Music from Japan

**Finally repressed on cream coloured vinyl, now includes a 12-page booklet!** Meitei considers himself an old soul, often preoccupied with the customs and rituals of the past. Recently Meitei lost his beloved 99-year-old grandmother, a woman who he considered to be one of the last remaining people to have experience and understanding of traditional Japanese ambience. His music and art is driven by a desire to cast light on an era and aesthetic that he believes is drifting out of the collective …

Matte laminate CD, embossed artwork, insert card and 28 page book. In 1979, Akio Suzuki recorded a performance, ’New Sense Of Hearing’, at the Nagoya American Centre. During the performance, Suzuki used voice, turntables, glass harmonica and his self-designed instrument the Analapos to create a series of improvised pieces that effectively charted out his sonic investigations for the proceeding decades.  In 1980 these recordings were issued by ALM records as Analapos, the first work made publicly…

In June 2019, Masami Akita, better known as Merzbow travelled to Australia to take part in Room40’s Open Frame festival.  Across a week he delivered a series of performances to sold out audiences in Sydney and Melbourne. The performances were viscerally explosive, a channeling of intensities of frequency and volume - the kind of trademarked bodily affective noise Merzbow has become renowned for.  Between the concerts, Akita spent his days visiting a variety of forests, spending time with legenda…

An absolutely necessary survey of one of Japanese Noise originators and elder statesmen during the 1990s, "Burst After Burst" returns the ear to the fascinatingly singular, and endlessly evolving world of K2. It's like nothing else.

Follow-up to Atsusaku (2016) by Gareth Davis (bass clarinet) and Merzbow. The earlier theme of mechanical compression is here extended into a meditation on the fears of mechanisation in the natural environment: North Sea wind farms, Southern Californian industry, the survival of animals in overrun habitats. Three tracks of impenetrable manipulated field recordings against saturated bass clarinet midrange and Merzbow's analogue/digital crossfire, with brief recognisable voices flashing through.

"This recording is not a 'best of', it is a reflection of Tori Kudo's evolution as a composer, from playing with seasoned musicians, to playing with people just starting out, from playing with meticulous scores, to playing call & response melodies written down, to the songs here on Je est un Autre: instant improvisations based on keyboard compositions that Tori plays for the group. Yes, that is it. He plays a recording of himself on the keyboard, with singing or humming sometimes and he leaves i…

Foreign Policy is a 2019 release for Malaysian experimental label LaoBan Records featuring legendary Tokyo saxophonist Hirose Junji, no-input mixing board pioneer Toshimaru Nakamura and Australian master percussionist Darren Moore. The album was recorded live at Ftarri which is the undisputed centre for improvised music in Tokyo. Recorded over two live performances in 2017, the playing represents the trio's disdain for conforming; gliding seamlessly from minimalist Onkyo to maximalist free jazz …

Om Kult 1-3 – the complete Om Kult 3CD triptych, recorded and processed at Om Kult Osaka between 2016 and 2018.  Evolving from his extended “Brainnectar” studies on psycho-spiritual cleansing rituals derived from various shamanic and yogatantric traditions - and his examinations of aural hallucinations and paranormal perceptions - Rudolf Eb.er focuses now on the occult knowledge and techniques for the transition from life to death, on the ejecting mind as well as on the decomposing human body. F…

Black Ice and Milky Clear Quad Effect with Rainbow Splatter Standard Gram Relapse presents a remastered reissue from the undisputed king of Japanese noise-Merzbow. "Pulse Demon" is one of the most celebrated releases of Masami Akita's storied 4 decade long career. Composed entirely by live noise concrete and the use of a fuzz box, "Pulse Demon" eschews all overdubs and studio trickery, laying Merzbow bare. What follows in these recordings is the pure essence of unfettered noise. The rawness in …

Custom Color Twist Edition. The undisputed king of Japanese noise Merzbow returns, as the landmark album 'Venereology' celebrates 25 tinnitus-inducing years with its inaugural vinyl pressing! Remastered by James Plotkin (Isis, Electric Wizard, Full Of Hell, and more) and featuring reworked art, this is the most extreme recording of harsh electronic sickness you will ever own! 'Venereology' features a second LP with more than 20 minutes of unreleased bonus material. By 1994, Merzbow had a signifi…

