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Yoshi Wada - Lament For Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile (CD)
Yoshi Wada - Lament For Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile (CD)Em Records
¥2,530

Yoshi Wada's Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, originally released in 1982 on India Navigation, remains one of the most remarkable flowers to grow in the rarefied air of American minimalism – akin to Terry Riley's Reed Streams and Pauline Oliveros' Accordion & Voice, yet with a wild, liberated energy all of its own. After graduating from Kyoto University of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture, Wada moved to New York City in 1967 and quickly fell in with the community of artists known as Fluxus. In the early '70s, he began building his own instruments and writing musical compositions, studying with La Monte Young and Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath. Recorded during an epic three-day session in an empty swimming pool in upstate New York, Wada's first album brings together two of the oldest drone instruments – the human voice and bagpipes – to simple and glorious effect. A visit to the Scottish Highlands spurred Wada's interest in bagpipes, which the composer integrated into these sparse, otherworldly sounds heard on Lament. "That swimming pool was quite hallucinatory," recalls Wada. “It was another world. I felt it in terms of resonance. I slept in the pool, and whenever I moved, I woke up because of the reverberations.... The piece itself is an experiment with reeds and improvisational singing within the modal structure." This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 750 numbered copies. Comes with poster.

Jennifer Walshe & Tony Conrad - In The Merry Month of May (LP)Jennifer Walshe & Tony Conrad - In The Merry Month of May (LP)
Jennifer Walshe & Tony Conrad - In The Merry Month of May (LP)Drag City
¥4,572
The final studio recording of the late, great Tony Conrad, and the first duo release with Jennifer Walshe. A wild, improvisatory flaying of song; the sheer sonic force recalls the ecstatic charge of Conrad’s Slapping Pythagoras, with Walshe’s clarion voice at the heart of it. A one-of-a-kind concoction whipped up by two fearless and often peerless souls. It’s a joy to hear their manifest mutual regard and commitment to busting a gut.

Zen Ensemble - Garden of Time (LP)
Zen Ensemble - Garden of Time (LP)CROSSPOINT / Tuff Beats
¥4,200
The improvisational session by trumpet, shamisen, tabla, and electronics creates light and shade. Through J.A.K.A.M.'s reconstruction, it becomes a wellspring of time and space, reflecting soundscapes reminiscent of a Japanese garden. - Chee Shimizu
Zen Ensemble - Garden of Time (CS)Zen Ensemble - Garden of Time (CS)
Zen Ensemble - Garden of Time (CS)CROSSPOINT
¥2,200
The improvisational session by trumpet, shamisen, tabla, and electronics creates light and shade. Through J.A.K.A.M.'s reconstruction, it becomes a wellspring of time and space, reflecting soundscapes reminiscent of a Japanese garden. - Chee Shimizu
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 -  星間性交 (Triple Gatefold Ghost Edition Vinyl 3LP)t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 -  星間性交 (Triple Gatefold Ghost Edition Vinyl 3LP)
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者 - 星間性交 (Triple Gatefold Ghost Edition Vinyl 3LP)Geometric Lullaby
¥11,989

ヴェイパーウェイヴ史上に残る伝説的名作が待望の再来!当初ジャンルの標榜したアイロニカルなコンセプトが自分たちのジャンルの氾濫に溺れ、2012年に一度ジャンルの死を宣言されたVaporwave。それ以降の流れの中で現れた世代の作家として最大の特異点的人物であり、今も熱狂的なファンを増やし続けるオハイオ発のレジェンド、ドリームパンクのパイオニア、t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者が、〈Dream Catalogue〉全盛期の2015年に発表した金字塔『星間性交』が奇跡の3LP化再発!テレパシー能力者関連の作品としても『現実を超えて』や『アンタラ通信』『ロストエデンへのパス』などといったこのジャンルの古典的名作と並んで断トツに評価の高いマスターピースが遂にアナログ・リリース。テレパシー能力者の慈愛と祈り、安らぎの全てが詰め込まれた作品と言っても過言ではない作品といえるこのアルバムには、10分越えの大曲も数多く収録。メランコリックでシュルレアリスム的でありつつも温かなアンビエンスと気品、ほろ苦さ、メロウネスを備えた、独特の瞑想的でロマンチックな雰囲気。遥か遠くの最愛の夢想、明日への視線、憂い、幻想、希望、感傷。人が生き、恋焦がれる事、人を愛する事、その普遍的な美しさを、惑星間の性交という宇宙的なスケールで描き切った、独り深夜に浴びたいスラッシュウェイヴ/ドリームパンクの名盤。テレパシー能力者という、ヴェイパーウェイヴ界屈指のロマンチストによる最高傑作です。未体験の方はこの機会にアナログで是非!

