Music from Japan

A very cool mix of music by the legendary Toshiro Mayuzumi a Japanese composer known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from jazz to Balinese music, and he was considered a pioneer in the realm of musique concrète and electronic music– served up here on a soundtrack that's almost like having an audio version of a movie! The songs are all relatively short, and are …

A marvelous jazz session from 1966 : Sadao Watanabe (alto sax) Terumasa Hino, Masahiko Togashi (drums) Masanaga Harada (bass), Masao Yagi (piano), Hozan Yamamoto (bamboo flute). "A totally cool Japanese soundtrack from the 60s – one that's as much of a jazz album as it is a film score! The group features saxes from Sadao Watanabe and trumpet from Terumasa Hino – part of a lineup that would already make the music sound great on paper, although it's even better on record! The tracks all have…

CD Edition. Replica reissue of one of the rarest free jazz LP ever made: Masayuki Takayanagi & Kaoru Abe's earthshattering Kaitai Teki Kōkan. Supposedly released in a limited run of 100 copies in 1970, this incredibly rare record igot finally  its first vinyl reissue via Craftman Records. The album features a recording of the duo’s live performance at the Kōsei Nenkin Kaikan concert hall in Shinjuku on June 28th, 1970. The reissue also includes a replica flyer that advertised the original event.…

2012 release. The great German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brotzmann (also playing clarinet and tarogato on this album) is joined by Masahiko Satoh on piano and Takeo Moriyama on drums on this exciting and frequently thrilling album which was recorded in November of 2011 in Krakow, Poland. The title track “Yatagarasu” leads off the album with wailing saxophone, piano and drums. It’s interesting to hear Brotzmann perform with a pianist, something that I have rarely heard him do. He even drops out…

Swiss drummer Nicolas Field (1975) has been collaborating with Japanese saxophone player living-legend Akira Sakata since his first visits in Japan in 2006. Nicolas Field is born in London in 1975. He studied drums and percussion at the Amsterdam Conservatorium (1996-2002), sonology at The Hague Conservatorium (1997-2002) and "Art and media" at HEAD in Geneva (2007-2009). He has received multiple awards and was artist in residence at the Swiss Institute in Rome (2010-11), AirAntwerpen (2011), Be…

**Edition of 250, wooden box edition** Along with Merzbow and Hijokaidan, Masonna is one of the best (known) Japanese noise projects. A psychedelic touch, cascades of electronic noise and vocal belching mixed together constitute the ingredients of Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé, the double-barrelled named for Masonna. Yamazaki “Maso” Takushi created Masonna in 1987. He started recordings on cassette tapes for his own label: Coquette. His plentiful productions were prese…

** restcoked, reduced price** LP reissue of the latest Vasilisk album. Vasilisk’s inception dates back thirty years to 1987 as a result of the demise of the pioneering noise group, White Hospital.  After a number of inactive years, their seven-track Tribal Zone album was initially created in 2012.  The album presents a unique blend of cavernous drones, shamanistic percussive beats (i.e. track 4, “Burning Monk” or track 5, “Into The Circle”) and sometimes simple/other times complex and organic so…

Edition of 300 copies, newly remastered for optimal sound.The meeting of Masahiko Sato with Albert Mangelsdorff in a recording studio was planned in summer ‘71. Sato, Japan’s leading pianist, had recorded with Wolfgang Dauner, Attila Zoller, Jean-Luc Ponty, Gary Peacock and Charles Mingus. He wanted to play on a record with Albert Mangelsdorff and as both were invited for the Berlin Jazz Festival 1971 there was a good opportunity to record them there. This – first released as an original ENJA pr…

Limited edition of 200 copies. First ever official vinyl re-issue of this classic 1988 Masami Akita side project. Originally published on LP in 1989 by Masami Akita own label ZSF Produkt. Re-issued in an expanded version on CD as part of the Merzbow in the year 2000. This re-issue includes the expanded version on 3 LP and also on 2 CD. Remastered from original tape. In an interview with Arthur Potter, Akita explained that the album "is an attempt to cut up and mix all of the Merzbow sounds I've …

"Exit Future Heart" is an LP of improvised sessions by the conjoined ensemble of Tokyo—based abstract pop duo Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa and Chicago’s free music trio Good Willsmith. "Exit Future Heart" follows three Good Willsmith albums released on Umor Rex and three albums by Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa on Thrill Jockey. Recorded live at home in Chicago over the course of one night when Wong and Minekawa passed through on tour, Exit Future Heart showcases a program of spontaneous com…

