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Eddie Marcon - Carpet Of Fallen Leaves (2LP)Eddie Marcon - Carpet Of Fallen Leaves (2LP)
Eddie Marcon - Carpet Of Fallen Leaves (2LP)Morr Music
¥5,868

»Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« is an introduction to the folk-pop world of Eddie Marcon. It follows in the footsteps of other collections of Japanese artists on Morr Music, such as yumbo, Andersens, and the »Minna Miteru« compilations, »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« draws together songs from Eddie Marcon’s twenty-two-year history, including fragile, yet rich in melody material, collected from a prodigious run of limited edition, self-released CD-Rs.

Eddie Marcon is the project of Eddie Corman and Jules Marcon, who met through their involvement in Japan’s underground music scene. Eddie was a member of noise-rock duo Coa, while both Eddie and Marcon were part of psych-rock collective LSD-March. Forming in 2001, Eddie Marcon’s sound is markedly different from these groups, though they do, at times, share a sense of psychedelic dislocation, through the gentle, limpid pace of their songs. But with Eddie Marcon, melody and gentleness is at the music’s core.

They’ve long marked out their own, unique territory within a worldwide community of psych-folk and folk-pop artists; sharing their music through a subterranean network of colleagues and friends, they count groups like The Pastels and The Notwist as their fans, and Eddie has collaborated with the likes of Shintaro Sakamoto, and Aki Tsuyuko (in Tondekebana, and with Marcon and Ippei Matsui in the quartet Wasurerogusa). Eddie Marcon have also recently worked with drummer Ikuro Takahashi, who’s played with groups such as Fushitsusha, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and Nagisa Ni Te.

Across the songs on »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves«, Eddie Marcon’s songs are performed by Eddie on guitar, organ and vocals, and Marcon on bass; they’re variously joined by Takahashi, Yojiro Tatekawa (drums), Tomoko Kageyama (vibraphone), Yasuhisa Mizutani (flute), Madoka Asakura (vocals), and Ztom Motoyama (pedal steel). The arrangements are pared back to best serve the core of each song, and the playing is gorgeous – fluent but not showy; capable of great intricacy, but aware that simplicity is key to direct communication.

Songs like »Mayonaka No Ongaku« stretch their limbs languidly, the music shivering with beauty as guitar and cymbal drift across Eddie’s poised vocal delivery. »Tora To Lion« began as an improvisation, but it’s become a firm favourite of the group’s fans: as Eddie says, »it has become a very important song for us, to the extent that it can be said to be our representative song.«

Perhaps the most moving thing about »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves«, though, is the way it captures the subtle yet significant moments of everydayness that ask for our attention. »Shoujo«, a song for a beloved cat who passed away, possesses rare emotional resonance. »At the end of the song,« Eddie remembers, »I wanted to have her throat rumbling endlessly.« When the song was cut, a television voice appeared behind the purring, saying ›thank you‹. »For us, it felt like words from Poco-chan, and tears came to our eyes.« 

KMRU - Kin (2LP+DL)KMRU - Kin (2LP+DL)
KMRU - Kin (2LP+DL)Editions Mego
¥5,989

Editions Mego welcomes KMRU back to the fold. Kin is Nairobi born, Berlin based, sonic wizard Joseph Kamaru’s second release on Editions Mego, following on from the classic 2020 release Peel. Since the release and subsequent praise for Peel, the artist has been a staple on the electronic scene performing on numerous stages and festivals worldwide in tandem with a flood of media recognition. Kin could be construed as the second child following Peel. The project came out of initial discussions with Peter Rehberg about what a Peel sequel would sound like. Kamaru is quick to clarify that Kin is not that record; “I'll know when that record will come and when I'll make it. It's already happening... or maybe it lives within both of these Mego records”.

It is this deft ambiguity and vague tiptoeing around the concrete that encapsulates the ambiguous sound world of Kamaru’s vision.

Kin was started early 2021 in Nairobi with Kamaru exploring his noisier palette of sounds encompassing distortions reminiscent of the sounds he would muster from in his youth when playing guitar. He paused making this record for a year as soon as Peter died, then slowly returned to it through 2022 resulting in the immense new work we have here.

