★YOUTH INC.

Massive 7xCD box set compiling rare material by the great alto screamer Kaoru Abe is the lost wild legend of '70s Japanese free jazz. In the short space of his tempestuous life, he burnt a path which has served as a map for a whole generation of Japa…

This 10xCD box set composed of previously unreleased recordings from 1993–95, it focuses on pure noise from before the introduction of synthesizers and other electronic instruments. The noise is described as being linked to grindcore, having a sense…

Abe at his best! Crudely generalising a contrast in free jazz tendencies between AMM/SME/MIC/FMP and AACM/ESP, it's hard to say if Abe's closer to the gentle, bearded intellectualism of some European improvisation, or to the gutsier funk of more US f…