★ALM
Overhang-Party (A Memorial To Kaoru Abe)
Tip! *2025 stock* Reissue of the landmark free jazz album "Overhang-Party (A Memorial To Kaoru Abe)" by the visionary Abe-Toyozumi Duo. Originally recorded in Tokyo in August 1978 and released in 1979, this historic release stands as a breathtaking testament to the artistry and legacy of legendary Japanese saxophonist Kaoru Abe, with dynamic support from renowned percussionist Sabu (Yoshisaburo) Toyozumi.
"Overhang-Party" captures the electrifying chemistry between Abe and Toyozumi, two leading …
K7 Box
*2025 stock* "K7 Box" encompasses performances and soundscapes recorded at unique venues, including specially commissioned announcement sounds for the Yokosuka Museum of Art. Each track brings forth Suzuki’s lifelong dedication to the art of listening, his fascination with natural and manmade acoustics, and his innovative approach to instrument building. Enriched by a booklet with texts by Suzuki himself and renowned music writer David Toop, the release provides insights into Suzuki’s creative p…
Crypte
Japanese guitarist Tsunehito Tsuchihashi, celebrated for his versatile artistry across both classical and contemporary repertoires, proudly presents his debut solo album, “Crypte.” This extraordinary recording, released in April 2025, brings together the visionary works of five contemporary composers, most written on commission and premiered by Tsuchihashi himself, showcasing his commitment to expanding the guitar’s expressive potential through innovative collaborations.
“Crypte” is a testament …
Like The Dyer's Hand / Foujita
This album features two film scores by Satoshi Satō. Scooping Water, the Moon in Hand is a documentary film tracing the life of legendary poet and Chinese literary scholar Ye Jiaying (1924–). It won the Best Documentary Award at the 33rd China Golden Rooster Awards (2020), often referred to as China's Academy Awards. Ye Jiaying is also a scholar of Du Fu, and Satō Sōmei set Du Fu's poem “Eight Poems on Autumn Feelings” to music at the request of the film director. Director Oguri Kōhei's Foujita …
Near And Far
*2025 stock* Renowned Japanese composer Jo Kondo unveils his captivating album “Near And Far,” performed by The Cambridge New Musik Players and conducted by Paul Hoskins. This distinguished release, first presented in 1996, features five transcendent works that invite listeners into Kondo’s unique sound world across 47 minutes of meticulously crafted chamber music.
With a deep sensitivity to both space and sonority, “Near And Far” balances subtle instrumental interplay with Kondo’s signature min…
In Yokohama
*2025 stock* Renowned Japanese composer Jo Kondo is celebrated for his unique and refined approach to contemporary classical music. This recording offers an intimate journey into Kondo’s distinctive musical world, marked by clarity, restraint, and subtle yet powerful expression.
In Yokohama brings together a collection of works that exemplify Kondo’s lifelong exploration into sound, silence, and the delicate spaces in between. Throughout the album, the listener is invited to experience music t…
Shiniti Ueno, Phonix Réflexion, Joji Yuasa, Akio Yasuraoka, Yori-Aki Matsudaira, Malika Kishino, Norio Fukushi
Music For Percussion Ensemble By Japanese Composers*2025 stock* Renowned percussionist Shiniti Uéno unveil this latest recording project: Music for Percussion Ensemble by Japanese Composers. This remarkable album offers a profound exploration of Japan’s contemporary music landscape, highlighting the diversity, refinement, and innovation that can be found in its modern percussion repertoire.
The recording showcases six visionary composers whose works have shaped and expanded the language of percussion music in Japan: Joji Yuasa, Akio Yasuraoka,…
The people united will never be defeated! / Six north American ballads
*2025 stock* A landmark new recording brings together two of Frederic Rzewski’s most powerful and socially engaged works, interpreted with striking intensity by pianist Takuya Otaki. At the heart of the release is The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975), a monumental set of 36 variations on the Chilean resistance song “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”, composed as an ode to solidarity and resilience in times of political struggle. Widely considered one of the pinnacles of late 20th…
Orient Orientation
*2025 stock* A new recording brings together the refined artistry of Japanese composer Jo Kondo, the visionary musicians of Ensemble Nomad, and the distinct pianism of Satoko Inoue in a captivating exploration of sound, texture, and form. Orient Orientation offers a rare and illuminating entry into Kondo’s world, where silence, resonance, and subtle contrasts guide the listener through an intimate sonic landscape.
The album presents works that showcase Kondo’s unique compositional language—mar…
Triadic Memories
*2025 stock* The celebrated pianist Aki Takahashi presents an essential interpretation of Morton Feldman’s monumental work "Triadic Memories", a cornerstone of late 20th-century piano music. Known for its meditative expansiveness and delicate shifts in color, this composition stretches the boundaries of time, inviting listeners into Feldman’s unique sound world where silence and resonance carry as much weight as the notes themselves.