The charms within Kin lay as Easter eggs revealing the true identity behind the colourful sonics only after multiple deep listens. With Trees Where We Can See sets the tone by way of a warm swaying melody inviting the listener in for further investigation. In 2022 KMRU and Mego stalwart Fennesz toured the USA together resulting in a strong friendship and also, the second track here, Blurred. A neat Mego/Editions Mego loop as such. Blurred arranges twangy guitar strums alongside glistening glaciers of shimmering drones. They Are Here represents a darker hue as melancholic clouds of shadowy noir tap directly into the listener's nerve stream. Maybe takes a detour into a bristling euphoric electronic storm whilst We Are screeches in a pattern formation not unlike a highly abstracted Aphex Twin forcing its way out of a hard drive. By Absence concludes proceedings, operating as both exit music and a portal to further sonic investigation with acoustic bellowing residing amongst a kaleidoscopic backdrop.

Kin is a trip that rewards close repeated listens as all the colours and textures, nuance and narratives unveil themselves. This isn’t a record to be glossed over, magic rewards concentration.

Kin is a record to be Played slow and LOUD.

For Pita.

Jun Togawa - Tamahime Sama (Clear Red Vinyl LP)
Jun Togawa - Tamahime Sama (Clear Red Vinyl LP)GREAT TRACKS
¥4,070
This solo debut album was self-produced and released in 1984, following the hiatus of Guernica. Including the title track on the theme of female menstruation and "Mushi no Onna (Pupa Woman)," a baroque song (Pachelbel's Canon) with lyrics written by herself, this album fully expressed her one-of-a-kind worldview and catapulted her to the status of queen of the 80's subculture. Even today, it remains a classic in the history of Japanese women's rock music.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives Of (Heavy Vinyl LP)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives Of (Heavy Vinyl LP)日本コロムビア株式会社
¥4,180
"The origin of techno. The original crystallization of the artists who created the era as big names, immortal monuments beyond the masterpieces." Limited vinyl version reissued in heavy vinyl. The heavy-duty vinyl version in the original jacket supervised by Ryuichi Sakamoto is available in a completely limited edition.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Esperanto (LP)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Esperanto (LP)GREAT TRACKS
¥4,070
Ryuichi Sakamoto's sixth solo album, “Esperanto,” a 1985 masterpiece dedicated to a performance by avant-garde New York choreographer Molissa Fenley and featuring reevaluated Japanese percussionists Yas-Kaz and Arto Lindsay from the new age revival side, has been reissued in analog format. Esperanto”, his sixth solo album, is now available as an analog reissue! Originally released on the label under the Midi Inc., this is one of the most avant-garde albums of his career, yet it has never been released overseas! After the international success of his soundtrack for the 1984 film “Merry Christmas at the Battlefield” with David Bowie, Ryuichi Sakamoto returned to his roots in left-field music. This is a masterpiece album produced under the title of “imaginary folk music,” a mix of early electronica, ambient, and even synthpop!

Miharu Koshi - Tutu (Clear Pink Vinyl LP)Miharu Koshi - Tutu (Clear Pink Vinyl LP)
Miharu Koshi - Tutu (Clear Pink Vinyl LP)GREAT TRACKS
¥4,400

The first album by Koshimiharu, a musician with a diverse background including classical, chanson, jazz, and ballet, on the Alpha/YEN label (original: 1983). The analog reissue LP, which was released on “RECORD STORE DAY” in 2021 and sold out immediately, is now available to the general public by popular demand from fans in Japan and abroad. All but one of the songs were written by Haru Koshimi. The song “L'amour Toujours” was co-written with Belgian techno-pop group Telex, who also participated in the performance, and it caught the attention of IDIOT Record, which released it simultaneously in the Netherlands. The basic specifications for this release are the same as the 2021 reissue, with the original version pre-mastered by Haruomi Hosono and cut by master engineer Toru Kotetsu, but it will be pressed on colored vinyl (transparent pink). The album artwork differs from the original version, using the cover photo from the 1992 CD release. Interview with Koshimiharu 2021 published (with English translation).

