Music from Japan

First time on vinyl, originally released in 2008, remastered by Stephan Mathieu. Celer is a husband (Will) and wife (Danielle) duo from California that use a variety of strings as the basis for their sound. Cello, viola, violin and the sounds are mixed in with field recordings, choir, live theremin and then tape spliced and re-assembled in varying lengths to create a loop base. Those sounds are then sampled, layered and processed. The result is a shimmering orchestra. Periods of silence between …

*2022 repress * Will Long’s Celer project returns with a vinyl edition of Xièxie, a poetic suite melding location recordings made during a trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou in 2017; with diaphanous, layered synths that beautifully bring his subject to life. A week before leaving, I bought a dictionary and phrasebook. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu, layout by Rutger Zuydervelt. Covered in rain, during the days and even the nights, Shanghai was lit in a glow, a mist turning to a constant grey fog. Buildi…

Limited edition reissue of 1000 copies. Pressed on black vinyl for better sound quality. Includes an insert. Reissue of this rare and unusually dreamy electronic ambient new age album. Originally created and released in a small edition in Japan back in 1987 by the mysterious musician / magician Shiho. The Body Is A Message Of The Universe features floating shimmering synthesizer textures. The Body Is A Message Of The Universe features floating shimmering synthesizer textures. It’s unique and ext…

The music Coltrane, Tyner and others did back in their prime made a sizable ripple in jazz. Many went on to emulate their style well after the originators either died or moved on. For the most part I find these emulator (or keepers of the flame, to be more polite) to be either alright or great. Kohsuke Mine Quintet is one of those greater ones. They're relatively obscure from what I gather, releasing only a few albums back in the 70s and a resurgence album in the 90s but their music is much more…

Classic jazz-funk fusion from the late, great Japanese guitarist Ryo Kawasaki. Recorded in New York, and originally released in 1976, 'Juice' presents Ryo at the height of his powers.  Born in Japan in 1947, Ryo had a long and stellar career recording and releasing music up until his passing on 13 April 2020, in Tallinn, Estonia. Ryo is one of the pioneers of the jazz fusion genre, with the Japanese jazz fusion / funk sound becoming extremely influential within the 80s UK club scene and amongst …

**Deluxe edition in wooden box with color print on the lid that reproduces original Alchemy cover. Contains double vinyl with white label, exclusive black t-shirt in premium cotton, unreleased A4 draw by Takuya Sakaguchi, a big poster, a numbered certificate in 99 copies plus six cards reproducing Takuya Sakaguchi's original drawings and adding an unreleased drawing and extensive notes in Japanese and English. **  Incapacitants are the best noise band to ever come out of Japan; the group was for…

2025 Stock, very last copies. "Merzbow's unpublished/excavated archive series by Slowdown Records began to be released in 2018, and so far 15 chapters have been published. This "35 CD Box" contains chapters 11-15 of this archival series, with the addition of "2017-2020" (5CD), a collection of five original Merzbow albums released on Slowdown Records from 2017 to 2020. These chapters are presented in chronological order of when the recordings were made, and each chapter was compiled with some con…

"The Merzbow Archive Series from Slowdown Records is a collection of unreleased or unearthed Merzbow recordings. So far, fifteen series have been released, each series distinguished by recording period and musical theme. Each individual series consists of six albums. This "New Ear Control" is the 16th in the series and is comprised of six albums: "Nil Cluster," "Lacrima," "Bluedron," "Orthogenesis," "450Q," and "Noise 5706". This archive series by Slowdown Records began in 2018 and has compiled …

"The Merzbow Archive Series from Slowdown Records is a collection of unreleased or unearthed Merzbow recordings. So far, fourteen series have been released, each series distinguished by recording period and musical theme. Each individual series consists of six albums. In its 15th series, six albums were released, "Purple Fish", "Janus Guitar", "Beetle", "Seven Sides", "White Bird", and "Persimmon Mask", containing material from 2014 to 2015. This box set "After Hours" is a compilation of those s…

