Music from Japan

*Holographic Cover* Pulse Demon probably is the most iconic, most representative and best known album in the japanoise scene and Merzbow discography. This is the edge of music and sound, here you enter a new dimension made of powerfull noise. Recorded in 1995 and first released in 1996 on the US label Relapse, this album was re-released several times in both, CD and Vinyl formats. This is first time in which album was completely re-mastered by Masami Akita for CD re-release with the addition of …

"Heimoror" is the übertitle of Rudolf Heimo Eb.er’s audio-working period 2021/22. Most of the source material, documents of obscure and psychomagick acts, were recorded at the attic of the old, but newly inhabited, Om Kult farmhouse near Osaka, Japan. Combined with Rudolf’s organ and violin playing and often edited by the use of monaural cassette recorders and analogue filters, the recordings reflect these grim, animistic-shintōid events and deranged lo-fi rituals commited. The "Heimoror" works …

Close your eyes. Open your heart. And allow master of soundscapes and ambience Celer, aka Will Long, transport you to a universe of peace and solitude. The American artist, who resides in Japan, has concocted a new set of sweeping tracks in the new and highly impressive full-length offering 'Sunspots'.

Noise is coming from every direction. Backseat tvs flicker, and shuffling sounds fill the spectrum. Light glimmers from the windows, and only a few of us look out. I'm consumed by everything (else) and it all seems overwhelming. I'm outraged by the extending evils, their smiles filling my consciousness. It's not good enough to be a bystander. I won't make those mistakes. I will try. But what, do you give? Below, there are tiny islands passing by. They appear for minutes, and disappear. So will t…

Inspired by the journals, letters, and photographs of James Jenkins, 1942-1943 from Luzon, Philippines. Writing letters in the rain under the canvas, listening to records played from the center of the mosquito nets, or from the veranda overlooking the city lights. It may not have been in the same places.. Under the waterfall, ignoring their calls, receiving a Dear John Letter, or being iced on your anniversary. It may have been at different times, but we felt the same.. Whether from the jumpdoor…

Masahiko Satoh is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and arranger. Yoshisaburo 'Sabu' Toyozumi is one of the small group of musical pioneers who comprised the first generation playing free improvisation music in Japan. As an improvising drummer he played and recorded with many of the key figures in Japanese free music including the two principal figures in the first generation, Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe from the late 1960s onwards. The Aiki was recorded live on the 26th March 1997 at C.S.…

“Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), also known as “Nacreous Clouds”, are found in the winter polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 metres (50,000–80,000 ft). Due to their high altitude and the curvature of the surface of the Earth, these clouds will receive sunlight from below the horizon and reflect it to the ground, shining brightly well before dawn or after dusk. PSCs form at very low temperatures, below −78 °C. These temperatures can occur in the lower stratosphere in polar winter…

“Touring is a strange experience. There are disappointments and surprises. The audience you expected wasn’t there, but those shows usually end up being the best. I didn’t expect I’d see these cities. Frankfurt in the rain, or falling asleep in the back of a car in Basel, waiting for a show to start. You wake up and you’re in a different place, or already moving on to the next before you can experience the place. All the tapes I dubbed for the tour I left in the first hotel, and did the rest on t…

*300 copies limited edition* "Inside the head of gods" is an EP of music made to accompany the paintings of Taichi Kondo for his exhibition "What’s my name?" at Finale Art File in Manila, Philippines, April 6 – April 30, 2016. "When I first saw his paintings, they gave me a very clear sound of music. I had many ideas, and there were many elements of each of his paintings to represent through music. When I began creating the music, I made many different kinds of tracks with different lengths, str…

*300 copies limited edition* edition Have you ever looked up into the sky at night, and it seemed that you could see beyond the stars? How many times have you looked up, but how few do you actually remember? I remember two times: The sky seemed to roll, the stars flickering in the humidity of the late-August evening. It makes your throat feel dry and your body strained. Staring up, “We can’t see stars like this at home”, we said to each other. Lying on the concrete slab behind the garage, and at…

"In the fall of 2012, I was asked to create music for a live yoga event at Yougenji temple in Northern Tokyo. The performance was centered on the yoga instructor with the musician playing to the back of the audience, so that music served more as a live soundtrack for the event. For this I created a new piece of music using two reel-to-reel tape machines, and two tape loops of keyboards with similar time structures, but each with different, overlapping chords. They played simultaneously, crossing…

“I’m spending the days cataloging books and filling the shelves of the new library. In the early afternoons, the new library employees come in and we learn about their system, and how to work it. It’s a 4km walk out of the edge of town, along the hills and red dirt roads with broken palms back to our house. I’ll listen to the radio, or the wind as I walk. When I get back you’re on the phone with family, and our child is outside the window playing in the sand nearby. When she comes back in to joi…

Created for an installation to be played on 3 speakers in a triangular shape facing the center of a room. Each speaker played a continuous loop of a low end cut (speaker 1), a mid end cut (speaker 2), and a high end cut (speaker 3). From the center of the room, they should be perfectly mixed, yet evolve due to small differences in start times.

CD edition Recorded during the heights of the pandemic and completed in February 2021, the majestic 8-track ethereal/botanical soundscape created by Kokubo and Esperti is available as a limited edition double LP, a digipack CD, as well as in digital format. Takashi Kokubo, environmental music figure, celebrated sound designer, and founder of Studio Ion, has released over 20 albums, including the genre-defining and highly sought-after Ion Series. He's also played a major role in the sonic identi…

Akira Ifukube's score to the legendary 1962 monster movie King Kong vs. Godzilla. Ifukube's visionary music is tense and violent, a perfect complement to Ishirō Honda's film. This incredible score alternates between brass and strings as you witness the death and destruction that comes in the wake of these two classic film monsters' battles.

This bundle includes two of the newest Urashima vinyl releases:Merzbow "Cloud Cock OO Grand" (2LP)Masonna "Inner Mind Mystique" (LP)Merzbow "Cloud Cock OO Grand" (2LP)**Limited Edition of 299 copies.** Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name …

*249 copies limited edition. 2023 stock* These 2 heavyweights and veterans of the harsh noise genre come together once again to deliver 3 tracks of junk noise nihilism. Titled “Kyomu-No-Ne” in Japanese, it loosely translates to the philosophical phrase “The Sound of Nihilism”.The complex mosaic of harsh frequencies stack and pile on each other relentlessly, detailing the richness of sound through crazed electronics and effects device manipulation. Organic sound elements get deconstructed and reg…

*2023 stock* The unbelievably prolific Haruomi Hosono is one of the major architects of modern Japanese pop music. With his encyclopedic knowledge of music and boundless curiosity for new sounds, Hosono has put his unmistakable stamp on hundreds of recordings as a session player, producer, and auteur of his own idiosyncratic musical world. Born and raised in central Tokyo, his adolescent obsession with American pop culture informed his early forays into country music, which he would revisit late…

*2023 stock* One of the holy grails of avant-ambient synthesis.  Originally released a few months after Haruomi Hosono’s 1978 Paraiso LP — famous for featuring the first trio grouping of the band that would become Yellow Magic Orchestra — Hosono’s Cochin Moon, an album credited to himself and famed graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo, who provides the album’s iconic cover art, actually features Harry in trio with synth wizards Hiroshi Sato and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Hosno and Tadanori Yokoo had traveled to…

**Limited Edition of 299 copies.** Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name from German artist Kurt Schwitters' pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of…