Nujabes - Metaphorical Music (2LP)
Nujabes - Metaphorical Music (2LP)Hydeout Productions
¥4,950
nujabes passed away suddenly in February 2010 due to an accident, and this "metaphorical music" is the first album he put all his energy into after releasing mainly analog singles until then. It is a masterpiece that continues to be loved by many even now, and is the core of nujabes and hydeout productions. It is a historical masterpiece that contains many of the great songs that defined his presence. The first chapter of his miraculous mental landscape music, in which a piece of his soul that burned briefly but fiercely resides, has been released on cassette tape after a lapse of 20 years.
Weldon Irvine - Cosmic Vortex (Justice Divine) (LP)
Weldon Irvine - Cosmic Vortex (Justice Divine) (LP)Pure Pleasure
¥6,154

Exact reissue, from 1974. "After two visionary LPs for his own tiny Nodlew label, Weldon Irvine signed to RCA for Cosmic Vortex (Justice Divine), exploring the deeply spiritual and political terrain of his previous efforts on the kind of grand musical scale that major-label funding accommodates. This is a big, bold record by any measure, with a startlingly pronounced focus on lyrics and vocals. At the same time, however, the melodies spread out like tentacles, informed by the improvisational sensibilities of jazz and the deep-groove spirit of funk." --Jason Ankeny/AMG

G VERSION III - Summer Night Blues EP (12")G VERSION III - Summer Night Blues EP (12")
G VERSION III - Summer Night Blues EP (12")Riddim Chango Records
¥2,986

Emerging from the Kansai underground with a sense of ritual and restraint, G Version III returns with a slab of meditative pressure, carved for sound systems. Following last year’s cassette release on Digital Sting, the Kyoto-based producer deepens her exploration of experimental steppers and sacred low-end science.

TRK 1 treads heavy—medium-tempo four-to-the-floor steppers, soaked in 80s/90s UK dub DNA and wired with flickers of celestial synth energy, edged with something unknown.

TRK 2 drifts off-grid—a 100bpm oddity conjuring sacred synth rituals and off-beat spatial tension. Droning and eerily weightless, it hangs like a vapor of frozen scent in an echo chamber.

Flip the plate and TRK 3 and 4 ignite—raw, unrelenting steppers built to test the physical limits of the rig. No compromise, no decoration—just ritual voltage for the floor.

Riddim Chango’s 16th release channels something ancient through circuitry, born for the weight.

Merzbow - Sedonis (LP)Merzbow - Sedonis (LP)
Merzbow - Sedonis (LP)Signal Noise
¥3,772

Masami Akita’s work as Merzbow looms over all avant-garde, noise and heavy music like a dark cloud. Since 1979, the Tokyo-based sound artist’s fusion of industrial fervor and playfully Dadaist chaos across hundreds of releases has done more than pioneer harsh noise music — it has made him nearly synonymous with the genre. However, that famous reputation never quite conveys the actual thrill of sinking into a Merzbow album and absorbing its extreme contours, spiking peaks and layered valleys. It’s a feeling familiar to any fan, in a discography so deep and varied that no one ever explores it the same way. Merzbow’s new album Sedonis is an airy, ominous highlight and an essential release for both longtime listeners and those taking their tentative first steps into Akita’s boiling ocean of sound.

Sedonis caps one of the most exciting recent periods in Merzbow’s career, growing from the same set-up of computer, modular electronics and homemade instruments that produced the startlingly atmospheric Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance album series. It sparks to life on “Sedonis A” with propulsive drum machines and Akita’s prickling homemade guitar-string koto, played with a violin bow. The Penderecki-like strings melt into a nearly Hendrix haze at the start of “Sedonis B” building a crushing bridge to the centerpiece “Sedonis C.” The searing track brings to mind releases such as Dust of Dreams’ hazy percussion loops or the pulsing, jazz-influenced Door Open At 8AM, before igniting in a finale that achieves the same rippling funhouse terror as Aaron Dilloway’s Modern Jester. The three-part piece is paired with the 16-minute closer “Monolith 4”, which forms a spacious, burned expanse in contrast.