Tip! CD Edition. Available from Blank Forms for the first time since its original 1980 release on ALM-Uranoia, New Sense of Hearing  documents a collaboration between Takehisa Kosugi and Akio Suzuki, two luminaries of Japanese experimental music in the lineage of Fluxus. Blank Forms’s high-quality reissue of the sought-after, long out of print LP, is produced by musician-artist Aki Onda and mastered from the original tapes recorded on April 2, 1979, at Tokyo’s Aeolian Hall.  Described by Suzuki …

*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Out via Old Europa Café in early September is the CD re-edition of an ultra-rare Merzbow tape, “Flesh Metal Orgasm”, which was originally released in 1989 on Nihilistic Recordings and then re-released in 2010 by Blossoming Noise. Both editions are long time sold out and this is the first time this album is released on CD format. Recorded live at the ZSF Studio in September 1988, the tapes and CD hold 2 tracks, “No-1” (21:50) and “No-2” (24:14). The material for t…

*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Re-edition of the cult tape out on OEC in 1996 and long time sold out. Best and historical Japanoise with the use of junk metal scraping for which Kimihide is well known. An alternative and perfect sound-track to  "Tetsuo - The Iron Man". The sensation of a real steel desert around Tokyo....

*In process of stocking* Absinthe Records present a reissue of Flower Travellin' Band's Made in Japan - originally released in 1972. Following critical acclaim but meager record sales in their native Japan after their superb debut album, Satori (ASH 3002CD/LP), Yuya Uchida and his Flower Travellin' Band decamped to Canada following an invitation to open for local jazz-rock outfit Lighthouse. While there, Lighthouse leader and keyboard player Paul Hoffert offered to produce the band's next studio…

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 later in his care…

*Limited edition of 300 copies.* Music by Masami Akita. Recorded and mixed at Bedroom in Tokyo, August 2007. Originally this album was released by Quasi Pop Records in 2007 in Ukraine. Full of ice-breaking analogue feedbacks over dense overdrived textures, some beasty, pulsing rhythmic elements on the background and rollercoaster's LFO spazmes of analogue synth. This is the bright example of modern "post-analogue-post-laptop era" sound of Merzbow: these compositions are wild at heart as the wild…

Despite his status as a key figure in the history of Japanese ambient music, Hiroshi Yoshimura remains tragically under-known outside of his home country. Empire of Signs – a new imprint co-helmed by Maxwell August Croy, Spencer Doran and distributed by Light In The Attic – is proud to reissue Yoshimura’s debut Music for Nine Post Cards for the first time outside Japan in collaboration with Hiroshi’s widow Yoko Yoshimura, with more reissues of Hiroshi’s works to follow in the future. Working ini…

* 2022 repress! Limited edition LP including 16-page inserts with words in Japanese and English from Meitei and design by Kitchen. Label founder Ricks Ang * It began with ‘Kwaidan’, a simmering study on the lost art of Japanese ghost story-telling. Then there was ‘Komachi’, baptized in the earthly winds and static that define its comforting sonics. On ‘Kofū’, Meitei masterfully closes his trilogy of lost Japanese moods with an engaging interrogation of artforms and aesthetics as a provocation —…

** 80 coloured copies on white/blue marbled vinyl. Includes insert and obi. ** Recorded in November 1969 at Teichiku Kaikan Studio, Tokyo, "Speed ​​and Space - The Concept of Space in Music" is one of those landmark works in which Masahiko Togashi is accompanied by talented musicians who possess a unique style and innovative approach. The album is an exploration of Togashi's notion of the “Time Law" and can be seen as a study of how texture, rhythm and differing rates of change effect our percep…

** 80 coloured copies on golden vinyl. Includes insert and obi. ** The quintessential album by Takayanagi Masayuki. Considered the 'Lochness monster' of Japanese free jazz records due to its incredible rarity, this album was the debut recording of Takayanagi Masayuki as leader with The New Directions, a trio consisting out of bassist Yoshizawa and drummer Toyozumi "Sabu" Yoshisaburo. Recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan studios on 18 September 1969 (released in 1970), "Independence – Tread on Sure Gr…

Richard Pinhas, Merzbow and Wolf Eyes together at Victoriaville on 20 May 2011: guitars, electronics, tapes, saxophone and voice in a spontaneous five-way noise session.