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Glenn Gould's great starting point is now available in Japan in analog form from monaural masters for the first time in 57 years.
Limited Edition] Analog / 180 gram weight vinyl version.
The debut album "Goldberg Variations" was released in January 1956 and made the young Glenn Gould's name known worldwide. The last album released before his death, "Goldberg Variations," was released in September 1982, about a month before Gould's death. This work frames Gould's life like a closing circle, and is indispensable in considering his unique music. When we think of Gould, we think of Goldberg, and vice versa.
The first of a special series of six analog reissues of four different performances of this important work is the debut recording, made over four days in June 1955. It is the most successful classical music album of all time and an icon in recording history. It was cut at Sony Music Nogizaka Studio in Japan, based on high-resolution recordings carefully transferred from the original monaural masters, which were never released out of the gate.
Geogaddi is the second studio album by Scottish electronic music duo Boards of Canada, released on 18 February 2002 by Warp Records.
The Moon and the Melodies is a singular record within the Cocteau Twins’ catalog—unusually ethereal, even by their standards, and largely instrumental, guided by the free-form improvisations of Harold Budd, an ambient pioneer who had drifted into their orbit as if by divine intervention. Building on the atmospheric bliss of Victorialand, released earlier the same year, it signaled a possible future for the trio, yet it was a path the Cocteau Twins would never take again. Now, 28 years after it was first released, it has been reissued for the first time—remastered, from the original tapes, by Robin Guthrie himself.
The album was never actually meant to happen; no one can even recall exactly how it came about in the first place. As both Guthrie and Simon Raymonde remember it, the independent television station Channel 4 approached 4AD about a film project pairing musicians from different genres. In interviews in the 1980s, however, Budd, who passed away in 2020, believed that his music publisher had linked him with the Cocteaus after the group had expressed interest in covering one of his songs. In any case, the film never happened. “But we’d spoken to Harold, and we were all quite excited about it—in a very sort of downbeat Cocteau Twins way, where we were rarely excited about anything,” Raymonde recalls. “We’re like, well, let’s carry on and do it anyway—you’ve already booked your flight, let’s just hang out in the studio and see what happens.”
“There was a lot of hilarity,” Guthrie says. “It was strange to have an older man in our life, because Liz and I saw everybody around us—the contemporary bands, the people running record labels, the journalists—as grownups. We were literally kids. I thought, ‘Oh Christ, he’s going to be some pompous, you know, into his classical music,’ and he wasn’t. He was just a big man-child. We clicked in that respect.”
The Cocteau Twins had recently built their own recording studio in North Acton, in West London. It was the first time they’d had their own space, and they relished their newfound freedom. “We were in this lovely little bubble of making our own music,” Raymonde says. Budd fit right into their bubble world; all four musicians got on immediately. Over pints at the pub, they talked about everything but music, and in the studio, Raymonde and Budd both say that very little, if anything, was discussed, save perhaps for questions of tempo or key.
“Harold would sit down at the piano and start playing something, and then maybe I’d pick up a bass and start playing along with him,” Raymonde says. “They were very much noodles rather than songs. That was the way we tended to work anyway. Work out what kind of mood are we feeling, get a drum beat going, just a two-bar pattern; Guthrie would plug his guitar in, I would plug my bass in, and then we’d just jam for a few minutes and go, ‘Yeah, that was cool, let’s carry on doing that thing or that thing,’ really casually, and then all of a sudden we’d have a song. I know that sounds ludicrous, but that is how we did it, and with Harold it was exactly the same.”
Budd played a Yamaha CP-70 electric grand, and the group came armed with a growing arsenal of gear, like the Yamaha Rev7 multi-effects processor and Lexicon PCM60, perhaps an Ensoniq Mirage. Guthrie used an EBow on his guitars, along with a Gizmo, an electromechanical device invented by Godley and Creme. Guthrie remembers endless experiments in search of new sounds: “Lots of messing around, tuning the guitar strings all the same, getting droney sorts of things—really big, loud, sort of Metallica-like feedback sounds, but then put in the mix so quietly you can hardly hear them the first time you listen. All these psychoacoustic sort of tricks that I liked. It’s all in there, you know. Just being fearless—if it didn’t work out, it was never going to be a record anyway.”