Actress - Statik (LP)Actress - Statik (LP)
Actress - Statik (LP)Smalltown Supersound
¥3,159
Actress’ tenth studio album, the celestial and expansive Statik, is released June 7th via Smalltown Supersound. The collaboration between Darren Cunningham and the esteemed Oslo-based purveyors of elevated sonics evolved organically following Actress’ remix of a Carmen Villain cut for the 12” of her Only Love From Now On LP. In this vein, the entire Statik project, from conception through creation and release, has been blessed with an almost unnatural ease. For Actress, who wrote the majority of his subtly majestic new record in an extensive flow state, the project serves as a cohesive testament to artistic liberation. Resultantly, Cunningham’s new album is imbued with a sense of freedom. And of stillness. The kind of stillness within artistic motion that arises via the deepest states of flow. Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative. Of course, those well-versed in Actress’s works are well-travelled when it comes to fantastical flights of the mind. Transportive sonics that spark inner-voyages – whether through nocturnal cityscapes, or far above and beyond, through Saturn’s rings and past Pluto’s moons – are prime Cunningham terrain. Yet while Statik is unmistakably an Actress LP, it’s also distinctly aquatic and subtly primordial, and so offers his audience novel elemental atmospheres to flow through. Listening closely, influential visions of aqueous realms, such as the mythic Atlantis, and evocations of ancient ceremonies as well as flying birds (and, perhaps, humans) may reveal themselves. No matter if Statik inspires you to soar above or below the horizon, Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey.
高田みどり Midori Takada - Tree of Life (LP)高田みどり Midori Takada - Tree of Life (LP)
高田みどり Midori Takada - Tree of Life (LP)We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want
¥4,671
WRWTFWW Records is proud to announce the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada’s solo album from 1999, Tree of Life, available on vinyl for the first time ever in a new audiophile mix by the Japanese percussionist herself, and in full half-speed-mastered glory. The 180g LP comes in a heavy sleeve with a beautiful design by Kohei Sugiura. Tree of Life is also available in CD (digipack) and digital formats. Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity. The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios, with half speed cutting for the vinyl version, to ensure an audio presentation aligned with the Japanese pioneer’s vision. This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, both available on WRWTFWW Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass.

Moritz Von Oswald - Silencio (2LP)Moritz Von Oswald - Silencio (2LP)
Moritz Von Oswald - Silencio (2LP)Tresor Records
¥5,598
Moritz von Oswald's latest solo album is his most startling, time-bending material since the Basic Channel days, a collaboration with a 16-voice choir that refracts techno and choral music into dizzying psychedelic traces, exploiting mind-altering xenharmonic synth tones, Ligeti-like operatic phrases and abyssal kicks with a veteran's cunning. We've been knocked sideways by this one - trans-dimensional afters music at its absolute best. We realise that there's been a lot of electronic music released recently saddled with these buzzwords. Choirs, unusual tunings, deconstructions of early music - elements almost mandatory for artists eyeing the lucrative Euro festival circuit. But to our mind that's what makes von Oswald's latest all the more astonishing. He's stepped in with an album that's so definitive, it reminds us just how foundational and game-changing his early material was, and how less can so often amount to more. Opening track 'Silencio' is a dazzling proof of concept that winds lilting, oddly-tuned synth tones around the barest percussion. There are no vocals on this one, instead the traces of early Detroit techno hang heavy around its frayed edges. Working like a scientist with the stereo field, von Oswald introduces familiar elements into the mix in unexpected places. Wormy,cascading synth tones are met by driving whirrs, and the kickdrum sounds so submerged that it's almost an illusion. When he does introduce noisier sounds, they color the track like drybrushed highlights, and he saves the best until the final moments, energising the mood with monumental Millsian stabs that reference the past without retreading churned mud. It sets us up for the album's biggest tonal shift, when Oswald presents the choir on 'Luminoso'. He's worked extensively with ensembles in the last few years, his own - the constantly-shifting Moritz von Oswald Trio - the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Kyrgyz ensemble Ordo Sakhna, and the experience has furnished him with the ability to treat the choir with just the right amount of reverence and distance. Here, the Berlin singers' voices swirl into ghosted tones, nestling beneath a layer of mixing desk noise that feels like von Oswald's little wink to the camera, an acknowledgement of past glories. Moritz also provides a more abstracted rework of the track (along with three other versions of the choral compositions) that deepens the narrative. Losing the vocals completely, this take references the original's framework while adding impalpable, off-grid beats and cottony, rumbling textures that pirouette between the speakers. The synths and voices meet somewhere in the middle on 'Infinito', and von Oswald's remix shuttles them further into outer space, fogging them into spectral impressions and building a lithe rhythm over the top that hiccups and stutters with poise and momentum. 'Colpo' is even more impressive, offsetting the suggestive chorals with mechanical oscillations and thunderous sub bass tones. Like the earliest Detroit experiments, it's material that positions electronic music as a way to speculate about the past's relationship with the future. Von Oswald has formulated a minimalist masterpiece that interrogates not just technology, but the conceptual technologies of cultural invention. It's a highly rewarding, engrossing listen, certain to become a classic for the most adventurous after-hours listeners.