Recorded with Takahashi’s characteristic sensitivity and tec…
Seasons
Live recording from the “Yuji Takahashi Piano Recital: Bach and Cage” held at Kanagawa Prefectural Music Hall on 30 May 1974. Originally released on LP in 1977, this work is now reissued on CD and for download. The Cage works include: Cheap Imitation, employing chance operations; Metamorphoses, an early work utilising serial manipulation; and The Seasons, ballet music choreographed by Merce Cunningham expressing India's traditional seasonal perspective. In Bach's Toccata No. 2 in C minor, two di…
A Shape Of Time / Strands III / Duo / Still Life
This 1983 collection on ALM compiles what is generally considered to be one of Jo Kondō's last linear pieces - "A Shape Of Time" - which he describes as a "duo" for piano and orchestra. The classification is appropriate since the overall concept is focused on basic dynamic arc applied to individual pitches or sound-blocks. In this way each of the individual 'linear' sound-events is started out by the group of orchestral instruments which play crescendo part of the dynamic shape - piano to mezzo …
Mr. Bloomfield, His Spacing = ブルームフィールド氏の間化
A masterpiece album released in 1976 by the Japanese contemporary musician Yuzuru Kondo, whose main contributions to the sombre labyrinths of post-1960s musical modernism is something that the composer conceptualised as 'linear music' (or line and shadow as "Sen no ongaku' is sometimes translated). Then there's beautiful piano solo puzzle "Sight Rhythmics" that's a bit like Messiaen's total serialist one-off “Mode de valeurs et d'intensités". Plus semi-concrète essay "Summer Days" where muffled…
Sen No Ongaku
Legendary debut album from Japanese composer Jo Kondo, originally released in 1974 on the highly collectable ALM Records label (East Bionic Symphonia, Takehisa Kosugi, Somei Satoh, Yuji Takahashi, John Cage, Akio Suzuki). Since the early 1970s, Jo Kondo's compositions have stood on a concept he has named "Sen no Ongaku" (i.e. "Linear Music"), music consisting of a "line" of single notes, hocketted over different instruments. Over the years, the "line" of notes has gradually evolved a much thicke…
Hymn For The Sun (Works Of Somei Satoh)
This CD is markable reissue of very rare first LP of Somei Satoh. Like several other composers of his generation, Somei Satoh has an affinity for mysticism and meditation, and he attempts to convey stillness and timelessness in his extremely slow music. His works may be described as ambient, but their minor key harmonies and step-wise melodies seem more conventional than the blurred, unearthly sonorities usually found in that atmospheric genre. ALM Records issued some important LPs of Satoh's ta…
Nord
Kaoru Abe's duo with legendary free bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa, nord, stands as a critical summit between two of the major forces in japanese jazz at the time. recorded in december 1975 and released in 1981 by Kojima, it reveals a different side to Abe.the two had apparently been playing together since the late '60s - Yoshizawa had, for various reasons, and it's probably due to yoshizawa's undeniable heavyweight status that this dialogue is conducted largely on his terms, with abe toning down hi…
Overhang Party
Stellar duo head on collision bet ween Kaoru Abe and free hitter/ skin mangler Toyozumi. The interaction between the t wo of them creates fire works of improvisational exquisiteness, free rambling seat sniffing combustion that on some occasions instigated Abe to divert his attention from his beloved sax to wards marimba and piano hammerings joined with harmonica blo w-outs. Ferocious, ghastly and kerosene charged head slamming action bet ween t wo of Japan's first wave free jazz terrorists.. Tak…
Mort a Credit
Mort à Credit shows Kaoru Abe in a fascinating period of transition, moving forth to something complexly and identifiably new, yet intransigently rooted in what had come before. It consists of two alto improvs from a show on October 18, 1975, and five more (three on alto, two on sopranino) from another performance a couple of days earlier. Released by Kojima on 2LP in 1976, it can be said to mark a significant change in Abe's style. Abe is here a little soften from his usual urgency - this can p…
K7 Box
This CD is consisting of 9 tracks mainly his self-made sound object 'Analapos' and 'De Koolmees', and 2 tracks of them are recorded for announce sound of opening and closing of Yokosuka Museum of Art. They are so clear and spacy. Booklet is written by himself, David Toop and others. Text in Japanese and English.ALM Records is well known label that has released many avant-garde LP titles in 70-80's. Especially about Akio Suzuki, two LPs has been released - obscure solo LP (limited 100 copies) and…