The musicians’ contrasting approaches ended up shaping the album’s somewhat curious format—four instrumentals in Budd’s meandering style, more tone poems than actual songs, and four more structured pieces with verses, choruses, drum machine, and, of course, Elizabeth Fraser’s inimitable singing, as bold and inspired as anywhere in the band’s catalog. There was no conscious decision to have Fraser only sing on four songs. “That’s just what came out of the sessions,” Guthrie says. “It was a lightweight atmosphere making it, because we didn’t actually feel that we were making a record at the time. We were trying out some stuff in the studio, and it just evolved into what it did. Which is, essentially, a recorded version of some people trying out some stuff in the studio.”
The sessions were over in two weeks, maybe three. “And that was already getting a bit long,” Guthrie says, “because some of our earlier records had taken just a couple of days.” They fleshed out the material, he adds, with one more song that the trio wrote in Budd’s absence, after they realized they didn’t have quite enough material for a full album. (“Was I that drunk?” Budd asked, upon hearing the final version of the album, which included a song he had no recollection of making.) As much as it may pain fans to hear it, there is no more extant material from the sessions—no outtakes, no rough drafts, no alternate versions. “For the 13 years I was in the band, we have no spare tracks at all,” Raymonde says. “If after an hour or two a track wasn’t coming together, we’d just get rid of it. If it wasn’t good now, our attitude was, it’ll never be any good. So we’d think, tomorrow’s another day—let’s go to the cinema and come back tomorrow, and see how it goes. Let’s go bowling.”
The other curious thing about the album—the fact that it was credited to all four players under their individual names—followed the same intuitive logic as everything else that went into the record. “It’s because it wasn’t a Cocteau Twins album,” Guthrie says. Raymonde concurs: “It was simple. All four of us have gone into the studio and done something, but it isn’t a Cocteau Twins album.” But perhaps the passage of time has changed matters. These days, on streaming services, you’ll find the album filed chronologically alongside the rest of the band’s work. “What’s interesting,” Guthrie adds, “is that I got the tape boxes from the studio, and guess what it says on it? ‘Cocteau Twins plus Harold Budd.’” Perhaps, he seems to suggest, the group got hung up on a detail that never really mattered. In any case, Raymonde says, “The more credit that Harold gets for the work he did, the more people that find his music because it’s in the Cocteau environment, the better.”
Despite all its quirks, The Moon and the Melodies has attracted a passionate fan base over the years. Its most atmospheric tracks routinely turn up in ambient DJ sets. 'Sea, Swallow Me' is one of the Cocteau Twins’ most streamed songs on Spotify, second only to Heaven or Las Vegas’ 'Cherry-coloured Funk'; it has also found new life on TikTok, where it serves as the soundtrack to innumerable expressions of hard-to-express melancholy. For such a low-key affair, the album casts a long shadow—but Raymonde believes the record’s uniqueness stems directly from its humble, unpremeditated origins. “It’s always about making something that’s pleasurable,” he says, “capturing a moment in time between friends that are enjoying making music together. Really, that’s the essence of it—the music was just a reflection of how nice a time we were having in the studio.”
Iris is back! This time with a brand-new long-player under the name Irisplus with many featured guests. Lazy, stumbling slacker songs with multilingual vocals, expanding the melodic, riff-driven sound of previous Iris releases like “Surrender”. Watch out for the full-band live version! Flute by Falyakon: Music/Ghost Vox by TRii: Fog, Spoof, EG Land Extra guitar/percussion by TRii: Deeds Vox by Falyakon: يا ليل ,قرش و عتيق Vox by Employee: Fernando, Crossings Vox by Mo Chan: 今日も明日も All songs written, produced, mixed and recorded by Iris. Mastered by The Bastard and Maximilian Schweizer. Graphics by Non-CN. Pressed by Disk Media Service.
Embassy Café is house music laid bare - rough, ready and romantic. It’s the early 90s house record Australia never had - an antipodean take on classic albums such as Dream 2 Science and Amnesia. Starting out as raw cassette tape demos, this collaborative project blends Andras Fox’ deep house productions with the sensual vocals of Oscar S. Thorn. Mixing phrases or straight cuts from experimental jam's with lush rhythm tracks, Embassy Café is a surprising mix of dance floor material alongside slow 80s funk grooves. Recorded live with minimal overdubs, the resulting album tracks are full of the mistakes, noises and distortions that made the early recordings by artists like Virgo Four so appealing. Oscar S. Thorn’s vo¬cals recall a time when house was the mainstay of a marginalized, black, queer audience. For fans of Larry Heard, Frankie Knuckels and Kenny Dixon jr.