**299 copies** It’s a great moment for reissues of ambitious, historical gestures of the noise from Japan. One after the other, these artifacts have emerged from the shadows, entirely rewriting what so many of us thought we knew. Now, at long last, before us rest another piece in the puzzle - the first ever vinyl reissue of one of the most sought after artifacts from the 80s noise scene - Incapacitants' Project Pallo '85, originally issued in 1985 by Pariah Tapes, and now reemerging in a new edi…

Hospital Productions present a reissue of Masonna's first full-length CD from 1990, Shinsen Na Clitoris, originally on Vanilla Records. The supreme voice of Japanese noise here on vinyl for the first time with audio preparation by Kris Lapke. What would become an inimitable explosion of energy and vision from Japan heralded in the glory days of '90s alternative rock, death metal, and psychedelic synth music, Masonna surpassed all extremes with a full frequency violence that was as fast as it was…

**350 copies** Hospital Productions present a reissue of Incapacitants' Stupid Is Stupid, originally released in 1993. In 1993, founding fathers of Japan noise T. Mikawa and F. Kosokai revealed Stupid Is Stupid, one of the most classic titles to emerge from the criminally underrated and revered Incapacitants. A seminal document already over a decade into the duo's unrelenting path of pure chaos after their formation in 1981, Stupid Is Stupid was released as a double cassette on the equally influ…

Le Tres Jazz Club present a first time vinyl reissue of Hiromasa Suzuki's Primrose, originally released in 1978. Hiromasa Suzuki is a Japanese pianist who began his recording career in the early '70s. Nicknamed "Colgen" in Japan, he is well-known for two amazing records combining jazz-fusion and traditional Japanese instruments (Rock-Joint Biwa and Rock-Joint Cipher on the RCA label), jazz-funk oriented albums (High-Flying and Skip Step Colgen), and the famous record from the Electro Keyboard Or…

**300 copies** 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 Mar…

First collaboration ever between noise legend Merzbow and visionary/provocateur Kaoru Sato of R.N.A. Organism (Vanity Records). Edition of 300. Side A: live recording of Merzbow and Kaoru Sato’s first live collaboration ever. Recorded October 21st 2018 at Metro club in Kyoto for a three-label showcase with avant-garde imprints Slowdown, Phonon and Kyoh Records.  Side B: Solo sessions by each artist that took place after the joint performance on the same night. Edited and mixed in their respectiv…

**199 copies** Japanese sound artist Kimihide Kusafuka, better known as K2, originally came onto the scene in 1981, in order to explore the possibility of noise. The activities at that time were only the creation of cassette works and actions in the world of mail-art with no live performance. A few years later, he suspended his music activities to concentrate on his studies and returned in 1993 after having just graduated as a Pathologist.K2 perceives no alteration between the act of making nois…

Japanese experimental group Les Rallizes Denudes are the ultimate rock'n' roll enigma. Sometimes referred to as Hadaka no Rallizes or even as Hadaka no Rarizu, each appellation a variant of the name "Fucked Up and Naked" which equates to being high on hard drugs, they are seen as noise-rock pioneers, yet sifting fact from fiction isn’t easy with their oddball tale.Emerging from the radical hippie communes of Kyoto during the late 1960s, the band was formed in November 1967 by university student …

***180 gram orange vinyl, 2019 stock*** Phoenix Records present a reissue of Flower Travellin' Band's Anywhere - originally released in 1970 - the debut album from the legendary Japanese rockers fronted by Yuya Uchida. Although consisting mainly of cover versions, Anywhere still exhibited many of the musical traits that were to come to the fore on the band's next release, the classic Satori, an album of original material delivered with panache by the increasingly confident Uchida in 1971. Anywhe…

** 3 CD with printed wallets in Jute bag with 2 pins. Edition of 200 copies ** Recorded and mixed at Lowest Music & Arts, Tokyo April & May 5 1982 Masami Akita -Tapes, Guitar, Drum Machine, Noise, Effects, Percussions, Rhythm, Radio, TV, Electronics, Junk, Bass Guitar + Kiyoshi Mizutani - Violin, Percussion Originally released on cassette (Aeon, USA )1983 Later released on CD as part of the ‘Merzbox’ (Extreme,Australia) 2000. Re-mastered at Munemihouse, Tokyo 2018 This is the first installment o…