Charlemagne Palestine, Simone Forti - Meditative Sound Environments (LP)
Charlemagne Palestine, Simone Forti - Meditative Sound Environments (LP)Alga Marghen
¥3,462
«I met Simone through Dr. Richard Alpert, a professor at Columbia University who went to India to study with a Hindu guru and he himself became a guru afterwards called Baba Ram Dass. Coming back to US he brought Pandit Pran Nath with him. It was a time when everybody was experimenting. All came with a lot of orientalism because people were into timelessness, meditation and being stoned. It was in that atmosphere that I met Simone because she also knew Pran Nath. Around that time I moved from NY to California to work with electronic music at the newly invented school California Institute of the Arts. Simone was also living in LA and even though she was not officially connected to CalArts she knew many of the artists who were teaching there. It was in the halls of CalArts that Simone first approached me around the possibility to have Pran Nath invited to LA. In summer 1970 Simone was invited by Allan Kaprow (one of the Deans of CalArts) to do an evening of dance at the Pasadena Art Museum. One day she came to me and said “I’ve been given this commission to do a piece and I’d like to do it with music and I was wondering if you would want to do it with me?”. So I replied “Well why don’t you come to the electronic studio where I work and see how it goes? I’ll put on some sounds, we’ll make some space and see how you feel”. It immediately clicked!!!! So we decided to perform a duet together. In January 1971 in Pasadena we did our first “Illuminationss”. I played the piano, I sang a little bit, she moved a little bit when I was singing, I moved when I was singing. A Jewishy-kinf-of singing. Not only singing, but singing and running, singing and falling. I did all what eventually became my “Body Music”. Simone was also doing it but coming from a different tradition. All of a sudden we were doing a new kind of jamming together. Everybody in the audience loved it because it was so dreamy and they found amazing how a man and a woman can act in that strange, very dreamlike oriental way as in trance,,,,,together. This kind of collaboration between man and woman was uncommon at that time. Mostly other artists were doing very structural works while our performances were totally like we were on magicness drugs. Our performances had certain fixed elements like the piano or some electronics. It turned out we liked red lights so we started to always do it in red light. We liked to do it in a resonant spaces. It became more an approach than a piece, because there were never two Illuminations that were alike.» - Charlemagne Palestine «The aspect of Charlemagne’s music that most inspired my imagination was his melodies. Sometimes their texture of repetitions and evolving variations are so close that the term melody doesn’t seem to apply. What most determined our “Illuminations” was Charlemagne’s way of letting the elements in the music develop only very gradually. Once, just before a performance, Charlemagne sang to me, “Simoney don’t worry, you will dance and sing all right.” And of course I did as we walked arm in arm circling the wide-open space, a grand piano to one side shining black and covered with Teddy Bear deities, Charlemagne reflecting his childhood time as devotional cantor, and I, my childhood time striding along in the Tuscan hills, belting out Italian folksongs with my cousins. And sometimes when Charlemagne drew clear, high tones from his brandy snifter we would play our voices together more softly. Our recurring melodies were mostly Charlemagne’s. But I brought one too, with a song about not drifting away into the beyond.» - Simone Forti
Charlemagne Palestine & Simone Forti - Illuminations (LP)Charlemagne Palestine & Simone Forti - Illuminations (LP)
Charlemagne Palestine & Simone Forti - Illuminations (LP)Alga Marghen
¥3,462
