Japanese

The late 90’s was a busy time for Tokyo’s underground electronic scene for those in the know, but precious few releases ever matriculated outside its inner circles. The Shi-Ra-Nui label in particular hosted some of the most forward-thinking music of the era, including Jigen 1998 LP Blood's Finality / 狂雲求敗. Ostensibly drum and bass, Blood’s Finality dips into free jazz, Musique Concrète, and all out noise in its pursuit of artistic expression. Now widely available for the very first time on vinyl via ^ ^ (Double Circumflex), this historic piece of Japanese music history provides a key puzzle piece to a fertile time in experimental music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's third solo work, released in 1981.
This work features Ryuichi Sakamoto's vocals extensively, as he believes that "singing is not about how good you are, but about your voice, and even if you are not very good at it, it is the best self-expression in music". Cutting by Bernie Grundman Mastering in the U.S. Domestic pressing, limited edition of complete production.
Produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Robin Scott Participating musicians: Adrian Breaux, Kiyohiko Senba, Yukihiro Takahashi, Haruomi Hosono, and others

This is Sakamoto's world music, expanding on the world view of his previous work, "NEO GEO". [Released in 1989.]

The first release under contract with Virgin Records in the U.S.
The album featured Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), Robbie Robertson (ex-The Band), Robert Wyatt (ex-Soft Machine), Youssou N'Dour, Art Lindsay, and many other guests.
The songs on the Japanese version differ from those on the international version, and this time the Japanese version has been chosen at the artist's own request.
About half of the songs on the album are covers, including two Okinawan folk songs and "We Love You" by The Rolling Stones.
The cover photo was taken by Albert Watson.

SONG 08

For more than a decade, Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have been coming together in various combinations - duos, trios, and larger ensembles - slowly becoming one of the most noteworthy, understated collaborations in the landscape of experimental sound. In 2015, the trio recorded a brilliant LP entitled “Delivery Health” ‎for Silent Water, laying the groundwork for an enduring project that adopted that album’s title as its name, debuting properly in 2017 with the stunner “Hard Off”. Over the years since, we’ve encountered Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto playing together in Bonjintan, their project with Akira Sakata, and in further collaborations with Eiko Ishibashi and Joe Talia, not to mention O'Rourke and Di Domenico’s prolific work as a duo. A bit more than five years on from “Hard Off”, Delivery Health finally return with “SuperDeluxe!”, a stunning new double LP on Holidays Records. Comprising roughly four years of early activity from the trio that rests at a fascinating juncture of electroacoustic composition, free improvisation, and noise, it’s easily among the most engaging and intoxicating efforts we’ve yet to hear from one of the most dynamic bands working today. Even by the standards of experimental music - international and cross-cultural in its make-up - the collaborations of Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have always seemed to defy the challenges of geography, coming together with surprising regularity between Europe and Japan. The three represent a remarkable joining of distinct artistic talent and creative vision, the like of which rarely occur. Like its predecessors, “SuperDeluxe!” rides a beautiful line between striking singular creative ambition and accomplishment, and simply feeling like a free-wheeling conversation between friends who have relinquished their egos and presumptions out of a deep sense of mutual respect. Ironically, as forward thinking as it feels, the album is a kind of retrospective rewind, comprising five live documents recorded, of course, at the legendary SuperDeluxe! in Tokyo between 2012 and 2016 across its four sides. Taking us deep into the very beginnings and previously unheard activities (at least for those who were there on these nights) of Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto, the trio weaves a knotted tapestry unfurling as sheets of sound, that sidesteps signifiers and the expectations that one might have of each of these artists on their own. Ranging from brisling ambient passages drawing on latent melodic flirtations, heavy jams on guitar, drums, electronics, and keyboards, and outright, full throttle noise, each moment represents a visionary excursion into the depths of experimental, improvised sound, revealing a shocking sense of real-time dexterity from each player, as much as the collective whole experiments in improvised sound. Absolutely thrilling from start to finish - not that we’d expect anything less from three masters of their art forms - “SuperDeluxe!” is an immersion into the joys of music making, collaboration, and ultimately listening. It’s an album that traverses a startling and unexpected range, new worlds emerge and evolve from within the fog - rippling textural ambiance, harsh interlocking atonality, subtle and delicate interplay - without losing a moment of coherency. Issued by Holidays as a beautiful produced double LP, this is contemporary improvised music at its absolute best.