Akita explains that the title “Sedonis” didn’t have a particular meaning, but the word came to him in the aftermath of recording the album. “In terms of imagery, I was thinking of something similar to Barunga, the balloon monster from Ultra Q,” he explains, describing the classic ‘60s Ultraman kaiju. “A cloud-like form floating in the sky or outer space, with tendrils or tentacles — that kind of presence.” The music impressionistically conveys its inspiration at a kaiju-sized scale, while bringing to mind a modern day contemporary of Barunga— Jordan Peele’s terrifying, yet eerily beautiful creature from Nope. Similarly, Sedonis never stops unfolding into hypnotic new forms, while achieving a spectral, sinister atmosphere that feels utterly unique to Merzbow in 2025.

Merzbow - Door Open At 8 AM (Remastered + Bonus Tracks) (2LP)Merzbow - Door Open At 8 AM (Remastered + Bonus Tracks) (2LP)
Merzbow - Door Open At 8 AM (Remastered + Bonus Tracks) (2LP)Aurora Central Records
¥3,976
Limited edition of 200 copies. Merzbow is a Japanoise legend who has been advocating and practicing thoroughgoing ahimsa. This is the first analogue/cassette version of their very popular CD-only release "Door Open At 8 AM" released in 1999. Recorded at his home studio, Bedroom, Tokyo, in April/May 1998 using EMS VCS3, EMS Synthi 'A', Moog Rogue, Theremin, etc., this is a career-defining album. Recorded around the same time as one of Merzbow's most adventurous works, Aqua, it pays homage to the free jazz musicians he admires. Tony Williams and John Coltrane were also sampled. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2020 with new artwork by himself. Includes additional bonus tracks.
Kjell Bjørgeengen & Lasse Marhaug - Flood Coil (LP)Kjell Bjørgeengen & Lasse Marhaug - Flood Coil (LP)
Kjell Bjørgeengen & Lasse Marhaug - Flood Coil (LP)Smalltown Supersound
¥5,886

Lasse Marhaug's arsenal of devices are fed through video artist Kjell Bjørgeengen’s volatile A/V system on this latest despatch from Smalltown Supersound’s ‘Le Jazz Non’ series, a fierce sequence of hard-as-nails sheet noise x outsider techno that’s essential listening if you're anywhere on the line from Pan Sonic to Merzbow or PITA. Some years ago, Kjell Bjørgeengen and Keith Rowe attempted to convert video signals into sound by setting up Rowe's pickups next to an old CRT monitor, turning its magnetic field into a sound generator. Rowe further developed the system with David Jones at Alfred University, slimming down the setup using a copper coil, a circuit board, a video input and a telephone pickup. Jones named it the "Flood Coil", and it's that instrument you can see on the album's front cover and that lies at the core of these recordings, made without any physical live input from the artists themselves. In essence, it’s generative music in its purest form. Bjørgeengen's video feed is generated by oscillators, then routed into Marhaug's pedals and then back into the Flood Coil, so any visual shifts alter the sound, and any modification to the sound change the video. The duo have played this setup live many times, but for this studio version they left the system to do its thing without any intervention for two minutes at a time before moving onto the next idea. They recorded hours and hours using this process and then selected 18 highlights for this album, extracting harsh noise, power electronics, lulling feedback drone and peculiar rhythmic snippets to show the scope of their technique. A wall of growling, hi-octane Pulse Demon-style noise opens the set, gradually exposing us to more asymmetric textures, shifting through unstable repetitions that transform Merzbow's metal-inspired screams into 'Aaltopiiri'-era rhythmic noise. It's remarkable, actually, how much Marhaug and Bjørgeengen can squeeze from the system, chancing on shivering, lower-case chugs and pops, galloping drums, soundystem-subs and grinding blast beats that sound like Napalm Death's 'Scum' piped through a broken amp stack. It ain't pretty, but noise/industrial freaks will revel in the fierce delights inside.

