Live in Australia
Taku Sugimoto is an extremely restrained guitarist who produces very few sounds in performance, allowing silence to be the controlling force. As an improviser and composer, he's garnered international acclaim, and also provoked strong reactions, both positive and negative. This two-CD set documents Sugimoto's live performances, in Australia in September 2003, of two of his own compositions (one per CD): 'Dot (73)' and 'Music for Amplified Guitar.' Environmental sounds -- listeners' coughs, foots…
48
Drummer Shoji Hano began his performing career in the '80s, playing with artists like Toshinori Kondo (trumpet) and Kaoru Abe (alto sax, etc.). Since his first European tour in 1990, he has played in many countries and collaborated with a wide range of musicians. Some of Hano's performances with sax players Peter Brotzmann of Germany and the late Werner Ludi of Switzerland, American bassist William Parker, English guitarist Derek Bailey, etc., have been recorded on CD. As evidenced by his great …
Musen / is
Ultra-heavy first album by new PSF super group, SANJA, consisting of gravel 'n' glass voiced crooner Kan Mikami, the scene's heaviest tub thumper Toshi Ishizuka, and alto terrorist and veritable rock'n' roll breather Masayoshi Urabe. The three first played together at a concert to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of PSF Records last year, and the intensity of the heat they generated has already become the stuff of Tokyo underground legend. The trio were quickly hustled into a studio to …
Secrets of teaching yourself music
Samm Bennett (Korg WaveDrum, vibrators and contact mics, Korg ER-1, Alesis AirSynth, Casio VL-Tone, CD player, Bias, bumble ball, can, gong, beepers, effectors and crank-toy with portable karaoke mic). Percussionist Samm Bennett was active on the New York improvised music scene in the '80s and '90s. Later he moved to Tokyo, where he's been involved in multidirectional projects including SKIST (his duo with Haruna Ito) and R.U.B. (his trio with Kazuhisa Uchihashi and Ned Rothenberg). From early o…
Bar
Sachiko M with two sinewaves on one empty sampler. Sachiko M is a musician who uses the sampler as an instrument. Rather than apply the device's original function of sampling recorded material, she makes music using nothing but its internal test tone sine waves. Her approach to this radically minimalistic sound and meticulously thorough music has created a sensation worldwide. Currently one of the most sought-after improvisers on the scene, Sachiko M collaborates with influential artists both in…
Funny rat
Free jazz drummer Shoji Hano and German saxophone giant-leading European free improviser Peter Brotzmann first met in Japan in the early eighties. In 1990 Hano went to Europe for the first time and played with Brötzmann; then he invited Brotzmann to Japan for a duo tour in fall '91. This album is the complete recording of a concert they gave during that tour, at Aku Aku in Tsukuba. In '92 Hano released (on his label EGG) a cassette tape of that performance, with the same title, omitting one of t…
Recorded
All tracks improvised and composed by Optrum: Atsuhiro Ito: optron. Yoichiro Shin: drums. Recorded by Fumiaki Unehara at Swing Bamboo Studio, Tokyo, March 2006 (except 3, 10, 14,) (3) and (14) recorded by Optrum. (10) recorded live at Muryoku Muzenji. Mixed and edited by Yoichiro Shin and Atsuhiro Ito at Incomplete Studio.Mastered by Toshimaru Nakamura. Inside card photo by Miho Kakuta. Design by Akira Sasaki. 'Optrum is made up of Atsuhiro Ito, who plays a modified fluorescent bulb called the O…
Live independence
Another previously unreleased archive release from Takayanagi, the premier Japanese free-guitar stylist. Recorded live in 1970, waves of trademark feedback abound, but also some more serene segments with flute, freedom atmospherics, etc. Not as overwhelmingly brain-bombing as his previous release on the label (PSF 41), but definitely another important piece in the crucial documentation of Takayanagi's career.
Call in the question
Takayanagi is the premier free-guitarist legend in the Japanese underground story. This CD features unreleased material by the master, from 1970. The sound is heavy improv, with Takayangi's explosive feedback wail in prominent display. As fine an introduction to his music as you could hope for (most of his albums from the '60s & '70s are impossible to track down)
Eclipse
Originally released in 1975 as an LP on Iskra Records (ISKRA-001). 'First session 1: Gradually Projection'. 'First session 2: Gradually Projection'. 'Second session: Mass Projection'. New Direction Unit are Masayuki Takayanagi: electric guitar. Kenji Mori: alto saxophone, flute, recorder. Nobuyoshi Ino: bass. Hiroshi Yamazaki: drums, percussion. Recorded by Mikio Aoki in Tokyo, March 14, 1975. Includes liner notes in English by Alan Cummings.