The new wave jazz album left in 1987 is the first analog reissue.

Under the sound production by Masanori Sasaji (ex. Mariah), the leftfield-avant-jazz work ('87) that was recorded has been reissued for the first time by reproducing the artwork of the time as much as possible!
Starting with the mysterious opening "Door" reminiscent of Mariah's "Door of the Heart", Avanwave "Meteorite Rain" with vivid organ riffs, and third-world bossa fusion "ASTRUD" with gentle bleak scat. Includes all 10 songs that mix experiments and standards.

Tracklist:
SIDE A
01. Door
02. Crazy 'bout The Boy
03. The Dangerous
04. Astrud
05. Meteor rain

SIDE B
01. My Cup Is Empty
02. Angel In The Night
03. Jumping Without Thinking
04. Jellyfish
05. Temptation

Kumachan Seal: solo project of Japanese vocalist/keyboardist/songwriter Sairi Ojima, who has been playing in numerous indie bands, including Neco Nemuru, since her teens. She began her solo career in 2013, and released her first cassette in 2017. This EM Records release is her first CD/LP album, with all compositions by Ojima, who co-produced the album. Each of the eleven songs reveals beguiling layers of detailed and surprising sounds, with Ojima’s DIY sonic core embroidered by vibrant and colorful beats and guitar from EM artist Le Makeup and the quintessential ambient-pop synths and keyboards of fellow EM-er Takao. Le Makeup mixed ten of the eleven songs, with Takao mixing “China Sandwich”. The heart of Ojima’s musical identity is her clear, aqueous voice; apart from one instrumental, all the tracks here feature that mellifluous voice, but in an interesting twist, only half the songs have lyrics, with the remainder employing her wordless voice as melodic and textural elements. Although Kumachan Seal can be heard as a sort of bedroom pop filtered through ambient music and the new-age revival, listeners will note that the final two songs, “Atsumono” and “Tiny Cell”, are respectively a slightly skewed four-on-the-floor track and a lightly skanking Doo-wop-flavored confection, slightly reminiscent of the UK’s Brenda Ray. 
This album, full of Ojima’s calm and cool observation of the world, is available on CD, LP and DL, and includes an English lyric sheet. 

Having made his mark on these pages over the last few years with appearances as part of Japan’s cult entities Goat and YPY, Koshiro Hino’s turn last year as KAKUHAN took things to a whole other level with an album that felt like some alchemical mix of elements borrowed from Autechre, Photek, Arthur Russell and Mica Levi - a complete stylistic futureshock that worked as well in the club as it did fuelling extended flights of the imagination. For 2023, Hino takes us into a completely different headspace, assembling a cast of 11 players - the mighty Joe Talia and KAKUHAN’s other half Yuki Nakagawa among them - for a suite of untamed field recordings, clanging percussion, brass and synthesis that are about as far removed from the diaristic ambient de jour as you could possibly imagine. Instead, the ensemble conjure vibrant sound ecologies teeming with detail, mirroring the natural world and communal traditions to form shapeshifting, organismic soundworlds. ‘Geist II’ was written for 20 speakers, referencing François Bayle's acousmatic music and David Tudor's electro-acoustic environments. It paints a richly detailed scene of a nocturnal rainforest, replete with avian hoots and a skin-crawling patina of insectoid chatter that moves around the soundfield, stealthily growing in density with a more “musical” presence of super low end drone and drums converging form the peripheries to a ritualistic climax. In the second part, focus shifts to remarkably pure percussion-like tropical rain, invaded by swarms of scuttling and winged invertebrates that give way to a water music-like polymetric slosh, resolving to ringing tones and more mellifluous gestures that hark back to GRM’s most poetic, romantic urges. It’s a deeply psychedelic experience that harmonises tiny electronic fluctuations with bird calls and scraped, resonant drones that phase in-and-out of the mix. It's sound you can practically chew, and another crucial despatch from the contemporary Japanese avant-garde