The Melting Hours is a live project by Wata Igarashi and Kuniyuki. WataIgarashi continues to make his mark on the history of techno, whilst Kuniyuki has long been revered as one of Sapporo’s greatest treasures. The two artists, who have long held mutual respect for one another, met whilst performing at the Draaimolen Festival 2025, and this encounter gave rise to The Melting Hours. This is the latest release from Rainbow Disco Club’s label imprint, Beyond Space And Time. ‘Blue Sun’ is imbued with a freshness reminiscent of the ambient jazz masterpieces released by prestigious labels such as ECM and Windham Hill. ‘Liquid Dunes’ sees the organic tones of the flute and percussion melt into over ten minutes of abstract sound textures, whilst the breathtaking ‘Cloud Touch’ awakens amidst a swirling vortex of pulsating downbeats and arpeggios. It is said that ‘Blue Sun’ was created by reconstructing studio rehearsal recordings, whilst ‘Liquid Dunes’ and ‘Cloud Touch’ were crafted from live recordings at Draaimolen 2025. The essence of these works—and indeed of the project The Melting Hours itself—lies at the heart of their improvisational nature. It brings to mind the Rainbow Disco Club event back in 2026, where they wove their sounds amidst fresh greenery and surrounded by listeners under a clear blue sky. It felt as though the pulsating energy was spreading across the dance floor, guided by a session from The Melting Hours that seemed almost like a living creature. The organic breath one senses in this work not only evokes precisely that scene but also allows us to feel the unique, ephemeral nature inherent in this project—and, consequently, the boundless possibilities that stem from it.
“Live (At Open Ground)” by While My Sequencer Gently Bleeps is being released on Funkscapes as a cassette tape and documents a one-hour live set that offers a dense sequence of deep basses, clever drum patterns, and sparkling melodies. Recorded during a Funkscapes night at Open Ground in Wuppertal, the tape brings together well-known pieces as well as several previously unreleased tracks and conveys the immediate flow of the performance on cassette. At the center is Stefan Schwander’s project While My Sequencer Gently Bleeps, whose work is characterized by a playful combination of bass-focused drive, quirky bleeps, and warm harmonies. Schwander, also active as Harmonious Thelonious, A Rocket In Dub, and Antonelli Electr., uses the Elektron Monomachine as his main instrument and pushes its sequencing and sound capabilities to the limit. This approach shapes the characteristic sound of the set, in which loops, modulated bass lines, and pinpoint synth accents interlock organically. As a documentary live release, the cassette captures both the improvisatory energy and the meticulous sound shaping: stripped-down rhythms meet dub-like depth, while melodic fragments lend the set a surprising lightness. “Live (At Open Ground)” thus offers a focused glimpse into the project’s current musical self and its fusion of club aesthetics and experimental sound design.
Argento is the new project from composer and producer David August. Released by Music From Memory, Miraggi draws on time spent between Berlin and Italy's Tyrrhenian coast, blending synthesisers, acoustic percussion, field recordings and electronics into an imagined soundtrack to the Mediterranean. Inspired by Italian library music, jazz fusion and Balearic sounds, the album was created with drummer and percussionist Lorenzo Setti, whose playing helped define its fluid rhythms. Dreamlike yet grounded, Miraggi captures the pull of place, where atmosphere and landscape are as vital as melody.