小堺文雄 Fumio Kosakai - The Warm Garden (2LP)
小堺文雄 Fumio Kosakai - The Warm Garden (2LP)Amok Age
¥7,238

A pivotal force in the foundations of Noise music in Japan, Fumio Kosakai is half of The Incapacitants, and has recorded with other acts such as Hijokaidan, CCCC, and Club Skull. Originally released on cassette in an edition of fifty copies in 1993, "The Warm Garden" is a pinacle for collectors of 90s noise and the outer realms of Japanese psychadelia. The work steps away from the denshi zatsuon (electronic noise) of his other groups and instead comprises two pieces of minimal electronics, percussion, and treated violin. The result is engrossing, hypnotic gothic psychadelia and scorched earth cosmic sound. The cassette source was carefully remastered by Alex Nagle in consultation with Fumio Kosakai himself."

Mu (12")
Mu (12")The Death Of Rave
¥5,548

The Death Of Rave’s first vinyl release since 2022 is a long-in-the-making techgnostic fantasy by scene anomaly Mu, scrying ancient energies via archaic DAWs of perception in four addictive bops for aerobic mystics - RIYL Shakti, Enigma, Deep Forest, Young Druid, eL-Hortobāgyi Hortator, V/Vm. Chasing the label’s 2025 regeneration with Dale Cornish’s ‘Altruism’ and Nakul Krishnamurthy’s ‘Punaravartanam’, Mu reincarnate the spirits of Pythia, high priestess of the Temple Apollo at Delphi, with four precious cuts that livicate late ‘80s & early ‘90s dance-pop via anachronistic prisms, with ohrwurming vocals and microtonal melodies that, once heard, become indelibly etched on muscle memory and jig atavistic DNA. Hailing the civilisation of Lemuria - said to inhabit the sunken continent of Atlantis - Mu practise a mode of swaying dance-pop that sensually conjures sunken sites of worship in the Med to roadside clubs of Brabant and Lower Broughton in the 3rd millennium AD. Ageless stories of exile and romance are wrapped up in a particular palette of decades-old software to complicate uchronic timelines and lead “those who carry the wisdom of the sun & navigate the fallen realm through blood memory” to seldom felt sensations. The opening ‘Flesh’ is among our most rinsed songs of the past few years, adored for its DAWbell and monk chant motifs, where vocals incant like Enigma’s sexiest gear. And likewise the frisson of standout ‘Sacrifice’ has haunted our daydreams with a simply unforgettable new beat turn of phrase like some Shakti fantasy that also bleeds into the X-Files shimmy of ‘Kingdom,’ and the import-grade efficacy of the Arabesque ‘Underworld Quanta.’ It’s a whole vibe, certain to find its audience in club shamens and priestesses of this life and the next.

G Version III - Chapter II (LP)G Version III - Chapter II (LP)
G Version III - Chapter II (LP)Good Morning Tapes
¥6,224

On a class debut for Biscuit’s choice Good Morning Tapes label, Kyoto’s dub specialist G Version III runs signature fusions of digidub steppers, drill and holographic, minor key FM synths - big FFO Devon Rexi x John T. Gast, Equiknoxx, TNT Roots, Element. One up to her 12” for Riddim Chango last year (plus the ‘Scenery From Double Glazing’ tape for Digital Sting in ’24), G Version III’s ‘Chapter II’ most finely chisels her lucidly rugged definition of the late ‘80s / early ‘90s mystic steppers sound. The OG Caribbean spirit is heard filtered thru UK dances and shored up in Japan, where G tessellates its salient points with a palette of glassy Japanese synth tones and chamber music to exquisite effect. If Wendy Carlos was a soundgyal?! Across 6 cuts she builds the dance around digidub x drill waltz ‘Livin 4’ and a haunted dancehall special in the harpsichord/horn riff of ‘An Idyll’, impressing her prowess on the fusion of subcontinental scales with a drill-tipped skip in ‘Queen G Theme Chapter II,’ and tucking right into an aerodynamic, flying steppers mode shades away from Element in ‘Motherearth Guidance.’ At a slower, wider stride her ‘Higher Grade’ goes eyes-down on massive subs, and ‘Voice of Mystique Warriyah’ adapts the classic skooled sound like TNT Roots in Tokyo. Big!

