Japanese
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From the 1950s, Masaaki Takano (1927-2007) worked as a freelance "sound planner," mainly creating sound effects for stage productions. In the mid-1980s he began performances called "Sound Play" where he would perform on his own self-created sound instruments and his collection of ethnic instruments. Growing out of his work with sound effects, he became obsessed with the recording of natural sounds from the 1970s onwards, and this album "Shizukutachi" is a record of a high-quality recording of water droplets that he created in the studio using his own self-created suikinchiku system. This reissue recreates the original LP, using special paper to create beautiful packaging and duplicating the original, ultra-transparent vinyl. The reissue includes newly penned, detailed liner notes by Tomotaro Kaneko (owner of the Japanese Art Sound Archive).
Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
The LP jacket is made from two layers of chipboard cardboard and washi-like "shindanshi" paper that reproduces the feel of the original. The LP also comes with two postcards and a 20-page A4 booklet (Text in Japanese and English),a download code.
From the 1950s, Masaaki Takano (1927-2007) worked as a freelance "sound planner," mainly creating sound effects for stage productions. In the mid-1980s he began performances called "Sound Play" where he would perform on his own self-created sound instruments and his collection of ethnic instruments. Growing out of his work with sound effects, he became obsessed with the recording of natural sounds from the 1970s onwards, and this album "Shizukutachi" is a record of a high-quality recording of water droplets that he created in the studio using his own self-created suikinchiku system. This reissue recreates the original LP, using special paper to create beautiful packaging and duplicating the original, ultra-transparent vinyl. The reissue includes newly penned, detailed liner notes by Tomotaro Kaneko (owner of the Japanese Art Sound Archive).
Remastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
The LP jacket is made from two layers of chipboard cardboard and washi-like "shindanshi" paper that reproduces the feel of the original. The LP also comes with two postcards and a 20-page A4 booklet (Text in Japanese and English),a download code.
Nobukazu Takemura’s music is singular in its ability to create a musical sense of childlike wonder and curiosity with gracefully executed yet complex compositions. His pieces embody an innocence and the intricacies of self-discovery that every human is faced with as their worlds become more complex. An acclaimed artist and composer, Takemura is known for his idiosyncratic music and video artistry as well as his prolific collaborations including those with Tortoise, Yo La Tengo, DJ Spooky and Steve Reich. knot of meanings, Takemura’s first proper album in a decade, finds the Japanese artist wrestling with the rise of technological influence on art and culture in the modern era, in tandem with his own relationship to religion, and where those struggles meet. Like the colorful, irregularly shaped glasses on the cover, the album is a mosaic of technicolor elements that come together to form a complete picture, a dense portrait of interconnected struggles and triumphs.
For Takemura, the knot of meanings explores a universal and yet deeply personal and complicated knot, a metaphor for defining spirituality's role in life. “Personally, I see this knot as an opportunity to rebuild my relationship with God,” says Takemura. “I feel that the meaning of life is to find and rediscover this connection every day.” The knot acts as a further metaphor for the barriers between people, their connectivity tangled by developments in technology that drive division rather than create community. “Much of technology has unfortunately developed in a way that pursues convenience and promotes egoism,” Takemura continues. “The world has lost its center, people have become scattered, and culture has stagnated by repeating the same things.” Takemura’s search for meaning across the record is less in search of some preconceived idea of piety or heavenly ascension, but instead focuses on an optimism of originality.
The sprawling 18 pieces of knot of meanings sift, tumble and stutter against obstacles as they bloom with moments of distinct beauty. The album makes expert use of Takemura’s signature blend of electro-acoustic arrangements, inquisitive melodic fluidity and tonal poetry. Gentle vibraphone plonks are layered with synthetic horn lines. An electric piano follows guest vocalist doro’s melodies across “savonarola’s insight” where electronic strings lope beneath her on “the gulf” in steady, staccato harmonies that build and break tension. Pieces like “ladder of meaning” showcase just how diverse Takemura’s sound palette can be, an emotive compositional metaphor blending field recordings, text-to-speech allegory, glitching electronics and sparkling glockenspiel which explodes in waves on “iron staircase”. Cymbals and snare drums are used less as time-keeping rhythmic devices as they are drops of rain pattering against surreal landscapes or roiling thunder crashing into sparse arrangements. In resistance to stagnation and repetition, the compositions flow freely, but with resolute purpose in their movements. Musically and metaphorically uncovering joy in trying to answer a question only to find more questions.
