FEN
A Harsh Smoker’s Sonic Compilation
Big tip! A Harsh Smoker’s Sonic Compilation is an audio album featuring thirty-three original tracks in the form of a high-quality, custom-made paper booklet linked to a digital release! All audio tracks are accessible through a link or QR code contained within the compilation/booklet. The hosting page is fully private without any tracking or advertisement. Both MP3 and original audio formats are available to listen to and/or download. It is possible to stream the album using the mp3 player host…
Graveyard Processions
Graveyard Processions is the first joint recording by Kai Fagaschinski and Yan Jun. The Berlin-based clarinettist and the sound artist and vocalist from Beijing blur the lines between improvisation on the one hand and record production as well as composition-after-the-fact on the other. The four pieces on »Graveyard Processions« work primarily with Jun’s voice and Fagaschinski’s playing and also add a plethora of other sounds to dizzying effect. This is the sound of two prolific artists—the form…
Utsunomia Mix - 007 "Soul Boat"
In May 2023, the experimental music/acoustic project "Utsunomia" was launched by acoustic geniuses Yasushi Utsunomiya + Gallery Nomart + .es (dot es). MIX". Starting with the simultaneous release of their debut trilogy in May of the same year, Utsunomia Mix has released five albums in six months and two more in the following year, 2024. The Utsunomia Mix series is packed with unique features, including the first-ever combination of live performances, links with contemporary art, and unique recor…
Hummingbird and Four Flowers: Turntable and Harmonium Solo Live
The year 2022 was the 10th anniversary of the opening of Ftarri’s physical store in Suidobashi, Tokyo. To mark this milestone, several solo concerts by musicians with whom Ftarri has had close ties since the time of its predecessor, Improvised Music From Japan, were held in the Ftarri store performance space in autumn 2022. The musician who performed on October 3 was Otomo Yoshihide. That day Otomo planned to play turntable only, but when he spotted the store’s harmonium, he had the idea of usin…
Humankind
The fifth installment of Yasushi Utsunomiya's divine sound "Utsunomia MIX" series! Free, immaculate, and unrestrained, even a single note is a miraculous improvisation that is divine. Otomo Yoshihide and Isobata Shinichi, a guitar duo of two former students of Takayanagi Masayuki, Otomo and pianist sara's first duo, and lastly, a trio. An hour of intense human drama! It has been more than 30 years since Otomo and Isobata were students of legendary guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi (passed away in 19…
Contradictions (plays Lu Xun, Zizek, Baudrillard and Beckett)
Tip! Reading Group is thrilled to release Contradictions (plays 4 writers), the new LP by legendary musician and poet Yan Jun. Yan Jun has been a central figure in the (non-)music, noise, sound, and experimental performance scenes both in his native Beijing and in the global subterranean community for decades. He founded the Beijing-based experimental label Sub Jam in 2000 and has since collaborated with Lionel Marchetti, Axel Dörner, Toshimaru Nakamura, Torturing Nurse, and many more. On Contra…
In Residency At Bitches Brew
*2023 stock* "In December 2018 I had a four-night residency at the Bitches Brew jazz club in Yokohama. These concerts were organized by Mr Kenny Inaoka, founder and editor-in-chief of the webzine JazzTokyo.com and a prodigious jazz record producer and Seiichi Sugita, the owner of the Bitces Brew. They managed to invite some of the greatest improvisers from the Tokyo area to join me for four concerts in a row. This album captures some sound memories of those unforgettable performances with fantas…
Duo-1
*2023 stock. 400 copies limited edition* Improviser Junji Hirose is not just a sax player; in the 1980s he started playing the SSI (self-made sound instrument), which he created by combining numerous devices and everyday objects from which noise sounds are produced in a scattered way. In 1989, Hirose recorded the SSI/turntables duo album "Silanganan Ingay" with Otomo Yoshihide and released it independently as an LP. Three decades later, in 2022, a new SSI/turntables duo album by Hirose and Otomo…
Otomo Yoshihide Live in Shenzhen