DJs Di Guetto - DJs Di Guetto Vol. II (LP)DJs Di Guetto - DJs Di Guetto Vol. II (LP)
DJs Di Guetto - DJs Di Guetto Vol. II (LP)Príncipe
¥4,873

Myth? Legend? No need to pump this up, the music is self evident. As is the crew of Marfox, NK, Nervoso, Fofuxo, Pausas and Jesse, who shaped the universe as we know it. The simplest of elements for maximum (minimal) impact, an imperative burst of energy that perfectly echoes the title of Marfox's first EP: I Know Who I Am. These are statements of personality directly stamped on the dancefloor. "Hard Tecno" (without the H, yes) embodies the crystal clear intention of the set: to light a fire wherever the beats fall. To make people smile and move. And this was (and is) achieved without the need for obvious smiley culture signposts. The music just came through with fierce enthusiasm. All were youngsters (Nervoso being the elder) in 2007, and youth is definitely a factor in the fearless display of bare bones dance music production. Raw, is it? A second volume of DJs di Guetto on Príncipe was always going to happen. The tough part was deciding how to organize the bangers on the tracklist without ending up with a quadruple vinyl set. Thus separate volumes 1&2. Volume 1 (2023) was culled from the actual DJs di Guetto compilation (self released in 2006), whereas Volume 2 comes straight from the crew's archives, nearly 100% unreleased tracks produced in 2007. The crew disbanded as such a long time ago, but the legacy stands as sacred scriptures stand. FL Studio and standard laptop and tower desktop PCs combined as raw materials; a no-fuss approach added by these DJs and producers who sound unequivocally rootsy and primeval, drinking from the source. Also punishingly minimal, dry and alien. Happy-sad, sweet-sour, nice-angry, soft-aggressive. Words fail us. It's 2026, new humans seem to be on the rise but some old ways are still enthralling.

タコ Taco - The Alternative Counter Organization (LP)
タコ Taco - The Alternative Counter Organization (LP)SPITTLE MADE IN JAPAN
¥4,362

Taco weaponise the very idea of “tako” - octopus, kite, bunion, drunk, bald head - into a mutating post‑punk organism, a rotating guerrilla cell whose songs behave like incidents rather than compositions. “Tako” is one of those Japanese words that refuses to sit still. It can mean octopus, kite, bunion; it’s also slang for bald men, shaved heads, red‑faced drunks staggering home. The term slips between bodies, objects and insults, picking up grime and humour as it goes. In the early 1980s it became something else again: the name of a loose music and performance collective whose shows felt less like concerts than controlled disturbances. Taco emerged at the start of the decade as part of Japan’s post‑punk alternative wave, a shifting network of players orbiting Harumi Yamazaki, ex‑member of Gaseneta and the group’s volatile core. Around her gathered friends, acquaintances and fellow travellers from the Tokyo underground, forming a band that refused fixed membership, fixed genre, fixed anything. From the outset, Taco behaved more like a guerrilla unit than a conventional group. Personnel connected, collected, interrupted, scattered; line‑ups changed from gig to gig, and sometimes from piece to piece. Sound and image were treated as transient weapons to be deployed and discarded. Performances could happen with or without Harumi - reinforcing the sense that Taco was as much an anonymous mercenary outfit as it was a band, a name that could mask any number of combinations and intentions. What remained constant was the drive to send out music and noise that felt like it existed only for that night, that room, that confrontation, and then evaporated. In 1983 Taco released its first album, an anomalous, collaborative document that detonated across Japan’s underground as something both of and against its moment. The record functioned as a kind of local all‑stars compilation: key figures from the scene dropping in to contribute, while Harumi supplied the lyrics that stitched the whole together. Each track sounded like the reverberation of a particular cluster of people and circumstances - a conglomeration of voices, instruments, mistakes and impulses. Yet running through all of them were Harumi’s words, delivered with a force that turned scattered pieces into a single, bristling wave. The album didn’t simply collect songs; it spawned an “incident,” a disturbance that spread by word of mouth, tape dub and rumour. Then, as suddenly, it was pulled back: a separate scandal over some of the lyrics led to the records being recalled, ensuring that only a small number of copies ever made it into private hands. A second release followed in 1984: a 12" EP built around a live recording from the end of 1982. If the debut was a collage of sessions and personalities, this document caught Taco as a unit on stage, and what it revealed was an unexpectedly coherent musical engine beneath the chaos. For a band of indeterminate membership that specialised in one‑off performances, the playing here feels locked in without being smoothed out - grooves, fractures and eruptions held in tense balance. The record captures the power of Taco’s legendary live shows, but it’s Harumi Yamazaki’s presence that sears itself into memory: inflammatory, sensational, masochistic. Her muttered phrases and sudden screams ride over, and often wilfully against, the beat, treating rhythm as something to be taunted rather than obeyed. The effect is of a voice confronting the audience like a groundswell, an undertow that doesn’t care whether or not you keep your footing. One of Taco’s members once described the project as “an alternative counter organization”: a setup in which indeterminate participants fan each other’s heightened desires for personal revenge and retribution. In their words, Taco is “an ecosystem of tangible and intangible mouldy slime which accumulates in order for emotions to be acted out, both indoors in the studio, or outdoors on stage. That’s why the avenger can often end up being the victim.” It’s a metaphor that fits the music: thick, unstable, mutating, made from residues and leftovers as much as from polished ideas. Emotions congeal, are performed, and then rebound on those who unleashed them. The “alternative counter organization” is not a party or a platform; it’s a fragile, dangerous zone where sound becomes a way to test how far you can go before your own force turns back on you. The Alternative Counter Organization brings this history into focus not by tidying it up, but by acknowledging Taco’s refusal to be pinned down. It honours a group whose performances really were “like nothing before or since,” born from a word that already meant too many things and happy to add a few more.