Axis another revolvable thing. Vol.2
Originally released in 1976 as an LP on Offbeat Records (ORLP-1009). Masayuki takayanagi New Direction Unit. Masayuki takayanagi: guitar. Kenji Mori: reeds. Nobuyoshi Ino: bass, cello. Hiroshi Yamazaki: percussion. Recorded live at Yasuda Seimei Hall, Tokyo, September 5, 1975. Remastered by Tsutomu Suto. 'Fragment I: Gradually Projection'. 'Fragment IV: Mass Projection'. 'Fragment V: Mass Projection'. All compositions by Masayuki takayanagi. Includes liner notes by Teruto Soejima in Japanese an…
Axis another revolvable thing
restocked! Originally released in 1975 as an LP on Offbeat Records (ORLP-1005). 'Fragment II: Gradually Projection'. 'Fragment III: Percussion Solo'. 'Fragment VI: Mass Projection'. All compositions by Masayuki takayanagi. Masayuki takayanagi New Direction Unit: Masayuki takayanagi: guitar. Kenji Mori: reeds. Nobuyoshi Ino: bass, cello. Hiroshi Yamazaki: percussion. Recorded live at Yasuda Seimei Hall, Tokyo, September 5, 1975. Remastered by Tsutomu Suto. 'One begins to see--and hear--each sound…
Time service
Over the past few years, alto sax player Masahiko Okura has led an astonishingly full and varied musical life. Active as a soloist, as leader of the jazz-rock band Gnu, and as a member of the improvisational trio Bject (with Tetuzi Akiyama and Utah Kawasaki), he also collaborates with many other improvisers, including Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Ami Yoshida, Axel Dörner, Alessandro Bosetti, Werner Dafeldecker, and Günter Müller. With the recent addition to his repertoire of two more instrume…
s/t
gorgeous 4cd set (each copy packaged in a different cloth bag) by kazuo imai’s marginal consort - a collective formed in one of takehisa koshugi’s classes at bigakko art school in 1975 which continues to this very day...the lineup includes imai (a student/assistant of masayuki takayanagi’s who later formed east bionic symphonia (essentially an earlier version of this very group with chie mukai) and eventually joined taj mahal travelers and takayanagi’s new direction unit), yasushi ozawa (a membe…
Moon ether
Voice and theremin solo. Makigami Koichi is one of best voice performer in the world. Moon ether is his improvisation of voice and theremin except 1 & 11 are Asian folksong. This works includes his marvelous Khoomii singing -double voice, humor, free theremin playing, a taste of impromptu talent, sound effect, etc... Shadowlike, the theremin sings. The ether dances Makigami Koichi. Makigami Koichi ; voice, throat, theremin with moogerfooger. Recorded and mixed by Makigami Koichi, dec, 2005 - feb…
1979 First live
Jutok Kaneko (guitar), Mick (vocals), Hiroshi Yokoyama (synth) and Toshiko Watanabe (drums). 'Miraculously unearthed live tape from one of the earliest incarnations of Tokyo heavy psychedelic legends Kousokuya. For a group with a 25-year history on the Tokyo underground scene, Kousokuya have left very little imprint of their activities. Once heard, though, their sound is unmistakeable Ð a grinding, soaring sonic-blackhole that charts the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one else this side of…
Aluk
Vienna artist Klaus Filip plays music using nothing but sine waves produced with 'lloopp,' an improvisation software program he invented and continues to refine. Toshimaru Nakamura makes music simply by controlling a mixing board's internal feedback, inputting no external sounds. Two artists with highly individual playing methods, they came together to create this album of improvisational works. Two of the three tracks were recorded in a Tokyo studio in May of 2005, when Filip came to Japan alon…
Tayutayuto
Sato’s first studio meeting with Keiji Haino sees a rare melding of open minds and taut strings. Common languages are invented, experimented with and discarded at will. Haino revisits the evocative nylon-strung guitar style he first explored on Hikair yami uchitokeaish kono hibiki (PSFD-8017), laying down fields and forests of string texture, while Sato burns blazing trails of narrow-beam intensity straight through the middle of your skull.
You should draw out the billion and first prayer
The dark elf of the current Japanese noise psych scene, Mr. Keiji hAINO (from Fushitsusha, and many other projects) teams up with Eddie and Bill (they're girls, really!) from the heavy Japanese bass drums combo COA. Previously hAINO has collaborated in a similar fashion with Tokyo heavies Boris, so he's obviously into rockin' with some younger musicians outside of the typical PSF psych folk axis. That's not to say this isn't folky and psychedelic, as parts of it surely are. Together, Bill and Ed…
To start with, let’s remove the colour !
Gorgeous new bag of home-recorded mystery from Haino. Apparently recorded alone, late at night and at minimal volume, these latest recordings tremble with the same deep-welled emotional sensitivity and sense of veiled threat that animated classics like Watashi Dake?, Affection and Era of Sad Wings.