Barking practice-White lines
Kanryu: Debut Live in Korea 2006 sees Mikami reunited with the masterful Korean komungo player and vocalist Shin Heyon, who played together him on the Fukon group release (PSFD-8001). Eight years on that epochal cross-cultural meeting, Mikami journeyed to Seoul for two nights of concerts. Shin's stringed komungo brings a thick and knotted presence to the overall sound, while Seoul-resident Japanese musician Sato Yukie tosses in swirling metallic blats of electronics and guitar. There's a gorgeou…
Jazz
Incredible screaming voice and guitar sound. New dimensions of real Japanese folk legend.
In case of fire take the stairs
Kaffe Matthews (laptop), Andrea Neumann (inside piano), Sachiko M (sinewaves, contact microphones). Recorded live in Tokyo, 3/17/02. Although I and II include two and three tracks, respectively, each is a single work. They are divided into multiple tracks for listeners' convenience. Kaffe Matthews created her sound by live-sampling and processing her own and the other musicians' sounds as they played.
Territory
Imahori Tsuneo (guitars, devices) & Yoshida Tatsuya (drums, darbuka, voices, devices). This work was created by Yoshida Tatsuya and Imahori Tsuneo through a process consisting of composition and improvisation; and file exchange, overdubbing, and extensive editing on computer. Japanese hyper duet works by Imahori Tsuneo and Yoshida Tatsuya. This work reveals their remarkable aptitude for music through their improvisation, composition, extensive editing and so on. Play it loud!
Flashback
The private home recordings presented here have been unearthed by Masayoshi Urabe which seem to date from around 1983. There's the unmistakable feel of low-level mania throughout, as Kawani moans, jabbers and obsesses wordlessly into a microphone over an patterned tapestry of feedback and amped everyday objects (rubber bands, cans, bottles, knives, steel pipes, shoes, chopsticks etc). Includes English linernotes.
Across the desert
European free jazz/free improvisation pioneer Han Bennink (drums) made this studio recording with Kazuo Imai (guitar) in Tokyo in May of 2002. Imai, who in the '70s studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, currently performs both on his own and with the annual five-member collective improvisation project Marginal Consort. Across the Desert contains nine duo pieces. Imai plays both acoustic and electric guitar while Bennink delivers strong, constantly changing rhythms. Here are two m…
Stereo bugscope 00
Starting with her work in After Dinner in the '80s, up to her current activity as a soloist and in projects like the female trio Hoahio, and Yesterday's Heroes, with Terre Thaemlitz, Haco has long been the reigning songstress of avant-garde music. But she isn't only a highly acclaimed vocalist and composer/lyricist; in recent years she's been exploring areas unrelated to vocalizing or pop melodies, with projects that focus on the sounds that surround us in our daily lives. One of these is View M…
1st (Live)
This is where it all began. One of the first releases on the then fledgling PSF label was a DLP by FUSHITSUSHA, Keiji Haino's ultimate rock unit.
Eien no houga saki ni te o dashitanosa
From 1978, the earliest group recordings by Fushitsusha yet to be released. A vital document for understanding the Japanese underground and the truest, most exciting rock group of the contemporary era. Now here's something unexpected and utterly fascinating. The earliest years of Fushitsusha have long been shrouded in mystery, palely illumined by only the dimmest of rumours and half-facts. As a live entity the group seems to have begun sometime in 1978 (also the year that Friction, Japan's first…
Balance of chaos
Thrilling document of seriously wired Japanese improv collective, raising electric ghosts and phantom sonorities live in New York. Exias-J (short for Experimental Improviser's Association of Japan) have been around since 2000, and this is their second release on PSF. The group express a dedication to bringing the sounds of classic euro free improv into collision with free jazz, minimalism, electronic music, scalp-raising rock improv and a dozen other musical discourses. Balance of Chaos captures…
Lunch in Nishinomiga
In the trio album Lunch in Nishinomiya, Haco (contact microphones, oscillators, effects) joins forces with two leading Montreal improvisers known for their innovative playing-Diane Labrosse (sampler) and Martin Tétreault (turntable, surfaces, small electronics). When Labrosse and Tétreault came to Japan in 2003, they found a kindred spirit in Haco. The three recorded an improvised music session at Haco's studio in Nishinomiya (near Osaka), and later completed the construction and mix through an …
Debon
Brast Burn was a legendarily obscure Japanese ensemble that existed in the first half (I presume) of the 1970s. For many years, they were known only as an entry in the notorious Nurse With Wound list, with no way for anyone to check them out. Thus this CD. First off, I'll say that it sounds really good. One would never guess that it was a transfer from vinyl. Brast Burn has been cited/promoted at various times as the "Japanese Faust". I feel that this is incorrect. A better analogy would be to …
Vorhernach
This is a duo album by trumpeter Axel Dörner, who is one of the leading artists on the new Berlin improvised music scene, and no-input mixing board player Toshimaru Nakamura, who garners critical acclaim in the West as well as in Japan. Dörner's playing is far removed from conventional trumpet styles: he constructs his sound mainly from hissing noises, clicks and sputters. Nakamura spins out a delicate electronic sound using only the mixing board's internal feedback. At times they produce sounds…
s/t
One CD with Astro Twin : Ami Yoshida (voice) and Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer). One CD with Cosmos : Sachiko M (sinewaves and contact-mics) and Ami Yoshida (voice).
Contemporary kagura-metaphysics
A work of contemporary music performed in the rock idiom by Japanese underground rock legend, Asahito Nanjo. Nanjo is active in a wide variety of rock groups, but Group Musica exits in order to pursue a more universal musical vibration. Group Musica is an ensemble that pursues the free use of every type of Western and Eastern musical instrument, is propelled by the vibrations of very subtle rhythms, and that has internalized the methodology of minimalism. The concept behind this album is transfo…
Tiger thrush
The long-awaited solo album of amazing 'howling voice' performer Ami Yoshida is finally here. It's hard to believe Yoshida's sounds, with their myriad nuances, are those of a human voice -- they could easily be mistaken for minute digital noises. Over the past several years, this artist's work -- including projects with Yoshihide Otomo (guitar, turntable); and the duos Cosmos, with Sachiko M (sinewaves), and Astro Twin, with Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer) -- has garnered considerable attenti…
Red field
'Trained as a classical guitarist, Akinori has more recently worked as an assistant and engineer to Tango-based sound artist and instrument builder Akio Suzuki. His debut album is an attempt to fuse guitar with electronic music, and this track includes local acoustic elements of the Tango Peninsula, including the local 'singing sands' and insect noises from neighbouring fields. 'Hören
Time drops
This mini CD follows on from her previous electroacoustic composition on 'Variations 2 - a London compilation' Paradigm Discs (PD 05). It includes one new piece and a reissue of 'Ab Ovo', previously released on '5 composers second coming' Fylkingen (FYCD 1003). The 2 pieces explore a broad range of traditional electronic techniques, both subtle and powerful. Time Drops (2000). A single stroke of a bell, in its decay, sometimes evokes a sense of infinity in our mind. Time Drops is an attempt to e…