Ground Zero -  Revolutionary Pekinese Opera (LP)
Ground Zero - Revolutionary Pekinese Opera (LP)SPITTLE MADE IN JAPAN
¥4,362

On Revolutionary Pekinese Opera, Ground Zero - under the ferociously precise direction of Otomo Yoshihide - detonates a cut‑and‑splice orchestra where free improv, noise, opera and plunderphonics collide with undimmed urgency. With the blessing of Otomo Yoshihide himself, Revolutionary Pekinese Opera returns to vinyl as one of the defining artefacts of 1990s avant‑garde music, sounding less like a period piece than a live explosive smuggled into the present. Originally conceived as a hypercharged reimagining of revolutionary opera through the cracked lens of sampling culture, the album captures Ground Zero at the height of its powers: a band that refused to respect borders between genres, media or histories, instead treating them all as combustible material. Three decades on, these compositions still feel like they might slip the stylus off the groove through sheer centrifugal force. At the core of the record is Otomo’s role as a kind of Deus ex machina from Fukushima, orchestrating a dense, unruly melting pot of musicians, sounds and strategies. Turntables, guitars, horns, rhythm section and electronics are marshalled into a constantly shifting field where nothing is allowed to remain stable for long. Fragments of Peking opera collide with free jazz eruptions; abrupt cuts splice militant fanfares into stretches of near‑silence or sandblasted noise; cartoonish samples and solemn themes rub shoulders, unsettling each other. What could have been a mere collage becomes, in Otomo’s hands, a tightly argued montage, where each juxtaposition pushes the music into a new, volatile state. The album’s power lies in how it weaponises experimentation without losing a sense of structure. Ground Zero operate like a rogue theatre troupe and a demolition crew at once, pulling recognizable motifs out of the wreckage only to shred them again seconds later. Passages of almost symphonic weight flare up out of scratchy loops and feedback, while sudden drop‑outs expose tiny, nervous details - a stray cymbal brush, a voice buried in the mix, a tape wobble - before the full ensemble slams back in. The result is a music of permanent revolution in miniature, forever overthrowing its own premises, yet somehow coherent in its manic logic. What is striking today is how little of Revolutionary Pekinese Opera’s allure has faded. In an era when sampling, hybridity and “experimental” tags have been thoroughly domesticated, this record still feels genuinely disruptive, its raw drive undiluted by time. The vinyl reissue not only restores one of Ground Zero’s keystone statements to its proper physical scale - with all the crackle, impact and dynamic extremes that implies - it also reasserts the album’s place as a key node in the global avant‑garde of the 1990s. Heard now, these pieces continue to strike with the same force they had on first release: unruly, subversive, and rigorously constructed, a reminder of how dangerous a band can sound when the studio, the archive and the stage are treated as one continuous battlefield.