Throughout the album, Takemura exudes an unpredictability that builds surprise from unlikely combinations of instruments, tonalities and harmonic motions that embody bewildering knots to untangle, held together with a youthful sense of wonder. “I attended a Catholic kindergarten as a child and cherished those early years, which laid the foundations for my future. This is in part why I have always used the keyword 'child' in my work as an adult,” notes Takemura. knot of meanings culminates his use of that child’s perspective, or as Takemura has used extensively, that “Child’s View” to explore deeper life philosophies to ecstatic ends. The meanings and mysteries contained within make for an enchanting excavation for those attuned to deep listening, a journey that rewards the kind of inquiring open-mindedness of the listener.
The fifth and final volume of World Arbiter's Japanese Traditional Music marks the completion of the label's excavation and restoration of 60 10" 78RPM discs of Japanese traditional music, bringing a great body of lost music to light and offering in full a legacy that has been almost entirely unavailable until now, even in Japan. The original set was manufactured in 1941 by a company now called the Japan Foundation, and was intended to be presented exclusively to libraries (though the Japan Foundation now has no record of having produced it). There are only two known sets of these discs, both missing the same final 10". World Arbiter acquired one original set of 59 from Beate Sirota Gordon (daughter of pianist Leo Sirota) in the 1990s, and, after a ten-year search, finally located a test pressing of the 60th disc in a theater museum in Japan. Upon first hearing these recordings, World Arbiter's Allan Evans was shocked to hear that the discs contained every species of traditional music, from the court's origins in shamanic rites, Buddhist chant, Noh plays, kabuki, and blind biwa players' haunting songs of chilling epics, to the recordings presented here: a final volume full of folk songs that captures rice planters, weavers, tuna and herring fishers, and children, all funkier than one could imagine and with the presence of eternity in their every sound and breath. The sounds and intensity of Volume Five's folk music surpass anything heard in the classical music of Japan. With Japan's ongoing modernization and loss of its traditional music, World Arbiter's audio restoration removes artifacts from chronological chains to resonate in the eternal flow of sound that defies time and space, remaining vital and always in the present. Includes 24 tracks of performances by anonymous Japanese singers.
From Tsugaru, the birthplace of Tomokawa Kazuki and Mikami Hiroshi, comes Osorezan, Itako, Nebuta, Kesho Jizo... A super intense work left behind in 1978 by Furukawa Mibu, the Orpheus (mind) of Mutsu, who sings of the magical machinery that connects this world and the next! A shocking analog LP reissue!
Mibu, who is also a poet, pretends to be the dead in order to live on as the skin of his younger brother (Mibu), who died at the age of three. The song becomes a prayer and a cry, dancing wildly through this world and being sucked into the afterlife. Fringe music with such intensity. The soul is revived precisely because it is analog. This incredible masterpiece was selected as one of the "New Masterpieces of Japan 1970-89" in the November 2011 issue of "Recocolle," and is too good to be forgotten! This elusive album, produced in 1978 and only available as an independent release, is finally being reissued!
Comes with a 20-page explanatory booklet, "Mibu: To the Wind and Earth of Tsugaru"
After the cult favourite Apron Japan Vol.1 dropped in 2023, we’re back with the next wave!
We’ve expanded our reach beyond Japan — this time diving deeper into the sounds of the East. Featuring a diverse lineup of producers and artists across Asia and the surrounding regions, Apron East Vol.2 celebrates the rawness, late night riddims, and future classics.
FEATURING MUSIC BY:
Benedek, DJ Dreamboy, Hookuo, Isaac, DJ Jeyon, J M S KHOSAH, Kendall Timmons, KO SAITO, Jarren, Steven Julien, and Yuka Sunflora.