The third (and most impressive) of four volumes of dub mixes from the studio of producer Joe Gibbs, African Dub, Chapter 3 finds engineer Errol Thompson getting a bit more adventurous than he had on the earlier installments. More of these dub versions keep shreds and snatches of the original vocal tracks in the mix, which is almost always a plus in a dub context -- little snippets of disembodied vocals float through the otherworldly musical atmosphere, lending a sometimes spooky human element to the sound and often casting new and refracted light on the meaning of the original lyrics. And on this volume, Thompson seems to be taking a few cues from his competitor Lee "Scratch" Perry, throwing such extramusical elements as water sounds (on "Freedom Call") and ringing telephones (on "Jubilation Dub") into the mix along with the usual gossamer shreds of guitar, horn, and keyboard. Highly recommended. - Rick Anderson
Producer Joe Gibbs took the credit for the four discs released in the mid-'70s under the title African Dub All-Mighty, but the musicians were in reality a shifting aggregation of members of the Soul Syndicate, We the People, and Revolutionaries bands, and the man actually working the mixing board was famed sound engineer Errol Thompson. Chapter 1 is a fine listening experience -- note in particular "Campus Rock" (a dub version of Dennis Brown's "Let Me Live") and "Treasure Dub," which is a version of the Jamaicans' rocksteady classic "Ba Ba Boom." Recommended. - Rick Anderson
Forgotten electronic treasures by composer Ton de Leeuw rediscovered: first release in the Dutch Oscillation Series Dutch Oscillation Series (DOS) proudly announces the release of a box set featuring the complete electronic works of Ton de Leeuw (1926–1996). This publication marks the first instalment in a new series that brings the history of Dutch electronic music to life for a broad audience. The official presentation will take place on Saturday, 12 September, during the Gaudeamus Festival for contemporary music in Utrecht. Unique discoveries from the archive. For far too long, twentieth-century Dutch electronic music has remained hidden away in dim archives, only occasionally accessible under optimal conditions. Many compositions have not been heard for decades, perhaps after being presented to an audience only once. For this project, the original tapes were carefully traced in basements and archives, including the mysterious work Chronos, which was rediscovered in the collection of the Netherlands Music Institute (NMI). Even close collaborators of De Leeuw were unaware of the existence of Chronos. Another highlight of this release is the radiophonic oratorio Job (1956), which was awarded the Prix Italia radio prize by broadcaster Rai. The recordings were digitised by experts at the Institute of Sonology and the Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). The music was then meticulously restored and mastered in the studio of Jos Smolders (EARLabs), in accordance with modern standards, while strictly adhering to the composer’s original artistic intentions. The edition includes eight works composed between 1956 and 1982. The collection is released as a deluxe LP and CD box set and is also available via streaming and as high-resolution downloads. For an optimal listening experience, originally four-channel works such as Elektronische Studie (Electronic Study) and Antiphonie (Antiphony) are available as special Dolby Atmos downloads, allowing listeners to experience at home the unique spatial sound world envisioned by Ton de Leeuw. About Ton de LeeuwTon de Leeuw was one of the most influential Dutch composers of the twentieth century. A thinker with a distinctly cosmopolitan outlook, he immersed himself deeply in musical cultures from India, Japan, and Indonesia, among others. His work consistently sought to bridge Eastern and Western musical traditions and concepts. In addition, De Leeuw enjoyed a distinguished academic career. He served for many years as senior lecturer and director at the Amsterdam Conservatory and was affiliated as a senior research fellow with the University of Amsterdam. His book Muziek van de twintigste eeuw (Music of the Twentieth Century) remains a standard reference work.
Korlakang, a fresh four‑piece band emerging from Thonburi on Bangkok’s west side, delivers a debut double‑sider 7" on Guruguru Brain. Blending the melodic beauty of Thai traditional music with the hazy textures of 70s psychedelic rock, the group reshapes these elements into a contemporary ethno‑groove.
First released in 1971, Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki is a delirious cult album that sounds as mischievous and unclassifiable now as it did then. Conceived not as a band but as a studio-born fantasy, YAMASUKI created a pan-cultural pop opera that gleefully ignored genre boundaries and common sense. Produced by Jean Kluger and written with Daniel Vangarde, the album sits at a surreal crossroads of psychedelic pop, funk, samba and bubblegum melodies. Phonetic pseudo-Japanese chants, performed by a children’s choir, collide with ritualistic cries from a Japanese judo grandmaster, turning each track into a playful piece of sonic theatre. What began as a single quickly expanded into a fully realised concept, one whose influence has travelled far beyond novelty. Elements of Yamasuki have resurfaced through reinterpretations, samples and pop mutations across decades, from underground soul and hip hop to mainstream chart pop and television soundtracks. Revisited today, Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki remains a reminder that pop can be strange, joyful and inventive without explanation. It is music that laughs at rules, dances around definitions and proves that imagination never dates.
