリースされるも、昨今のニューエイジ再評価の流れで一気に高騰・入手困難と化していた一大傑作！静謐なミニマリズムが呼吸をし、水や虫、鳥などの声のフィールド・レコーディングやまばらなベルの音、ピアノ、シンセサイザーなどが用いられ、大自然の原風景をも思い起こすような神秘的なアンビエント・サウンドを描き出した伝説の一枚。母体回帰のような類い稀なる美しさを秘めた作品です。本人によると「いわば、音楽というよりは、音の彫刻」であるという、インスタレーション用に製作された50分に及ぶ当時の未発表音源も追加収録。デラックス・ゲートフォールド・スリーヴ仕様。本人によるライナーノーツが日本語&英語で記載されています。これが数年前まではレコ屋やリサイクルショップで投げ売りされていたと言うんだからとんでもないことです。

CHINZADOPENESS, Stillichimiya (Young-G, MMM, Dengaryu, Mr. Maru, Big Ben) participated!

Here is the latest version of HIPHOP that America doesn't know yet. Juu, a Thai talent who represents Asia and locals from the opposite direction of 88rising, and therefore creates completely fresh music that can be used globally. Captain Beefheart with Autotune? Is it a drake on a buffalo? The 1st full album "New Luk Thung" is finally dropping!

Who is Juu? Thai HIPHOP scene where attractive acts appear one after another. Among them, Juu is respected as an OG, but it is extremely difficult to catch its existence from outside Thailand. Singing in Thai, there is no physical, OMK (One Mekong) traces the trace that existed only on Youtube and succeeded in contact. In 2017, he was finally invited to perform his first live concert in Japan, revealing his unusual musicality and character. The groove of the hi-hat that is too thick and finely carved is that of TRAP or later, but the flow that expands and contracts freely, the linguistic sense that mixes English, Thai, Japanese, Koshu valve, and the rich Thai music classic All of them (and their funny personalities) showed that they were in a completely different dimension from the world-famous TRAP copycats.

This is Juu's first full-length album, which was completed in about two years after the talents and OMK members collaborated with each other and started co-production with the lead of Stillichimiya / OMK's Young-G. Most of the tracks are in Young-G's hands, and the sound is also full of ambitions that reflect OMK's attitude. Thai instruments such as chin, cowbell, cane and pin are used everywhere, but never used for exotic seasoning. In order to inject the original beats and grooves in Thailand, they are inevitably incorporated. And what oozes out in the mellow song is the flow (singing heart) that is similar to Luk Thung and Japanese enka. They create an indescribable "new song feeling" through Juu's background HIPHOP and reggae.

As the title "New Luk Thung" shows, this work is a Pattaner (* 2) of the dying Thai song genre Luk Thung (* 1) with cutting-edge HIPHOP. Like HIPHOP, this music called Luk Thung cites (samples) and revives past classical music many times. And like HIPHOP, the lyrics (lyrics) are also very important music. The feature of this work is that the manners common to Luk Thung and HIPHOP have been completely digested without contradiction. The title of this work comes from Juu telling Young-G that "this is New Luk Thung" in the process of production, but this is an inevitable name. This work is both "latest HIP HOP" and "latest Luk Thung". In the world of Juu's poetry, which is respected as the best "master poet" in the Thai HIPHOP world, please check out the complete translation, which was extremely difficult to translate.

A tribute to the latest work "Bangkok Nights" by Kuzoku, a movie production group that is active under the banner of "regaining the audience to the cinema". Release is vinyl 12 inch only. Thailand-Bangkok-Isan asks you by sound what Taoyuan Township is.

The fourth installment is a tremendous tremor in the movie world !? A rainy day Ozawa & Babylon band is here! Luk Thung's masterpiece "Country is good" competition cover 12 inches sent by a strong battle with Kufuki & Otsu Rifu! The biggest problem in the series!?!

That's right, that Ozawa (*)! Who knows that Ozawa, a former Self-Defense Forces member who disappeared at the end of the appearance of pimping in Tanya Street in "Bangkok Nights", then hid in Japan and had a session with his friends? The gang chose the retitled cover "Return to the Countryside" of the 70s Luk Thung masterpiece "The Countryside Is Great" that broke in "Bangkok Nights". Iwao Yamazaki (Babylon Band), who is also the sound clerk of "Bangkok Nights", performed the recording mix with the lyrics of the air tribe director Aizawa who brilliantly incorporated the spirit of Luke Thun, whose lyrics are important, into Japanese. I have made the word Luke Tung! Impossible Ozawa (Director Tomita) singing enthusiastically + Shin-chan's dialogue in the play inevitably makes Air Tribe fans faint in agony, but stillichimiya fans are happy with Young-G's opening scratch, and the latter half of DEEP dub MIX and masterpieces that develop into trippy psychedelic Contents!

The coupling features a unique synthesizer quartet that also made its debut in the UK, Kufuki's charisma of poetry girls, Otsu Rifu, and Japanese dialects. A metamorphosis electronic new folk song version that was played with a drum. World music fans and big daffodils are also monsters !!!!!!!!!!!!

An ambitious work that lets you hear a completely different heavy sound with a new organization of 6 members, who have spent 10 years of the severe earthquake of the 2000s. This is no longer "that" Noarizu! From garage blues, accordion / musical saw funk, and Joe Meek's cover, all with no decorations, all roughly analog one-shot recordings, to the standard strange singing version that also features Satchmo and Sinatra! !! A special gift for you with a total of 8 songs, including 3 original songs. Enjoy the vivid sound as if you were in the studio.