Incredibly, Yoshiko Sai's masterpiece, Taiji no Yume, was quietly released on cassette in 1977! This legendary collector's item, known only to a few, is now being happily reissued in its original cassette format. Following her first album, Yuji Ohno returns as arranger, lending greater musical support to Sai's world of sublime strangeness, reminiscent of the works of Kyūsaku Yumeno. As the title suggests, "A Fetus's Dream" is a journey deeper into the inner spiritual world. Yoshiko Sai, at the tender age of 24, was an isolated figure—a poet, painter, and singer. The jacket features an illustration by Sai herself, distinct from those on the CD and LP. This is truly a must-have collector's item for fans.
Following The Pocket of Fever, Ambient Sans presents the second part of Masahiro Sugaya’s visionary collaborations with avant-garde performance group Pappa TARAHUMARA, founded by Hiroshi Koike in 1982. The company fused dance, theatre, music and visual art into abstract stage environments, with Sugaya’s music serving as their emotional and conceptual core.
Music From Alejo was his first full score for the troupe—a refined work where repetition and silence mingle with luminous synthesizers and drifting melodic fragments. More structured than The Pocket of Fever, it balances modern composition with subtle inflections of Japanese tradition, evoking a sense of movement suspended between dream and reality.
Reissued for the first time on vinyl, the album includes a printed insert with an exclusive interview and photographs from Sugaya’s home in Japan. A vital rediscovery for admirers of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada and Brian Eno, it captures a quietly radical moment in Tokyo’s 1980s experimental scene.
Following The Pocket of Fever, Ambient Sans presents the second part of Masahiro Sugaya’s visionary collaborations with avant-garde performance group Pappa TARAHUMARA, founded by Hiroshi Koike in 1982. The company fused dance, theatre, music and visual art into abstract stage environments, with Sugaya’s music serving as their emotional and conceptual core.
Music From Alejo was his first full score for the troupe—a refined work where repetition and silence mingle with luminous synthesizers and drifting melodic fragments. More structured than The Pocket of Fever, it balances modern composition with subtle inflections of Japanese tradition, evoking a sense of movement suspended between dream and reality.
Reissued for the first time on vinyl, the album includes a printed insert with an exclusive interview and photographs from Sugaya’s home in Japan. A vital rediscovery for admirers of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada and Brian Eno, it captures a quietly radical moment in Tokyo’s 1980s experimental scene.
*300 copies limited edition* A sporangium (from Ancient Greek sporá 'seed' and angeîon 'vessel') is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other groups form sporangia at some point in their life cycle. Sporangia can produce spores by mitosis, but in land plants and many fungi, sporangia produce genetically distinct haploid spores by meiosis.
Sporangium is brand new "merzsoniks"! Equipments used by Masami: handmade instruments / contact microphones / various fuzz / distortion / glitch pedals / synthesizer... And many other soft & hard-ware to be discovered...
Includes bonus track not available on vinyl reissue
25th anniversary reissue of MERZBOW's legendary Tauromachine, now remastered by James Plotkin and featuring unreleased bonus material!
After more than 10 years of silence since his debut in 2001 on Chain Reaction subsidiary of Basic Channel, he has been consistently releasing music since 2014 on DDS label in Manchester, UK, attracting not only the club audience of dub techno / minimal but also the enthudieatic music fans around the world. Electronic musician Shinichi Atobe has established his own private label Plastic & Sounds.
The first release on Plastic & Sounds includes two tracks: ‘Whispers into the Void’, which gradually and ascetically develops from minimal synths and rhythms with the introduction of a flowing piano refrain, and the floor use ‘Fleeting_637’, which develops immersive minimal dub techno at around 125 BPM. Mastering / record cutting was done by Rashad Becker in Berlin, who has worked on many of Shinichi Atobe's productions.
Flora is an album that is listened to perpetually,
Passed on from one listener to another,
And the charm of the sound- and music-loving figure
known as Hiroshi Yoshimura,
Just might come drifting through.
Like the scent of a small flower.
—Junichi Konuma
Announcing the worldwide reissue of Flora, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s underrated work originally recorded and completed in 1987 and first released on CD in 2006, three years after his passing in 2003.