Go Kurosawa is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and co-founder of the independent label Guruguru Brain. Best known as the drummer and vocalist of Kikagaku Moyo, he has spent the past decade building bridges between East and West, sound and silence, rock and ritual. soft shakes is something different. A personal chapter in Go’s journey, it marks his first solo album, created entirely by himself and made, for the first time, purely for himself. After Kikagaku Moyo disbanded, Go spent some time producing records for other artists, but with soft shakes, there was no plan. Just the instinct to pick up an instrument, play, and see what might unfold. As he puts it, “The whole framework is new. When I made music for the band, I always knew who would play what. This time, it was just me. No plan, no expectation. And weirdly, that became the concept: doing it all myself, for the first time.” Go has a rare kind of musical instinct. He can play anything, hears everything, and yet never takes himself too seriously. For a long time, making music alone wasn’t part of the plan. Music had always been about connection. But over time, as he travelled, collected instruments and set up Guruguru Brain studio in Rotterdam, the sound of a solo voice emerged. soft shakes came together between January and June in Rotterdam, through dark, rainy, quiet days. Each day, Go would head to the studio, pick up whatever instrument was around and simply play. The process was slow and instinctive. “If something still moved me the next day, I’d add to it. If not, I’d start something new. One step at a time, without pressure.” Even as a solo record, the music doesn’t feel tight or controlled. It has the looseness of jamming, the joy of following where the sound wants to go. “I wanted that feeling, even if I was jamming with myself.” What comes through is music that feels playful, layered, rhythmic and delightfully unexpected. Just like Go. The album artwork was created by his partner Ao, her first time doing artwork for a record. “It captures the freedom and boldness of trying something new and I love it,” he says. soft shakes arrives at a moment of transition. Go recently relocated to Fukuoka, Japan, after years of living and working in Europe. “While making this album, we were deciding where to move. I knew it would be my last creation while living in Europe. When I listen back, I can hear that longing for something, towards a far away home.” The record feels like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another. “Now I’m excited to build a studio in Japan and start again. I don’t know what will come next, but I want it to be shaped and influenced by new surroundings.” And while this record might be personal, Go hopes it offers something to others too. “I wish people would travel somewhere else through music. You float around, lose track of time, and when the record ends, you feel the soft comfort of coming home again.”
Kikagaku Moyo's debut album exerts an elemental power. Enlivening their sound with sitars, percussive drums, theremins, wind instruments and ethereal vocals, the band manages to sound powerfully spacious and lazily serene all at once. Their songs can be light as air, or heavy as earth. Many evolve out of intense experiences of engagement with the natural world. The album’s first track, “Can You Imagine Nothing?” was written over a night spent jamming on a suspended footbridge in remote mountains. As the song progressed the bridge began to sway, making band members feel as though they were floating weightless in midair. =Band Description= Kikagaku Moyo started in the summer of 2012 busking on the streets of Tokyo. Though the band started as a free musiccollective, it quickly evolved into a tight group of multi-instrumentalists. Kikagaku Moyo call their sound psychedelicic because it encompasses a broad spectrum of influence. Their music incorporates elements of classical Indian music, Krautrock, Traditional Folk, and 70s Rock. Most importantly their music is about freedom of the mind and body and building a bridge between the supernatural and the present. Improvisation is a key element to their sound.
Bruno Berle is a singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and figurehead of a contemporary Brazilian music movement. With a quiet mastery of songwriting and an astonishing voice, his music has won hearts around the world. Since the release of his debut album No Reino Dos Afetos (2022), Berle has performed across the UK, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and China, only leaving his home country for the first time in 2023. Shaped by these journeys, Berle’s third studio album, Sem Fronteiras (Without Borders), reflects a utopian vision of a unified world. Recorded across London, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Germany, and Maceió, the album–co-produced alongside his longstanding musical partner Batata Boy–is the most expansive canvas Berle has worked on to date. Shot through with the imagery that has always animated his songwriting: open skies, morning light, vivid colours and the magic of human connection, Berle’s carefully crafted poetics and warm, delicate instrumentation drive this vivid body of work. “I came from nothing”–Berle doesn’t take his rise to global prominence for granted. Born to a working class family from Brazil’s northeastern Alagoas state, one of Brazil’s most economically deprived, Bruno moved frequently in his youth to follow any job opportunities his parents could find, before eventually settling in the coastal capital of Maceió. “I used to travel to Caruaru, Santa Cruz, Recife, Garanhuns, Arapiraca, which I loved and feel it made me ready to be in this rhythm