Tenderly propelling and full of haunting melodies: Studio Mule re-issues Sakura Tsuruta’s so far digital only, self-released debut album “c / o” from november 2022. An evocative first long player by Tokyo based artist, who was trained in classical piano during childhood, played with brass instruments, studied music production, and is today active as a composer, live performer, and versatile dj. With “c / o” she expressed her personal history in a fluid, around 43-minute long light flooded, yet dark-ish musical vision. eight profoundly composed tracks, melding complex rhythms with emotional airs, tripping arpeggios, and ghostly sounds, slightly influenced by some of her fa-vorite artist like björk, holly herndon, or kaitlyn aurelia smith. “c / o is a love letter for the experiences, people, and memories i had in the last two years that i spent producing this album. i also like that the letter “c” looks like an incomplete circle, whereas the letter “o” is a full circle.

Eeeeeesh, Shinichi Atobe’s sixth album for DDS, another deployment of effortless and entirely inimitable club classics that connect the dots between effervescent dub house, deep techno and swirling beatdown, selected and compiled from a package of new productions sent from Japan with nothing but cryptic track titles for guidance. Love of Plastic - we talking aesthetic here pal? bit like comme de garçons' genius, subversive amplification of synthetics in perfume? Something like Mark Fell’s assertion that “House music is best when it does not aim to copy ‘real’ music”? Impossible to tell - and honestly part of the thrill is in not really fully grasping Atobe’s praxis. What we can say is that with every album there’s a shift - sometimes barely perceptible - in spirit and focus. On this one everything’s gone a bit heavier - bit deeper - once again refracted through Rashad Becker’s mastering prism. You really could be listening to music recorded decades, years or a few weeks ago - we’ll probably never know. But with the simplicity comes a kind of impenetrable code too. That fleeting diva vocal sample 4 minutes into 'Love of plastic 6’ - what’s it doing there? why does it work so well? Perhaps the reason Shinichi’s music resonates with so many is the impregnable sense of optimism buried in his DNA - there’s a breeze of warm air that takes over whenever his music is played, a promise of better days, blue skies, tingling skin, sultry evenings - all that hammy stuff. But also, entirely undeniable. Play this one and tell us you don’t feel it? Spring’s almost in the air.

Patience Soup presents the entirety of a live performance from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Jim O’Rourke, and Japanese underground legend Phew that took place at the Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center on November 4th, 2015.

Known to many listeners outside Japan primarily for her early collaborations with members of Can, Phew has been undergoing something of a creative renaissance in the last few years, prolifically recording and releasing a body of work that strips away the band arrangements present on most of her past releases to focus solely on her raw DIY electronics and possessed vocal stylings. Forming a perfect companion to 2017’s well-received Voice Hardcore, a series of pieces composed of only her processed voice that saw Phew push her work into the most abstract terrain yet, Patience Soup finds the trio inhabiting an uneasy landscape of moans, howls, and smeared electronic sonorities.

Presented in atmosphere-enhancing room fidelity, the set begins in crunching textural abstraction and Phew’s vocal asides, set against a backdrop of Ambarchi’s shimmering Leslie-cabinet guitar tones and O’Rourke’s synthetic slivers. A testament to the risk-taking prowess of these three master improvisers, the performance moves organically from ecstatic crescendos powered by Phew’s processed wails to moments of near-silence in which a translucent veil of lingering electronic tones is gently punctuated by O’Rourke’s chiming piano chords. Constantly shifting, both harmonically and dynamically, Patience Soup is suffused throughout with a haunted energy and shows these three established figures continuing to venture out into uncharted territory. 