V.A. - Monster A Go-Go (Teen Trash From Psychedelic Tokyo '66-'69) (LP)
V.A. - Monster A Go-Go (Teen Trash From Psychedelic Tokyo '66-'69) (LP)Cosmic Rock
¥3,468

Sought-after compilation exploring the Group Sound movement that swept Japan in the mid 1960s. Under the influence of the Beatles dozens of Japanese bands devoted themselves to exporting a wide genre that ranged from surf-rock, garage fuzz, psych and wild R&B. Featuring the influential The Mops, the Filipino band (relocated to Hong Kong) D’Swooners and The Golden Cups.

V.A. - All Stars Jamaican Blues (LP)
V.A. - All Stars Jamaican Blues (LP)Kids Of Yesterday
¥3,387
One of the earliest and rarest compilation of Jamaican ska jazz, released in 1961 on the iconic Blue Beat Record. Featuring Don Drummond, Roland Alphonso, Cecil Lloyd, Alton Ellis, Derrick Harriott, Rico Rodriguez, The Charmers, The Jiving Juniors, Aubrey Adams, Clancey Eccles, Clu J. and His Blues Blasters, E. Parkins, Carol McLaughlin, Chuck Josephs, Dobby Dobson, and Lascelles Perkins.
V.A. - Wa Wave: New Wave Sounds from the Land of the Rising Sun vol. 2 (Greay Vinyl LP)
V.A. - Wa Wave: New Wave Sounds from the Land of the Rising Sun vol. 2 (Greay Vinyl LP)MAWARU RECORDINGS
¥3,578

From the depths of the most independent and revolutionary underground, a handful of tracks from the repertoires (often limited even to a single flexi disc) of some of the heroes who rode the wave, extracting from it—more for themselves and expressive necessity than for us—its most mystical and expressionist essence. New and No Wave, minimal and minimalist electronics, Avant Wave from the land where the sun still rises for now.

V.A. - Wa Wave: New Wave Sounds from the Land of the Rising Sun vol. 1 (Red Vinyl LP)
V.A. - Wa Wave: New Wave Sounds from the Land of the Rising Sun vol. 1 (Red Vinyl LP)MAWARU RECORDINGS
¥3,578

From the depths of the most independent and revolutionary underground, a handful of tracks from the repertoires (often limited even to a single flexi disc) of some of the heroes who rode the wave, extracting from it—more for themselves and expressive necessity than for us—its most mystical and expressionist essence. New and No Wave, minimal and minimalist electronics, Avant Wave from the land where the sun still rises for now.

HIP-SEE-KID - Romancing The Music (Green Vinyl LP)
HIP-SEE-KID - Romancing The Music (Green Vinyl LP)MAWARU RECORDINGS
¥3,578

Through the dense blend of Japanese New-Wave, between moldy kimonos and punctured paper screens, along the rails of a sonic bullet train, this mini-LP reaches us, overflowing with purebred Punk-Funk, splinters of Soul and shredded Jazz. A gold nugget in a sea of sadness. Scattered energy trapped in a handful of vinyl grooves.

Marc Leclair - Musique Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (2LP)
Marc Leclair - Musique Pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (2LP)ISC Hi-Fi Selects
¥7,496

Musique pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (lit. 'Music for 3 Pregnant Women') is a 2005 album by Marc Leclair. The album was conceived while Leclair's wife and several of her friends were simultaneously pregnant. Over the course of the album, each track is labeled according to a point in the pregnancy ("64th Day," "205th Day,") with Leclair's attempts to convey the moods of the experience.

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