i’, but at the same time I think not having friends from childhood and being in constant change made me a little numb to the constant upheaval”. On Sem Fronteiras, there is a similar duality at play. The album celebrates the collective joy and human connection that live touring brings, but it also sits with the darker realities of crossing borders. While music moves more freely around the world than ever before, our bodies are not granted the same privilege. Though he’s never lacked self-belief, Berle recognises that talent alone doesn’t guarantee opportunity. “Before my second album [No Reino Dos Afetos 2] everything I had ever recorded was made with the help and kindness of people who believed in my ability”. Determined to pay that kindness forward and help others from the sharp end of Brazil’s desperately unequal society, Berle produced and featured on the recent self-titled albums by his northeast Brazilian compatriots, Nyron Higor and Phylipe Nunes Araújo (both 2025), helping propel both onto the international stage. In turn, following the successes of Nyron & Phylipe’s albums alongside his own, Bruno finds himself at the forefront of a thriving community of artists now based in São Paulo, but primarily originating from northeastern states like Alagoas and Pernambuco. Much like the famed Clube Da Esquina movement that spawned in 1970’s Minas Gerais, they operate with a free-exchange of ideas, writing songs with and for each other, performing on each other’s albums and on the live circuit together. Lead single ‘Manha’ flows from this ethos. It was written by Berle’s friend and fellow Alagoan João Menezes (writer of ‘Ate Meu Violao’ and ‘Te Amar Eterno’ from Bruno’s previous albums) and Marvin Viera, and originally recorded on their 2018 album Areia e Mar. Sem Fronteiras opens with ‘Você Já Sabe Que Eu Te Amo’, just six beats of one nylon guitar chord ring out before changing key, paving the way for the gentle strike of fender rhodes and the arresting call & response duet between Berle and Higor. On ‘Amor Inteiro’, the album reaches a celebratory burst of catharsis, with the punch-packing drums of Pedro Lacerda and Nina Maia’s joyous backing vocals encapsulating the live energy that Berle and his band bring to the stage. With the abundant talents of this musical community at its heart, Sem Fronteiras releases 10th July 2026 via Far Out Recordings, supported by a summer tour across Europe. Bruno Berle will perform in a four-piece band alongside Nyron Higor, Phylipe Nunes, and Batata Boy, culminating in an appearance at Roskilde festival, Berle’s biggest live show to date. He’ll continue to carry a hopeful vision of a world where artists and musicians can move as freely as their music flows.
The fifth LP in the long history of the label comes from another Belgian producer who is ready to fly high. After San Soda, Metrobox, Uni Son and label boss Red D it is now time for Tom Smeyers to step up and take us into his universe of warm grooves and sweet house music…with a twist.Taking in influences from around the full spectrum of electronic music these six tracks represent what Tom is about at the moment. From deepest old school inspired house to more broken beat action right into drum’n’bass territory, with an attention to detail and experienced sound design.As if that wasn’t enough Tom also took care of the artwork to match his music. We here at WPH call that a 360 artist. Welcome to the family Tom Smeyers!DTM Funk: Super Dope!DJ Bone: Really great release. I love every track!Owain K: Classy grooves for dancefloor moves.Séa: Lovely!Simon Caldwell: Beautiful machine house music. Takes me back and takes me forward.Satoshi Fumi: Really love all!Severino Panzetta: Great sound.Ame: Thanks for these.DJ Merci: Top release!Red D: So good I just had to release these J
Previously released on May 20th 2014. Kikagaku Moyo here sound anything but lost, their child-like wonder manifested in a confident, courageous exploration of sound. Labels – psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock – do little to accurately reflect the spectrum of influences on display, let alone the more impactful realization of completeness in Kikagaku Moyo’s songs.
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視聴-Names Have Been Changed (Sound/Reading for Incest Porn) (Live Version)
Now a 'cult classic' , repressed for 2023 ears on All City Dublin. Onra started the project in August 2006, freshly returned from a trip to Vietnam, the land of his grandparents. A vinyl junkie at heart, he really couldn’t come back to France without bringing back some wax. After hours spent riding on a motorbike through the streets of Saigon, a taxi finally helped him find some Asian records - he almost felt like an explorer discovering a forgotten treasure. He bought 30 records, most of them in poor condition, went back to his crib and started making beats with material that he wasn’t quite used to …
For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of “Afro Mingei.” The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance — “Black is Beautiful” defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.
Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried “Portrait of Yanagi” drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent “Galaxy” gestures toward Sun Ra’s late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotus’s early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okada’s choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarek’s “Nefertite” shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europe’s own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzuki’s “Love” channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.