Light in the Attic’s Pacific Breeze series has supplied the world’s growing legions of Japanese music fans with an expertly curated selection of the most sought-after City Pop recordings—the mesmerizing and nebulous genre of Japanese bubble-era music of the ‘70s-’80s that encompasses AOR, R&B, jazz fusion, funk, boogie and disco. These familiar sounds are spun through the unique lens of optimistic, cosmopolitan fantasy colored by Japan’s affluence at the time. Much of the music has previously been nearly impossible to acquire outside of Japan and continues to captivate listeners with its unique blend of groove-laden escapism, even birthing wholly new genres such as Vaporwave. Pacific Breeze 3: Japanese City Pop, AOR & Boogie 1975-1987 marks the latest chapter in the famed series and features holy grails plus under-the-radar rarities. The collection bursts at the seams to reveal some of the greatest Japanese tracks ever laid to tape, pushing towards the edge of City Pop to reveal glimmers of the next waves of styles to spring forth from the country’s creative minds. The appearance of Pizzicato Five hint at the emergence of Shibuya-kei while the influence of hip hop and electro as an emerging global trend are also evident here through the prevalence of heavier programmed drum beats on tracks such as “Heartbeat” by Miho Fujiwara. This volume of Pacific Breeze, like its predecessors, is a female-forward offering with many tracks being voiced by women who would become household names in Japan as actresses and pop idols. Their songs here subvert the norm and brim with an innovative spirit that shatters gender roles in favor of sonic transcendence. Techno-pop classics from Susan, Miharu Koshi and Chiemi Manabe sit alongside sublime funk from Atsuko Nina and Naomi Akimoto while Teresa Noda slides into the mix with a sultry reggae jam. The genre span is stretched wider with hypnotic jazz fusion by Parachute and Hiroyuki Namba, a synthesizer fantasy from Osamu Shoji, and magnetic pop by Makoto Matsushita and Chu Kosaka. Although not front and center, the visionary members of Yellow Magic Orchestra are still very present on Pacific Breeze 3, with Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yukihiro Takahashi taking up producer and musician roles on many of these tracks. Pacific Breeze 3 serves up a captivating musical journey that adds an essential chapter to the iconic compilation series.

Constructive are proud to announce the release of the original soundtrack for the British film 'Surge' by Tujiko Noriko and Paul Davies. Directed by Aneil Karia and starring Ben Whishaw, the film is set in London over twenty-four hours and is a stripped back thriller about Joseph. A man who goes on a bold and reckless journey of self-liberation.The album consists of sixteen tracks and presents the soundtrack in a non-conventional form. Sound design and composition are presented side by side as equal components in the score. The album consists of sixteen tracks and presents the soundtrack in a non-conventional form. Sound design and composition are presented side by side as equal components in the score. The album starts with Davies’ piece ‘TV Dinner’ where shifting plates of aqueous white noise finally give way to a hint of tonality. Tujiko on ‘Broken Glass’ develops the tonality further adding bells, sliding tones and slithers of brass. This alternating of sound design and composition and the blurring of its source material continues throughout the album. Except for the three tracks where they both collaborate on the writing, as on the delicate ‘Empty Rooms’. The music conveys polar extremes at the same time. Ethereal and urban, delicate yet powerful, juxtaposing the internal landscapes of the film's protagonist against the environmental sounds of a city. Highlights include the unconventional beauty of ‘Children’, the deconstructed jazz of ‘And then to Home’ by Tujiko and the powerful Deathprod-like tectonic plates of sound by Davies on ‘In Street after First Robbery’. An album of music and sound that works alone away from the film and rewards with repeated attention and deep listening.