Flora is chronologically and stylistically a follow-up to Hiroshi Yoshimura’s acclaimed 1986 works Green and Surround, wherein Yoshimura continues to play with the ambience of sound and the sound of ambience, underscoring his mastery in the field of environmental music. Listening to Flora is like taking a stroll in a park, absorbing the colors and textures of the natural environment—flowers, insects, the swaying of the leaves—as Yoshimura often did at his beloved Edo-era park near his home in Tokyo. As Junichi Konuma describes in his liner notes, Yoshimura’s music “only begins to emerge as it exists at the intersection of passive and active.” Yoshimura's approach to sound and melody invites the listener to hear the intricacies of the music with intent, while simultaneously allowing the aural textures to exist as part of the background of our everyday life.
This reissue marks the first time the album will be available on vinyl (2LP, 45 rpm) and cassette, and includes liner notes written by music scholar Junichi Konuma and remastered audio by Grammy-nominated engineer John Baldwin. Reissue design and layout was handled by Tiffanie Tran.
Like on the early solo Haino album that shares the group’s name (released on P.S.F. in 1993), the instrumentation swims in reverb (the use of which Akiyama recalls as ‘a kind of point of the band’), often obscuring the instrumental sources. On the short opening piece, a distant reed instrument arcs long buzzing melodies over a bed of cymbals and gongs, like a psychedelic take on Tibetan music. The epic second part, occupying almost 50 minutes, begins as a splayed, near-formless cloud of electric guitar and bass, shadowed by bowed and plucked strings, the three elements working through twisting atonal shapes.
At various points in the recording, we hear what seems to be the sounds of musicians moving between instruments, their shuffling and bumps fitting seamlessly into this radically open music. Eventually, what sounds like electric guitar moves closer to the foreground, fixing on a repeated melodic cell around which hover mysterious clouds of long tones and a sporadic shaker. At the half-hour mark, the music begins to build to a violently emotive climax, Haino’s impassioned vocal cries punctuating a lumbering, bass-heavy murk, contrasted at points by what sounds like a tin whistle. Suddenly, the volume drops to a near-whisper, opening the way for the stunning final moments, which touch on the slow-motion balladry of Haino’s classic Affection, here given an eccentric twist by an occasional woodblock hit.
The third piece opens with a hazy trio of rumbling bass, bowed strings and abstracted slide guitar, the latter calling to mind some of Akiyama’s later solo work. Eventually joined by Haino’s voice, its fragile, haunted tone might remind the listener of the man in black’s documented love of the madrigals of the murderous Count Gesualdo, before the recording abruptly breaks off mid-note. In this new edition, the Nijiumu trio recording is supplemented by a piece recorded solo by Haino in 1973, a bracing electronic blowout stretching almost half an hour. Using a homemade electronics setup to unleash a barrage of crunching distortion and shuddering harmonic fuzz, it takes its place in the canon of extreme live electronics next to Robert Ashley’s Wolfman and Walter Marchetti’s Osmanthus fragrans, looking forward to extreme noise years before Merzbow. Taken as a whole, these four sides of music are a stunning document of some of the lesser-known waystations of Haino’s singular creative path.
Goja means “chaotic” or “nonsensical” in various Japanese regional dialects.
This new work is packed with freely rambling music that leaps over the boundaries of orthodox musical instruments, homemade ones, and random objects. Listen out for taiko, drums, bits of wood, and a piano, marimba, accordion, rhythm machine, effector, wooden washtub, pot, impact screwdriver, power tool charger, and more…
Features 8 tracks. Download code available.
Kuniyuki Takahashi's debut album, We Are Together, originally released on CD in 2006.