Awesome Alga Marghen re-release presenting "Illuminations", or Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti duo interactions, illuminated with dim red lights. In early 1970 Morton Subotnick asked Charlemagne Palestine to join his soon to be created Media Department at the new “Dream School of the Future” endowed by the Disneys to be called the California Institute of the Arts. Charlemagne and Simone Forti met there in 1970, when La Monte Young asked them to arrange a California concert for Pandit Pran Nath. They decided to try an improvisation session together and Charlemagne invited Simone the first time to the electronic music studio where he worked regularly. Their medium blended as a play of interacting sound waves and solid matter in motion as Charlemagne and Simone shared energy and focus. The three previously unreleased recordings on this LP were made between October and December 1971. The first take titled "Illumination" is for two voices moving in the space with small bells and crystal glasses while Simone Forti plays the molimo, a corrugated tube meant for connecting the gas stove. The second take titled "Wed Oct 13th 1971" has Simone and Charlemagne in a song dialogue as animals do. It was also at Cal Arts that Charlemagne Palestine first encountered a Bosendorfer Imperial Piano of Vienna. He played it often as Simone danced during their "Illuminations". Take three is a song sang in falsetto while playing the Bosendorfer Imperial in an arpeggiated style that predates the "strummings". Listening to these "Three Takes" 40 years later they oooozza timeless carefree mystical magical dreamy atmosphere that evoked the times of the late '60s to early '70s in Charlemagne and Simone part of the California Art Scene. Illuminations were a unique open spontaneous form of performance, ritual and prayer. Edition limited to 365 copies with an essay by both Charlemagne Palestine and Simone Forti, as well photos of the performances reproduced on the LP front sleeve.
Don Cherry - Om Shanti Om (LP)
Don Cherry - Om Shanti Om (LP)Black Sweat Records
¥3,684
An amazing document of the life experiment that was the Organic Music Society. This super quality audio, recorded by RAI (the italian public broadcasting company) in 1976 for television, documents a quartet concert focused on vocals compositions and improvisations. Here, Don Cherry and his family-community’s musical belief emerges in its simplicity, with the desire to merge the knowledge and stimuli gained during numerous travels across the World in a single sound experience. Don's pocket-trumpet is melted with the beats of the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, the Italian guitar of Gian Piero Pramaggiore, and the tanpura drone of Moki. A pure hippie aesthetic, like in an intimate ceremony, filters a magical encounter between Eastern and Western civiliziations, offering different suggestions of sound mysticism: natural acoustics in which individual instruments and voices are part of a wider pan-tribal consciousness. A desert Western landscape marries Asian and Latin atmospheres. Indigenous contributions with berimbau explorations find fossil sounds of rattles and clap-hands invocations. Influences of Indian mantra singing are combined with eternal African voices or with folkish-Latin guitar rhythms , while flute and drums evoke distant dances. In the Organic Music everything becomes an act of devotion and love, an ecstatic dwell in the dimension of a sacred free-rejoice.
Planetary Peace (CS+DL)Planetary Peace (CS+DL)
Planetary Peace (CS+DL)Love All Day
¥2,497
Following the untimely passing of Planetary Peace’s Will Sawyer last year we thought it was past time that we completed their story, and it is in his memory that we offer this compilation which collects the remaining compositions the duo of Kalima & Will Sawyer recorded as Planetary Peace across a small handful of impossible to find cassettes in the 1980s. Combining a deep seated & cosmic spirituality with the advanced geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller, they took their love of the Incredible String Band, Moondog, and Indian Classical music and combined it with a hand built mail order Serge Synthesizer kit. In the process they created what is possibly one of the most singular and visionary manifestations of DIY artistry of that decade (or any other)! There is such a clear eyed vision of hope here that is sorely needed in these desperate times, with the Sawyer’s gentle rounds, hymns, and folk tunes delicately floating above the percolating rhythms of their modular synths. In addition to the synth, there’s a bit more of an emphasis on acoustic instruments here than there was on our previous reissue of “Synthesis”, particularly in the use of Kalima’s enveloping tamboura and the addition of small percussive accents. If you come to this music with an open heart and mind you will be astonished at the vistas it offers, and how deeply it can move you. “It’s a song… without words… it goes on & on… it goes on & on… it’s a river of sound… just let it flow… it goes on & on” -Michael Klausman
memotone - Tollard (LP)
memotone - Tollard (LP)The Trilogy Tapes
¥5,146
Memotone from Bristol released eclectic ambient folk jazz record.