Orange Milk / Noumenal Loom ~ A marvelous piece that greatly updates the view of ambient after the New Age Revival! Takao, a Japanese artist who was influenced by Motohiko Hamase, Toru Takemitsu, Akio Niitsu, Yann Tomita, Sean McCann, etc., released voluntarily from Bandcamp in June this year, and the work "Stealth" that involved peripheral artists and attracted attention The physical version of EM Records is now available!
This work, which took a year and a half to complete, has an unusually short time of 33 minutes with 13 songs, but in a blink of an eye, it is swallowed by the transition of a magnificent time. I am impressed by the outstanding ambient view that looks after Post-Internet-New Age Revival and the solitary soundscape that fascinates the standard of the current experimental scene with a stylish sound that is one or two steps ahead! In addition to the former influenced by Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada, Nuno Canavarro, Haruomi Hosono, etc., it is said to be a big stone thrown in to push the timeless view of ambient music to the next stage. It should be a work. And even from the point of view that Japanese writers have achieved it, this is a release that cannot be overlooked. Mastering is done by Takuto Kuratani, also known as Ruv Bytes. I am deeply drawn to the artwork that Takao himself shot in Shonan.

What is the true tempo in your heart?
Following "Light Wave", M's J-Indie pop is a new album by Bank, a 5-member group that pursues HYPE pop that has nothing to do with the atmosphere of the times. Mixing / mastering is that Tomoki Kanda!

Bank is an angler scene in the early 90's: Tokyo Neo Acoustic-Early Club Music-Crue-L (presided by Kenji Takimi) who has been active around the very "Shibuya-kei" parties, Bridge, Love Tambourines, Arch. Formed in 2006 by musicians who have worked in a legendary band. The core is Dai Nakamura (gtr, voc) and Nozomi Suzuki (drums). The motto is "good music with good performance" without any strangeness, but Nakamura's helplessness is new wave-post-punk-neo acoustic, fake jazz-funkaratina, which are their indelible foundations. 80s lovers naturally come out, and the sound is indistinguishable between old and new (for some reason, everyone likes Duran Duran).

Supporting the inorganic songwriting of Nakamura is Suzuki, who has the characteristics of Fumio Hirami (ex. Love Tambalins), who is a pillar of rhythm with AOR in the background, and YMO-like drumming of non-groove. The strangely comfortable urban groove created by this mismatch is also attractive. Mixing / mastering is Tomoki Kanda (genius!), Who has been an ally since the 90's. This time we will also release the bank's first vinyl version!

One of the deepest and ideal forms of "Bon Odori", which is innumerable all over Japan, is considered by Minyo Mountains x M Records. The non-bouncing drums and hammer beats of krautrock reminiscent of German rock, the whistle that is blown all at once at an overwhelming volume, and the pole of minimal dance music that repeats thoroughly! Its too stoic and sharp sound image makes me want to call it "rural industrial music" or "richie hawtin in the field" that is played without using electricity. This is the "Boundary Stone Throwing Dance" that still remains in northern Saitama Prefecture. Here, the songs and dances that retain this old form have not been turned into tourism, and have continued to this day as the activities of the Bon festival.

This time, we remastered the song contained in the record "Saitama Bon Odori" produced by the Saitama Folk Culture Center in 1983, and recorded / mixed the latest version by the preservation society as of 2017. Recorded in. Please listen to the Japanese dance classics, where the stone Buddha begins to dance. The binding is Shinsuke Takagi (Soi48) following "Yumi Kagura".

Osharaku is a traditional Japanese form of musical entertainment, featuring mainly voice, shamisen and percussion, with a repertoire of folk and popular songs, performed by farmers and fishermen for local audiences. This compilation, 28 tracks compiled by Riyo Mountains, is the fourth release in the EM Records/Riyo Mountains Japanese folk series. These recordings feature legendary osharaku masters, recorded in their homes, brilliantly capturing the casual warmth of vitality characteristic of the style. Osharaku is unique in its use of shamisen, originally an “uptown” urban instrument, in a “downtown” non-urban setting. These joyous tracks, all recorded in the 1960s and 70s, are available as a 2-CD set or a single 12” vinyl LP, with English translations and rare photos.

"The Countryside Is Great" by Runepet Laemsin, the song in the play that became the theme song for "Bangkok Nights" (included on the soundtrack CD). It would be great if I could hear this instrumental thing! The first thing that came to our minds when we dreamed was Emerson Kitamura, who we all love! This 70s Thai funk Luk Thung classic "Country is good" was overly picopico covered with Emmasolo 18th synth & rhythm box, and cooked in 2 versions of instrumental and dub!

Another highlight is the killer, slightly dreamy version featuring mmm (Mimaimo) on vocals, which wipes out the image of the 70s disco hit "Rock Your Baby" famous for Kiyoshi Matsutakeya / Tomatos version. And another happy song is a DOPE instrumental tune that was reconstructed by interpreting the songs from Ankanan Kunchai's 1st album as bass music, and its name is "Ramprun Salab Korn Sawan Bassline", Thai music enthusiast, techno, dubstep. PURE dance cut that pushes to step and trap fans. The strongest and most fun 12-inch with 4 songs that I've been waiting for! (Binding: Shinsuke Takagi / Soi48)