Izum1, a promising 19(18?) year old trackmaker based in Hiroshima, Japan, who runs a net label "Nekomata Records," has just released his latest cassette album "There is Substance in 2-D." It is a very excellent collection of 12 pop&cute, avant-garde lolicore tracks from this next generation CDR! The album features 12 tracks of pop, cute, and avant-garde lolicore by the next generation of CDRs.

Atoris is the live electronic trio of H.Takahashi, Kohei Oyamada and Yudai Osawa from Tokyo. The group began as the duo of Takahashi (owner of Kankyō Records) and graphic designer Osawa who knew each other from their experimental ambient quartet UNKNOWN ME. Soon after, their mutual friend Oyamada was added to round out the trio and record their self-titled debut, released in 2020 on JJ Funhouse in Belgium. For their sophomore followup, “Sea & Forest”, the group focused their bubbling, organic sound on imaginary ocean vistas and woodland creatures to inform their abstract landscapes - subtly drifting between sunrise on the plateau and dusk in the marsh. The two sidelongs contain understated rhythmic elements of dance awash in otherworldly electronic shimmer. They consistently evolve in a minimalistic way; with ideas and fragments ever-changing across their twenty minutes resulting in a unique ambient dynamism that’s both melodically beautiful and reliably captivating.

“Surf synth acid dancehall rock!!” is how Jackson Bailey aka Tapes/Rezette describes the A-side of this new release from Osaka’s 7FO. This 7-inch single, marking 7FO’s return to EM Records, is an homage to both the vinyl single format itself and also to the legendary producer Joe Meek. “Healing Sword” is the first time 7FO has created a track expressly as a single. On the flip side, “Snake (Live)” is a dubby lo-fi mono travelogue. The ‘onsen’ (hot spring) artwork is by artist/performer Keisuke Yamao and friends.

The Gerogerigegege, the Japanese avant-blues music that has been attracting noise music lovers all over the world, is now available on long-awaited vinyl from The Trilogy Tapes, a limited edition cassette released last year by the popular fashion brand CAV EMPT.

This summer, I read Kenji Miyazawa's children's story (illustrated by Takeshi Motai), "Gauche the Cellist" (1934, illustrated by Takeshi Motai, 1956). Just a few days before I made this recording, I was on stage. As a result, I had to be in the same state of mind as Gauche at the beginning of the story. It was not a good feeling, but I knew it was not a coincidence that this book was in my possession, so I read it again and again, looked at Mr. Motai's picture of the raccoon boy again and again, and headed for the park before dawn. The only instrument I used was a Hapidrum, and the sticks were mallets that looked just like the ones the raccoon boy was holding...Juntaro Yamanouchi

Tokyo based producer and City-2 St. Giga label owner DJ Trystero arrives on Incienso with his debut LP “Castillo”. Over nine tracks Trystero explores uniquely spontaneous modes of rhythm and sound - turning ambient, breakbeat, electro, techno and house into blurred sonics that expand on their own time.

The most long-awaited LP release of Totsuzen Danball's 1991 masterpiece 'Yokushi Onryoku'

Totsuzen Danball, a unique rock band from Fukaya, released their 1991 masterpiece 'Yokushi Onryoku' which was sold for a considerable amount of money in the used vinyl market until it was reissued in 2008, and remains one of the greatest albums in Japanese rock history. The unique and extremely sharp sound built around rhythm machines and guitars, and the rebellious poems and songs by the late Eiichi Tsutaki are tremendously exciting. This is punk! This is rock!

noise matrix unleashes material from the same sessions as noisembryo and counterpart 'hole' and selected recordings from the time period. 
 originally released as a bonus disc on the definitive ’noisembryo' 2xcd edition noise matrix absolutely can’t be missed for fans of this period of noise deity merzbow. When people ask where to start with merzbow or the entire 90’s noise movement in japan - this is an answer! 
 masami akita’s surrealism of the past stands prominently relevant to this day combining the expansive textures of electronics, effects, aluminum soaked winds of the tokyo metropolis and metals. presented in deluxe wide spine metallic reflective ‘mother of pearl’ jacket. digital download code included.