Gillies Adamson Semple - Volumes (LP)
Gillies Adamson Semple - Volumes (LP)Fourth Sounds
¥5,784
200 copies limited edition* In 2022, Gillies Adamson Semple made a pilgrimage to the Valère Basilica in the Swiss Alps to play the oldest functioning pipe organ in the world. Built in 1435, this unique instrument is the centrepiece of this sensitive and stirring 6-track release, tracing the elemental themes of spirituality, anatomy, ecological collapse, and the nature of listening in its glacial minimalist drones. Drawing inspiration from the long-form compositions of Sarah Davachi and Kali Malone, Volumes was built from in-situ recordings Semple made in Switzerland, with the aim of capturing the physical qualities of the sound, from the stops and pedals to the air rushing through the organ’s ancient pipes. Treated like sculptural material and re-assembled at Semple’s London studio in the tradition of musique concrète, the tracks evoke a sense of exquisite timelessness, at once part of and floating free of their environment. As Semple explains: “What I like about the organ is that you can make it feel very physical. It has all these mechanical parts that sound really beautiful. And the piece is never performed. It is something that is rooted in the site. The whole pilgrimage to see this organ in Switzerland ended up acting like that, where you’re going to this very sacred place to see this specific instrument, but all you’re taking back is recording.” Released on vinyl via Fourth Sounds, Volumes was initially conceived as the soundtrack to Semple’s 2023 exhibition of the same name at Cedric Bardawil in London.
Anja Lauvdal - Farewell to Faraway Friends (LP)Anja Lauvdal - Farewell to Faraway Friends (LP)
Anja Lauvdal - Farewell to Faraway Friends (LP)Smalltown Supersound
¥4,462
"Stunning recordings from Norwegian pianist Anja Lauvdal, who follows-up last year’s Laurel Halo-produced ‘From a Story Now Lost’ with an album of improvisations made on a Wurlitzer electric piano, featuring the great Lasse Marhaug on mastering duties. Pastoral, personal, heartbreaking gear that’s required listening if you’re into Harold Budd, Loren Connors, Dominique Lawalrée, Robert Wyatt, Vincent Gallo." - Boomkat
Henry Flynt - You Are My Everlovin' (CD)
Henry Flynt - You Are My Everlovin' (CD)Superior Viaduct
¥2,361
Philosopher, musician and anti-art activist, Henry Flynt has long foregone the academicism often associated with “serious music” in favor of a uniquely intuitive, emotional approach to composition. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a part of NYC’s vibrant avant-garde scene, studying with Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath and developing his own proprietary technique on violin. You Are My Everlovin’, Flynt’s first published musical work, finds the composer in peak form at a lower Manhattan loft in late spring 1981. Featuring solo electric violin and pre-recorded tambura, this sinuous performance elegantly brings together disparate vernaculars—Southern blues, modal jazz, Appalachian fiddle, North Indian raga—into a new and bracing whole. As Flynt writes in the liner notes, “The electric violin timbre is crucial; it allows me to crush the diverse styles into a unity. I imagined the genre as open, radiant improvisation…an open plain that could absorb anything.” Incorporating themes and melodic phrases from his earlier work, Everlovin’ becomes Flynt’s own Gesamtkunstwerk—a work that is at once rooted in and liberated by the drone, revealing the profound mutability and utter singularity of this American iconoclast.
