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Live at Moers Festival
Guitarist Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi (1932-1991) was a towering leader in the Japanese jazz world. His first influence was Lennie Tristano, but through the 1960s and 1970s he explored and pushed the boundaries in free form jazz.Takayanagi was invited to play with his group New Direction Unit at the 9th annual Moers New Jazz Festival in Germany in 1980, which, as the name suggests, featured only free jazz performances. In front of the 3,000 plus audience, Takayanagi and company had their most rad…
Odds and Ends
* long out of print, few copies back in stock * Akio Suzuki has been making earthy yet ethereal sounds for over four decades now, all quietly emanating from the Japanese countryside. Born in 1941, he's made outdoor sound the focus of his career, constructing installations that transcend space and time, turning the outside world into a lucid daydream. In 1997, Suzuki analyzed the French town Enghien-Les-Bains, precisely mapping out (with footsteps) areas where echoes were most resonant. He built …
Mizu no nai umi
Music recorded in 1990. forgotten about and rediscovered in a box in 2003. live version recorded in 2003 at Roulette, NYC with the addition of Tim Barnes on crotales and Karen Waltuch on Viola. In 2003 i discovered a box of tapes I had thought I had erased, and had long forgot about. the tapes were all from between 1986-1991 , and as i listened back to them, I could clearly hear why i didn't like them at that time. But, youthful obsessions can sometimes be like tying your shoelaces together. Fo…
The sad mac
4-panel V-fold hard cardboard with Japanese OBI strip, softer insert for CD and a 4-page fold-out booklet in English and Japanese. Lucky restock, few copies available. Stephan Mathieu's original Japanese edition copies of his lost classic, recorded and produced between Summer 2001 and 2004 and originally released on the Headz label from Tokyo in the Winter of 2004. All the factors that make Mathieu's trademark sound today are already in full play here, the spectral drones, early instruments an…
Oto No Hajimari Wo Motomete 4: Shigeru Sato Work
These pieces were recorded between 1963 and 1973 at the NHK electronic music studio, Tokyo. Includes 12-page booklet with liner notes in Japanese. This version was withdrawn from sale due to objections from Takeisha Kosugi. His track was then replaced by one by Michael Ranta, and the album was re-released under a different catalog number.
1. “Divertimento” Keitaro Miho This is a live performance of live percussion instruments and electronically produced percussion instruments. Until then, …
Oto No Hajimari Wo Motomete 1: Hiroshi Siotani Works
Hiroshi Shiotani was an engineer of NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai: National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio, and then he cooperated with some avant-garde composers of Japan. This CD get Shiotani's works together, and released several years ago as a memorial of him when he died. It was repressed 500 copies by a private studio. All tracks are legendary early electronic works of Toshiro Matuzumi and Makoto Moroi. These works had originally released in '50s-'60s, but we have not been …
Oto no Hajimari wo Motomete vol.12 - The World
Brand new issue of archive series of NHK electronic music studio. This issue will be a collection of Toshi Ichiyanagi's tape works at NHK studio as his memorial.
Oto no Hajimari wo Motomete vol.13
The first track is Transient '64, produced in 1964, composer Yoriaki Matsudaira. In the production process, a cluster of sine waves with a transient tone, referred to as 'transient sound', was created. The second track is Assemblages for Tape, produced in 1969, composer Yoriaki Matsudaira. Until now, electronic music has used sound sources with fixed waveforms, such as sine waves, sawtooth waves, square waves, and white noise. With these oscillators, it is impossible to create free tones. The ph…
Hardを何十乗させたら光の粒が降り注ぐのか？
2023 Stock. The second live recording of the duo by Keiji Haino and Masataka Fujikake released just five years after the previous work "Tomorrow, the alphabet will disappear." While retaining the steel-like strength of the previous album, this is a rock album that pursues his core expression only with guitar, vocals and drums . Keiji Haino – guitar, vocals Masataka Fujikake – drums. If HARD is raised to the power of several tens, will the grains of light pour down? Recorded at Stormy Monday Yoko…
Edge x Jim O'Rourke
*2024 stock* The cliffhanger collaboration by Masataka Fujikake and Takeharu Hayakawa, which has been going on since 2007, is now complete with a live performance of the May 2011 session with Jim O'Rourke as a guest. The trio's bold arrangements are a powerful work centered on a solitary guitar sound that only Jim O'Rourke could express.