Over the years, Otomo’s music has spanned across Free Jazz, Noise, Free Improvisation, Sound Art, popular music, film scores, and compositions for large amateur ensembles. Carrying the lineage of the Japanese Free Jazz movement that developed in the 1960’s, Otomo has exploited the sonic possibilities of both the electric guitar and turntable. He is one of the key figures who defined a now internationally recognized genre of Japanoise. His band Ground Zero, which was active throughout the 1990’s,…
Oh My God, And Yours
*Edition of 200. Mirror cover, transparent vynil* "Beautiful release on Yan Jun’s Sub Jam label. Toshimaru Nakamura was the first one that I ever saw using a no-input mixer, already in the 1990s. What exactly Yan Jun’s open-input feedback means, I am not sure, but I love the noise coming from both! Some sounds are as if they come from distorted guitar, I hear earth hums and glitches, there are a lot of different dynamics and small events in the pieces, but all in all it’s enervating music that a…
Twice
** Six-panel digipak, photos by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo, design by Yuko Zama ** Erstwhile Records presents Twice by Yan Jun and Zhu Wenbo. Yan Jun: recorded in Beijing, Feb 2021. Zhu Wenbo: recorded in Qingdao and Beijing, Sept 2020 - Feb 2021. Photos/image scans by Yan Jun/Zhu Wenbo. Design by Yuko Zama. Produced by Jon Abbey.
Eastern Saga: Live at Tusk
Turkish free jazzers Konstrukt continue their series of exciting collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide, highly repudiated multi-instrumentalist and composer in the experimental world. #4 in the continuing series of Konstrukt collaborations on Karlrecords is a live document of the concert by the Turkish freeform group with the Japanese experimental musician Otomo Yoshihide from the TUSK Festival 2018. Konstrukt, the Istanbul based free jazz/freeform group founded and led by Umut Çağlar and Korhan F…
A Rose with No Name 'Sorry'
**Edition of 200** Tokyo-based sound artist and improviser Makoto Oshiro carries out live performances and installations in which he creates sound using self-made devices and remodeled pre-existing objects. Beijing-based musician/poet Yan Jun, one of the leading Chinese artists on the experimental/improvised music scene, creates music and produces installations freely utilizing electronics, field recordings and voice.
This album was studio-recorded on February 22, 2017, when Oshiro was visiting …
Objets infernaux
Two great korean artists working with feedback, turntables, opened hard drives... What they call infernal objects. A stream of noise accidents. A molten, scalding stream of sound. Looking back, I see it's only been about seven years since, via the recordings issued on Manual, I first became aware of the improvising scene in Seoul; seems like longer, maybe I'm forgetting something. But the musicians involved were clearly up to something new and exciting, carving out a distinct area that often inv…
At
2010 release ** Limited edition of 200 hand-numbered copies. Yan Jun (born 1973) is a musician and poet based in Beijing. He is working on improvised music, experimental music, field recording, organizing and writing. alongside of at venues, he goes to audience's home to play with the environment and what else available in the room (Living Room Tour project). Also amplifying body movements or other performative elements in a simple manner. He is member of FEN, Tea Rockers Quintet and Impro Commi…
Modulation with 2 electric guitars and amplifiers
This is Otomo Yoshihide's second guitar solo release on doubtmusic. The concept of this work, however, is complely different from that of the first. Here, feedback sound issues from two amplifiers, each connected to one of two guitars placed on a tabletop. Due to this stereo effect, the feedback mutually interferes, producing beatlike fluctuations, creating black holes into which the sound suddenly disappears, sounding completely different depending on the position of the ears, creating the illu…
AMPLIFY 2002 | Balance
2003 release ** Featuring: Thomas Lehn, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Günter Müller, Christof Kurzmann, Taku Sugimoto, Keith Rowe, Marcus Schmickler, Otomo Yoshihide, Burkhard Stangl, Sachiko M, Cosmos. "A document of the 2002 Amplify festival in Tokyo curated by Erstwhile's Jon Abbey. Disc 1 and 7 are smaller club shows that took place outside the Festival proper, disc 2 is a studio session that took place around the time of the festival and discs 3-6 feature eight of the twelve sets that…