COMPUMA has released his long-awaited first solo album "A View" on his own label <SOMETHING ABOUT>.

This is an full-length album based on the music for the play "View" commissioned in fall of 2021 by the theater group "Blue Egonak" based in Kitakyushu. The album contains 9 original songs and 2 dub mixes, totaling 11 songs, newly reworked with co-producer hacchi (Urban Volcano Sounds / Deavid Soul).

In addition to his inexhaustible DJ and music selection activities, COMPUMA has released a number of collaborations and remixes, including a 2007 album
as Smurphies' Fearless Bunch [Smurph-Otokogumi] (reissued on vinyl in 2021) and its predecessor Asteroid Desert Songs [ADS], as well as duo works with Ken Takehisa (KIRIHITO)). COMPUMA has also released a number of collaborations and remixes, but this is his first album as a solo artist. Recently, his DJ trio "Akuma no Numa" with Dr. Nishimura and Awano, has been getting a lot of attention, and their performances have been introduced on radio shows overseas.

The sound, including electronic sounds, field recordings, and the space between them, evokes a variety of landscapes, and that quietly stimulates your imagination. It is a work that will have a unique presence in the next wave of the new age ambient/environmental music revival that has been emerging in the global ambient/IDM scene.

One of the two dub mixes included on the album, "Vision(Flowmotion in Dub)" is a re-work of "Flowmotion(IN DUB)" which will be included in  "Midnight is Comin'", a compilation curated by ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U scheduled for release in May on the Singapore label Midnight Shift. The other dub mix is a version of "View 2", done by Naoyuki Uchida who is known for his work on LITTLE TEMPO, Oki Dub Ainu Band and more recently GEZAN's "KLUE".

Album is mastered by Soichiro Nakamura of Peace Music, who has worked with Shintaro Sakamoto, OGRE YOU ASSHOLE, and countless artists. Artwork is by Tomoo Gokita, a world-renowned painter who is also known in Japan for his jacket art for META FIVE and TOWA TEI. Design is by Satoshi Suzuki. Gokita and Suzuki, both of whom have worked on COMPUMA's previous products.
(text by Yusuke Kawamura)

LIL MOFO

Includes Download Code for the live recording and a new remix "View 2 Electro" (remix of "View2" from the
album "A View").

Compuma : Electronics, Synthesizer
Naoyuki Uchida:Dub Mix
Kiyotaka Sumiyoshi:Movie

"A View" release party held at WWW Shibuya on Sept.30 2022 has been reproduced on video. Video footage
was added to the live recording from the show.

Mastered by Naoyuki Uchida ( except “View 2 Electro” by hacchi )
Produced by Compuma for Something About Productions 2023
Design : Satoshi Suzuki

A cult work that has been talked about for years by some music lovers in Japan is now officially available for the first time! ethereal, mysterious sound.

A performance of the single-note percussion instrument "quire chime" by 12 users of "Yamato Kogen Taiyo no Ie", a support facility for people with disabilities in Yamazoe-mura, Nara Prefecture. The fresh and transparent tones, played one by one and at random, eventually formed a series of beautiful music. I wonder if there has ever been such pure and unadulterated music. This work is the ultimate improvised ambient that penetrates deep into the listener's subconscious.
Chee Shimizu

The artist made a strong debut with the "Coastlines EP" released in the summer of 2018, followed by the "Coastlines EP2" in January 2019 and their first album "Coastlines" in the summer of the same year. Released on the prestigious Be With Records label in the UK, they quickly gained attention in the worldwide chillout Balearic scene and elsewhere, and will release their latest full-length album "Coastlines2" now.

Coastlines' latest album, "Coastlines 2," is finally released, and while maintaining the same concept as the first album, it spins a more precise and beautifully polished magic hour.