"Nearly two decades later, the album is finally seeing a vinyl release to commemorate the 300th title from mule musiq."
currently the rediscovery of long forgotten japanese electronic, jazz and new age music is at a peak like never before. but although many re-issues already flood the record stores around the world: the large, diverse musical culture of japan still got some gems in store that are really missing.
for example, it is still quiet around the the work of japanese bass player, new-age and ambient musi-cian motohiko hamase. when the today 66-years old artist started to be a professional musician in the 1970’s, he quickly gained success as a versed studio instrumentalist and started to be part of the great modern jazz isao suzuki sextett, where he played with legends like pianist tsuyoshi yamamoto or fu-sion guitar one-off-a-kind kazumi watanabe.
he also was around in the studio when legendary japanese jazz records like “straight ahead” of takao uematsu, “moritato for osada” of jazz singer minami yasuda or “moon stone” of synthesizer, piano and organ wizard mikio masuda been recorded.
in the 1980’s hamase began to slowly drift away from jazz and drowned himself and his musical vision into new-age, ambient and experimental electronic spheres, in which he incorporated his funky medi-tative way of playing the bass above airy sounds and arrangements.
his first solo album “intaglio” was not only a milestone of japanese new-age ambient, it was also fresh sonic journey in jazz that does not sound like jazz at all. now studio mule is happy to announce the re-recording of his gem from 1986, that opens new doors of perception while being not quite at all.
first issued by the japanese label shi zen, the record had a decent success in japan and by some overseas fans of music from the far east. with seven haunting, stylistically hard to pigeonhole compo-sitions hamase drifts around new-age worlds with howling wind sounds, gently bass picking and dis-creet drums, that sometimes remind the listener on the power of japanese taiko percussions. also, propulsive fourth-world-grooves call the tune and all composition avoid a foreseeable structure. at large his albums seem to be improvised and yet all is deeply composed.
music that works like shuffling through an imaginary sound library full of spiritual deepness, that even spreads in its shaky moments some profound relaxing moods. a true discovery of old music that oper-ates deeply contemporary due to his exploratory spirit and gently played tones. the release marks another highlight in studio mule’s fresh mission to excavate neglected japanese music, that somehow has more to offer in present age, than at the time of his original birth.
Released by VDE/Gallo, a long-established label based near Lausanne, Switzerland, this album features solo performances by shakuhachi master Teruhisa Fukuda, rooted in the Zen Buddhist tradition. Centered around classical pieces from the Fuke sect—known as the meditative music of komusō monks—the recording unfolds a serene sonic landscape where breath and silence take prominence. Tracks such as “Kyorei,” “Mitanigawa,” and “Shika no Tone” embody the aesthetics of wabi-sabi, offering a deeply introspective listening experience.
Released by VDE/Gallo, a long-established label based near Lausanne, Switzerland, this album features traditional pieces of Japanese court music known as Gagaku. It includes ancient instrumental and dance compositions such as “Etenraku” and “Soshima,” performed with traditional gagaku instruments like the shō, hichiriki, and ryūteki. The performances are by Ono Gagaku Kaï, one of Japan’s oldest private gagaku ensembles, founded in 1887 by Yoshimichi Ono, chief priest of Ono Terusaki Shrine in Tokyo. The group has also released albums through the French label Ocora.
Copenhagen’s Echocord returns this September with the ‘Invincible Nature’ EP by Altone,backed by a remix from Thomas Fehlmann and Another Channel. Atone is the guise of Tokyo’s Yuki Takasaki, one of the leading figures of the genre out of Japan with releases on the likes of Greyscale, Lempuyang, Vuo, Æ Recordings, Primary [colours] and
many more. His distinctive twist on Dub Techno has earned him accolades worldwide within the underground and here he joins the roster of the esteemed Echocord, the Kenneth Christiansen helmed label that’s been at the forefront of Dub Techno for more than two decades now. The original mix of ‘Naturally Unnatural’ opens, showcasing Altone’s unique style via subtly nuanced chord flutters, expansive reverberations, pulsating low end tones and ever unfolding,
subtly unfurling feel. The ‘Naturally Flowing Thomas Fehlmann Remix’ follows, the Swiss sonic wizard and former member of the legendary The Orb among many other projects delivers deep, throbbing subs and glitched out synth modulations intertwined with fragments of the original composition.
‘Unnaturally Balanced’ then opens the B-Side with Altone diving deeper into dub realms courtesy of ever alternating, billowing dub echoes and a raw, reduced rhythm section. The ‘Another Channel Version’ of ‘Unnaturally Balanced’ then rounds out the EP, embracing a more classic dub techno aesthetic as crunchy drums, swirling atmospherics and spaced out echoes ebb and flow amongst one another across the six and half minute duration.