Vangelis Katsoulis ‎- Minimal Suite - Double Image (LP)
Vangelis Katsoulis ‎- Minimal Suite - Double Image (LP)Praxis
¥5,327
Deadstock copy of Greek New Age Composer Vangelis Katsoulis's album. For fans of Franco Nanni, Ditto, Cabaret Du Ciel and Vito Ricci

Maria Somerville - All My People (Revised Edition) (LP)Maria Somerville - All My People (Revised Edition) (LP)
Maria Somerville - All My People (Revised Edition) (LP)Not On Label
¥4,448
All My People (self-released on 1 March 2019 and distributed by Rush Hour)

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Sabri Brothers - Jami (LP)Sabri Brothers - Jami (LP)
Sabri Brothers - Jami (LP)Piranha Records
¥1,567 ¥4,111
'JAMI'' Was Recorded In The Year 1991, By Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri During One Of His Germany Tours. This Album Does Not Feature His Brothers Haji Maqbool Ahmed Sabri, Haji Kamaal Ahmed Sabri, And Haji Mehmood Ghaznavi Sabri. Haji Ghulam Farid's Student Hafiz Nadeem Siddiqui Was The Second Lead Singer / Second Harmonium Player For This Album. To Record And Devote And Album To Great Persian Poet Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī Was A Life Long Ambition Of Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri. He Did The Recordings In Berlin In July 1991 At SFB Studios, But The CD Was Not Release During His Lifetime. Hence, Not Only It Was A Tribute To The Famous Persian Poet Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī, But Also Became A Tribute To Haji Ghulam Farid Sabri.

Kevin - Laundry (CS+DL)Kevin - Laundry (CS+DL)
Kevin - Laundry (CS+DL)Motion Ward
¥2,479
"Kevin, a new collaboration between Ben Bondy and Mister Water Wet, presents what feels like a time-machine hidden in the back of your closet. ‘Laundry’ pleasantly haunts listeners with phantom purrs, harmonies, hums and horns. This project is a hand reaching through the void and out of your speakers responding to moments of isolation and pining with resounding gratitude. It makes space for warmth in slow-healing wounds; the gift of reset that is born from the call and response between friends." -Yves B. Golden

Greville & The Lonely Voices - Voices of Lonely (LP)Greville & The Lonely Voices - Voices of Lonely (LP)
Greville & The Lonely Voices - Voices of Lonely (LP)Mad Habitat Recordings
¥3,756
Greville returns to Mad Habitat, accompanied by the Lonely Voices. This incorporeal chorus gives voice to the tribulations of ''Blue Dreams'' and the interplanetary serenade of ''Sun, Moon, Stars''. This record takes Greville's keen interpretation of natural sonics and considered sound sculpting into the realm of cosmic synth-pop, recalling luminaries like Sheila Chandra's Monsoon or the fourth-world exotica-pop or Water Melon Group. Digi-dub basslines add a weight to the celestial melodies and jalatharangam-esque percussion. It’s a transportive suite of songs and an insightful reflection of Greville’s evolution as an artist; showcasing how his world-building makes room for a myriad of voices.
FUJI||||||||||TA - MMM (Purple Vinyl LP+DL)FUJI||||||||||TA - MMM (Purple Vinyl LP+DL)
FUJI||||||||||TA - MMM (Purple Vinyl LP+DL)HALLOW GROUND
¥4,197
FUJI||||||||||TA returns to Hallow Ground with his second full-length for the label after we had released his international breakthrough album »iki« in early 2020. Active since 2006, the Japanese composer and sound artist has become prolific since the release of »iki,« releasing a slew of records while also touring the world. His new album »MMM« is Yosuke Fujita’s most complex so far. Changing the set-up of his pipe organ by switching to an electric air pump allowed him to activate new sonic and compositional potentials of the instrument, while he also expanded upon his experiments with his own voice. »MMM« is a masterpiece of conceptual and formal rigour—a testament to how multi-layered and versatile the music of FUJI||||||||||TA can be. Previous releases had already showcased Fujita's interest in working with the rhythmic potentials of the organ he built himself in 2009. Replacing its hand-operated air pump with an electric one allowed him to work with it more freely and simultaneously record its sounds. This marked the starting point for the opener »M-1,« for which he recorded the pipes by waving a gun microphone close to it, thus creating shifting rhythmic patterns. The piece engages in a perpetual play of repetition and difference, balancing sonic intensity with compositional dramaturgy. For »M-2,« the artist uses his voice and works with a singing technique he has developed over more than a decade: constantly exhaling and inhaling, he puts a strain on his internal organs in order to create what he calls a »third voice.« The resulting piece is built on a throbbing rhythmic foundation topped by wordless melodies. »M-3« closes the album as a synthesis of these two pieces, but is far more than the mere sum of its parts. The subtle tonal shifts of the organ take on a more subdued role this time, and Fujita’s scat growling and singing reappears in processed form. »M-3« combines the rhythms and melodies of the previous pieces to let something entirely new emerge out of them, much like the album is based on perpetual changes and recombinatory strategies. In fact, Fujita explains, the acronymic title can be read in many ways: this album is minimalistic, but freely mixes and mingles different materials in magical and even metaphorical ways while also paying its dues to his wife and daughter—M. and M. Just like its title can mean a lot of different things, »MMM« itself is ever-evolving, traversing different moods and opening itself up to a plethora of interpretations at each of its many turns.
Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse (2LP)Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse (2LP)
Asher Gamedze - Turbulence and Pulse (2LP)INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM RECORDING COMPANY
¥4,269
Cape Town, South Africa-based drummer Asher Gamedze explores relationships of time between music and history on his new album Turbulence and Pulse, out May 5th 2023. Gamedze’s critically-acclaimed debut album Dialectic Soul was released at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020. Around the release of that record, with friend and writer Teju Adeleye he organized and participated in a joint online discussion “Poesis,” with historian Robin D.G. Kelley and others. One of the notable comments made in this session was by the poet and scholar Fred Moten, who described Gamedze’s drumming as an “amazing interplay between turbulence and pulse. Pulse is supposed to regulate and also be regular, but the turbulence underneath it and on top of it, it’s just extraordinary.” Moten added that this concept is a fundamental element of the percussive approach in Black music more broadly. Turbulence and Pulse takes its title from this moment of synchronicities. Inspired by this description, Gamedze developed the metaphor further, expanding the concept of turbulence and pulse through the lens of history. “Time in music is a metaphor for thinking about time in history and how time moves,” he says. “The way we’re taught history is generally in a way that robs people of agency in imagining themselves as part of history and how it unfolds. It is something that happens to us. I think there's a productive metaphor in that because the sense of time in music is created by musicians playing together. If we can use that to think about history and time in history, you can see that, actually, history is created by people in a whole range of ways. At the heart of it, historical motion is created by people organized and acting together, whether for progressive or reactionary ends.” For Gamedze, the underlying message of Turbulence and Pulse is “to claim a form of historical agency and realize that the future is not a foregone conclusion. As people we can organize, to transform our world in small and big ways.” This concept comes out of Gamedze’s involvement in radical cultural work and political organizing. He adds: “One of the ideas that I've had for a long time is to unsettle the way that people think about culture as something static or as something fixed. There’s this tension in Africa, because of the way that the colonists have constructed visions of African culture, where people speak about this need to conserve culture and document it. I think that's important, but you also have to understand that these things are moving. And we are the people who have to participate in that movement.” For the album artwork, Gamedze extends the visual aesthetic of his previous release with a hand-drawn illustration. “I feel like my drawings represent the inside of my mind. It’s very free and improvisational,” he says. Friend and designer Naadira Patel worked with Gamedze to design the final cover layout, which includes liner notes penned by his sister, writer and artist Thuli Gamedze. Turbulence and Pulse comes via the partnership of Chicago-based International Anthem and Johannesburg-based Mushroom Hour Half Hour, as the first collaborative release by the two labels.
Tsuki No Wa - Ninth Elegy (LP)
Tsuki No Wa - Ninth Elegy (LP)First on Vinyl
¥4,400
Sounds like a daydream, pale performances and beautiful singing voices. A faint and ephemeral album, as if Bill Evans met acid pop. The disc guide book "Bound for Everywhere" published in 2003 was a book that introduced basic records, but there was a CD-only chapter at the end, where I introduced this masterpiece "Ninth Elegy". And the impact of this album was so great that I had vocalist Fuminosuke participate in my album and live performances. Even now, the impact remains the same. In the age of fast fashion, this kind of discourse may not suit you, but I believe that good things will still be great no matter how many years pass, and they will definitely be recognized somewhere. Finally, finally analog. I will send it to everyone, including those who have been waiting for it, and those who are new to me. Pale acoustics, performances and arrangements with as few notes as possible, androgynous vocals, psychedelic, acid and alternative pops. I listened to it carefully for the mastering after a long time, but it was a wonderful album that transcended time as usual. In order not to make it too nostalgic, I gave the mastering a little bit of modern feeling. -- First on Vinyl Label Curator, Calm

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