**warehouse find, last copies, originally this LP was available only as a part of 4LP boxet Musick For Liberation And Ecstasy** and unavailable as stand alone release**  Formed in Japan after the collapse of the noisy, SPK-ish White Hospital — the other half of which, Jun Konagaya, went on to continue as Grim — Vasilisk consisted of Tomo Kuwabara and Yukio Nagoshi, with other members (including longtime fixture of the Japanese underground, drummer Tatsuya Yoshida) joining in from time to time. L…

2018 repress. Gorgeous and essential archive material from this master of mood. The latest unearthing on Chee Shimizu's 17853 - previously only available on a very limited Japanese cassette back early 80s. The late Hiroshi Yoshimura, a pioneer of Japanese ambient music. Yoshimura was involved in a wide range of fields, such as sound design for public installations, graphic design, visual poetry, free improvised performance (using his own body) and inventing his own instruments, right up until he…

'90s iconoclast Masonna brand new work. Controlled Death is a new project by the Japanese noise legend Masonna and this is first official release after a live show in Osaka, Japan. The tracks on the records  are based on obsessive and compulsive synth drones with voice, effects and tapes. The smell of death is soaked in every sound produced by the brilliant mind of Maso Yamazaki. Anxiety, alienation and hypochondria turn into a deep paranoia in pain. Without hesitation, the bodies are emptied, l…

Hospital Productions present a vinyl reissue of Merzbow's Noisembryo, originally released on CD by The Releasing Eskimo in 1994. Noisembryo is a holy grail, not only of Merzbow's obsessive discography, but of the entire '90s noise movement. You've heard the stories surrounding the infamy of this release, but beyond that stands the depth and wild energy that Noisembryo encapsulates over two decades later. High-speed loops, roving automotive bass, and cacophonic drum machines gel together with the…

2026 Repress. Captured live on a single night — 26 June 1963 — at the Ginparis café in Ginza and held back from release until 1972, when Takeshi "Tee" Fujii founded Three Blind Mice and chose it as the label's ninth title, Ginparis Session is the foundational document of Japanese free jazz. The recording captures the 新世紀音楽研究所 (Shinseiki Ongaku Kenkyūjo, "New Century Music Research Institute"), the study collective convened by Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi and Masahiko Togashi as a workshop committe…

Another legendary avantgarde soundtrack from Tokyo Senso Sengo Hiwa [The Man Who Left His Will on Film] directed by Nagisa Oshima, originally released in August 1970. Oshima’s avant-radical blend of Marxist politics, agitprop cool, and softcore is a heady time capsule of early 1970s Japanese counterculture, with a dreamy pop score by the great Toru Takemitsu

In the continuing onslaught of Merzbow releases, the Japanophile Italian label Menstrual releases a new CD from everyone's favorite Japanese noisemonger, the mighty Merzbow. This is very early period Merzbow. Originally released as a private tape and distributed in a very few copies.Remastered from original cassette tape in 2017 at Munemihause, Tokyo.Masami Akita : Prepared Guitar, Tabla, Synare-3, Junk Percussion, Drums, Radio and TapesOrgan and Piano source material by Kiyoshi Mizutani.Recorde…

Proton Pump is a milestone achievement in the winding career of alto saxophonist, gibberish shrieker and jazz legend Akira Sakata. It’s a lightning-fast, real-time cut-up of melody and bare-knuckle action that swings between the avant garde and hardcore be-bop. Sakata is backed by his famed rhythm crew Chikamorachi -- drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray -- and joined by composer and pianist Masahiko Satoh. Sakata and Satoh emerged out of the late-1960s Tokyo jazz scene -- S…

Living legend Phew follows up her brilliant Light Sleep album with another masterwork - Voice Hardcore - comprised entirely of her iconic, instantly recognizable voice, twisted, folded and layered over six mesmerizing tracks.. Startling side of pelting drum machines and psychedelic noise from Japanese synth/punk pioneer Hiromi Moritani a.k.a. Phew; an avant-garde vocalist who started out in art-punk unit Aunt Sally (whose only full-length was released by Vanity Records in 1979) and has …

Startling side of pelting drum machines and psychedelic noise from Japanese synth/punk pioneer Hiromi Moritani a.k.a. Phew; an avant-garde vocalist who started out in art-punk unit Aunt Sally (whose only full-length was released by Vanity Records in 1979) and has since collaborated with everyone from Ryuinchi Sakamoto to Can, DAF and Bill Laswell during an illustrious career. Light Sleep packs the kind of febrile energy and thrust that you might expect from a young, new artist enthralled wi…