明日 アルファベットが、消えてしまいますように
2023 Stock. The second live recording of the duo by Keiji Haino and Masataka Fujikake released just five years after the previous work "Tomorrow, the alphabet will disappear." While retaining the steel-like strength of the previous album, this is a rock album that pursues his core expression only with guitar, vocals and drums . Keiji Haino – guitar, vocals Masataka Fujikake – drums. If HARD is raised to the power of several tens, will the grains of light pour down? Recorded at Stormy Monday Yoko…
Ten-Shi With Hirose Junji & Otomo Yoshihide
A live album featuring the unit Ten-Shi, consisting of Takayuki Kato and Masataka Fujikake, with two improvising giants, Junji Hirose and Yoshihide Otomo. From the beginning of the album, which begins with a guitar duo, the two groups respond to each other and express themselves in diverse ways one after another, developing a sound that is full of originality throughout.
Stone Stone Stone
*2023 stock* "This album, the first under the band's name in six and a half years, is a jazz alternative album with a multilingual and hardcore taste that differs greatly from previous albums.
The recording for this album started in June 2020, during a period when many of our activities were being cancelled due to Covid-19. It had been a while since I last met or played with the members of this band, with whom prior to the pandemic I would regularly get together for gigs at various venues or tr…
Mail from Fushitsusha
Mail from Fushitsusha, which Keiji Haino himself calls 21st-century blues, draws out exquisite dynamics and 'space' - like a nerve being passed through the eye of a needle. Carrying out their sonic explorations while adhering to the Fushitsusha method, these three tough artists create a muscular sound - a sound that turns the rock - blues concept on its head! Keijo Haino sent Seijaku out into the world as his permanent band. At the time of recording, this was to be a single album, but the combin…
Phantom Note
Trumpeter Itaru Oki's third album from 1975 reissued, a flamed out free jazz masterpiece. Itaru Oki (trumpet), Yoshiaki Fujikawa (alto sax), Keiki Midorikawa (cello, bass, piano), Gozo Yoshimasu (poetry reading on 5). We are very glad to inform that a long time out of printed OffBeat label LP is reprinted on CD. Itaru Oki visited Paris, France in the 70s and when he came back to Japan temporarily in 75, he organized a elite free jazz troop and recorded in studio. 'Phantom Note' is his 3rd album,…
Complete Grune Revolution (1975)
A much-needed and expanded reissue of this 1970s Offbeat label LP of cellist Keiki Midorikawa in duo with Masahiko Togashi, Masayuki Takayanagi and Masahiko Sato. Keiki Midorikawa (cello, bass), Masahiko Togashi (percussion, drums), Masayuki Takayanagi (guitar) et Masahiko Sato (piano). Recorded on January 16, 1976 at Nichi-futsu kaikan, Tokyo. The original LP of this work has duo with Takayanagi on A side and duo with Sato on B side. But in the concert, Midorikawa played duo with Togashi about …
After Seijaku
The Seijaku Trio of Keiji Haino (electronics, guitar, voice), Mitsuru Nasuno (bass, electronics) and Yoshimitsu Ichiraku (electronics), recording 2 years after the "Last Live" album, in an epic voyage of meditative and intricate electronics performed live in Tokyo in 2014 at Club Goodman. As "Last Live" explains, Yoshimitsu Ichiraku can no longer play drums due to physical issues, necessitating this transformation from a heavy abstract blues band into this ritualistic trio. It's a fitting and ea…
Who Knew That So Many Blues...
A singular record, measured with a mastery of self and patience that’s utterly arresting in its stoic elegance and sound sensitivity. Keiji Haino plays Gamelan...
Satsujin Kyoshitsu
**2006 release, long out of print, very few copies available** Trumpeter Itaru Oki Trio's landmark debut album from 1970 reissued, a flamed out free jazz masterpiece. Itaru Oki (trumpet), Yoshiaki Fujikawa (alto sax), Keiki Midorikawa (cello, bass, piano) for sure one of the earliest free jazz players and albums from Japan. And this album is possibly his finest effort, eclectic and saturated with ethnic elements, quirky, free form.Japanese trumpet player Itaru Oki represents one of the very firs…
Deformation
**2006 release, long out of print, very few copies available** OK, if obscure and hard to track down Japanese avant-garde and free jazz is your thing then look no further. This disc, released in 1969 is a hard nut to come by since due to extremely poor sales only a handful of copies and some promo copies are known to have hit the streets, making it now one of the hardest free jazz documents to track down. This one comes on bloody red wax. But all this idle talk aside, it's the music that really …