Okada’s life has been shaped by such crossings. He grew up in Fussa, where the Yokota U.S. Air Force base loomed large, learning guitar in rowdy clubs for American servicemen while teaching himself recording at home. That hybrid education led to collaborations with Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, James Blackshaw, and Carlos Niño, and to a body of work spanning film soundtracks, collaborative projects, and exploratory solo albums. Earlier this year, Temporal Drift released The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line, which features selections from Okada’s expansive archive of recorded material, cementing his reputation as one of Japan’s most adventurous contemporary musicians. With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.
- Words by Randall Roberts
In a new duo collaboration that defies conventions and background, Midori Takada and Jakob Bro took up residence in Tokyo’s Avaco Studios to record their first album, あなたに出会うまで / Until I Met You. The title, taken from a Midori Takada composition, refers to the spiritual bond that arises in every new friendship, whether in music or in life. Until I Met You is pure acoustic music, a tapestry of dreamlike compositions with beautiful melodies that sees ambient music icon Midori Takada on grand piano, marimba and various percussion instruments and acclaimed Danish composer Jakob Bro on the acoustic guitar. Although somewhat unexpected choices of instruments, Takada and Bro share the affinity of openness and exploring sound as source material. Taking a step deeper beyond musical training, cultural background and age difference (which also would be besides the point since Midori Takada is by Bro considered forever young at heart, and Bro himself is nearly fluent in Japanese language), Until I Met You is its own ecosystem, a gesture of unity and worldbuilding. “I try to express myself with sound and have no ambition with my instrument other than to create moments of beauty with my fellow collaborators. I see Midori Takada as someone who can do exactly this. Turn a moment of nothing into something,” says Jakob Bro. Midori Takada (b. 1951) is a percussionist, composer and performance artist, whose output over the past 50 years weaves through solo, group and theatrical practices. Considered a rebel in the classical world of music, she debuted as soloist in 1978 with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, but later abandoned her Western classical training to study drumming in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire and Gamelan music of Indonesia, and composing works that incorporate the structures of traditional music. She has also worked extensively with improvised music and appeared in numerous productions by the world-renowned director Tadashi Suzuki. As an environmental musician, she has created soundscapes for the Art Institute of Chicago and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the United Kingdom. Her landmark album, Through The Looking Glass (1983) is considered an essential recording of minimalist music in chime with the peak period ambient and fourth world musics explored by Jon Hassell, Don Cherry and Brian Eno, but born of a distinctly Japanese ceremonial and meditative musical sensibility. The LP reissue sparked a series of sold out solo performances across Europe and the U.S., including the London Barbican, Paris Palais de Tokyo, Berlin Hebbel am Ufer, The Kitchen in New York, and the Getty Centre in Los Angeles. Nearly 45 years after her first soloist performance with the Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, almost as if by fate Takada began her collaboration with Jakob Bro with a 2022 commission by Pierre Boulez Saal, resulting in two improvised concerts in Berlin and Copenhagen. These encounters also led to meeting Nordic greats such as Palle Mikkelborg, Marilyn Mazur, Nils Petter Molvær, Jesper Zeuthen, Anja Lechner, and a performance at the World Expo in Osaka. Jakob Bro (b. 1978) is a guitarist and composer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader with artists such as Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Paul Motian, Charles Lloyd and many others, and his various ensembles are depicted in the award-winning film “Music for Black Pigeons” (dir. by Jørgen Leth and Andreas Koefoed), which premiered at the Venice Biennale and has been featured at film festivals around the world. Since 2020 Jakob Bro has had a yearly stint at New York’s Village Vanguard, and he frequently performs in Japan. “Jakob Bro creates magical music, impossible to categorize or capture. His songs are best described as jewels revolving in mid-air, reflecting and refracting light,” writes Downbeat. “Based on an idea of the slow, simple melody and a nearly Buddhist ideal of relinquishing the ego, Jakob Bro has lifted jazz into a new future,” Danish newspaper Politiken adds. It is Bro’s conviction that “the music has to breathe. It’s important that a kind of organic conversation is taking place.” The Bro–Takada collaboration began with a commission from Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. They have played World Expo in Osaka and are set to perform at festivals across Europe and Japan in the coming year. あなたに出会うまで / Until I Met You will be released on LP/CD/digital by Loveland Music and rings (Disk Union Japan) on September 12, 2025.