Zentsuu: Collected Works 2001-2019
WRWTFWW Records is ecstatic to announce the first ever best-of compilation of Soichi Terada’s amazing project OMODAKA. including 14 songs never released on vinyl before. The 18-track ZENTSUU: Collected Works 2001-2019 album is available on double LP in heavy 350gsm sleeve with printed inner sleeves.
Norimono Zukan
50 years ago, Hokkaido-born singer-songwriter Morio Agata released his debut single, Sekishoku Ereji (Red Elegy), an emotive, shuffling piano ballad that (shockingly) sold half a million copies in Japan. While he would never have another Top-40 hit, Agata would spend the next half century issuing a series of idiosyncratic, experimental pop albums. Today, he’s a beloved cult figure, still actively touring and recording in his seventies. In his first decade as a recording artist, Agata released a …
One Butoh
Akuphone is proud to present Fuji-Yuki’s latest masterpiece, "One Butoh". A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the "dance of the obscure body". It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-Worl…
Edo
Clear-Vinyl edition, 200 copies onl Includes OBI and 4-page inserts with text in Japanese and English.* "Edo" is a cosmic ambient experimental masterpiece conceived in 1977 by Masashi Komatsubara and developed alongside with Hideki Matsutake (a.k.a. Logic System and reductively defined by many as the "fourth member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra"). As a true sound scientist, he pours all his efforts into this record, and aimed at the widest possible use of an electronic instrument that was at the…
Apocrypha
Molecule Plane, a project by Yuki Ohtsuka specializing in inducing the dissimilation of the acoustic space itself through sustained tonal layering and associated complex textural transformations, is pleased to announce the release of its new album on Shrine.jp.Yuki Ohtsuka is an electronic musician and mastering engineer living in Kyoto. He studied electroacoustic music composition, acousmonium performance, and sound technology at Osaka University of Arts, where he also completed his master's de…
Inferior's Betrayal
Tip! *Limited edition of 200 copies.* Ferns proudly presents a new release on the label, K.Mizutani's "Inferior's Betrayal". Reissue of the self-produced K7 in 1994 on Kiyoshi Mizutani's Ulcer House label.
Mizutani was a member of Merzbow in the '80s and has done solo work since 1989. He has recordings on Ulcer House, ZSF Produkt, Shirocoal Recordings, NEdS, Sounds For Consciousness Rape, Pure, Artware, Kaon, e(r)ostrate, Povertech Industries, and Flenix Records.
Music For Himitsu
For Métron Records' tenth album release, the label welcomes back Japanese artist 7FO (RVNG, Bokeh Versions, EM Records) for his second album on the imprint. Originally created to accompany a 2014 exhibition by Osaka art collective Himitsu, Music For Himitsu has now been remastered and pressed to vinyl for the first time. Made up of ceramicist Shiori Nishino, photographer Hiroshi Nakamura and landscape gardener Takashi Torigoe, Himitsu showcased an elemental combination of light (photography), wa…
Tokyo Glow
Following the recent success of the 'Tokyo Dreaming', Wewantsounds comes with another compelling set, this time compiled by City Pop expert DJ Notoya who has dug the rich Nippon Columbia catalogue to bring a breezy selection of funky gems by Hiroshi Sato, Hitomi "Penny" Tohyama, Midori Hara, many of which making their vinyl debut outside of Japan. The 2-LP gatefold album has been designed by Optigram and is annotated by DJ Notoya with Nick Luscombe. The audio has been newly remastered in Tokyo b…
Orient
*2022 stock* Hiroshi Sato's ultra rare synth masterpiece, originally released in 1979 on Kitty Records in Japan only. Digitally remastered from the original tapes, Orient features the cream of Japanese musicians including Shigeru Suzuki on guitar, Haruomi Hosono on bass, Pecker on Percussion and Sato himself on keyboards and synthesizers. This highly sought-after album on the Balearic scene, changing hands for high prices, is a superb breezy mix of Japanese synth-pop and exotica with subtle touc…
Kizaki Ondo
“Kizaki Ondo” is a folk song from Nitta Kizaki town in Gunma, north of Tokyo. Played annually by local performers at the Bon-Odori traditional summer dance festival, it features unabashed lyrics about prostitution along with a rhythmic drive sure to appeal to fans of contemporary electronic genres as well as aficionados of traditional musics. The first track is a wildly echoing vocal version recorded in 1980, redolent of humid summer nights; the second track, recorded in 1981, is an instrumental…
Kookaburra
"There is no argument; Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita has appeared on over four hundred albums since 1979. The name comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' famous work Merzbau, in which he transformed the interior of his house with found objects. This is reflected in Akita's junk art / collage aesthetic. Other influences on the Merzbow philosophy range from ritualised eroticism (fetishism & bondage), surrealism to extreme…
Esperanto (LP)
CD version. Wewantsounds continues their Ryuichi Sakamoto reissue series with the release of the 1985 album Esperanto, composed for a performance by New York avant-garde choreographer Molissa Fenley. Produced and performed by Sakamoto with contribution by Arto Lindsay and Japanese percussionist Yas-Kaz, Esperanto is a fascinating instrumental work mixing electronica, ambient and synth pop. Released in Japan in 1985 on Midi Inc.s' School label, the album has never been released outside of Japan u…
Unaffected Mixes plus
* 2LP set, imported from Japan. Limited edition pressing of 400 from* R.N.A. Organism landed themselves a place on the legendary Vanity Records roster after sending label head Agi Yuzuru a cassette by air mail in order to fool him into thinking they were from overseas. The ploy worked, and the group soon entered the studio for free-form sessions of minimalistic, rhythmic excursions played on an array of synths, drum machines and other gadgets. Working with producer Kaoru Sato (later of EP-4), RN…
Gnosis
Originally released as a cassette in 1994 by Drahtfunk Products, Gnosis shows Mayuko Hino, Ryuichi Nagakubo, Fumio Kosakai, Hiroshi Hasegawa, weaving a tapestry of strange exotic vistas and harsh chafing textures, exploring sonic depths and caverns not heard before or after. A standout and much sought after gem in the C.C.C.C. discography. Remastered by Hiroshi Hasegawa in April 2021, and finally available in a generous edition on digipak CD.
He
"He" contains two tracks, "Extrovert", which amplifies the hum and white noise inside the turntable, and "Introvert", which is an improvised performance by rubbing the cartridge with nickel strings. Hiroaki Maki, DJ/Turntablist from Tokyo. Co-founder of the independent label/event series edition zeroso (0奏). After finding inspiration through various types of sound such as continuous sound, noise & found sounds and avant-garde music, he started his DJ career. Around the same time, he also started…
Emerald Tablet / Echoes (LP) + Mandala Trilogy +1
Building on the back of a series of extraordinary reissues exploring some of the most exciting musical gestures ever produced in Japan, Wrwtfww is back with two of their most exciting releases to date, the composer Somei Satoh’s "Emerald Tablet / Echoes" and "Mandala Trilogy +1". Drawing on work produced between the 1970s and mid 2000s, the majority appearing here in their first ever vinyl pressing, these bristling hybrids seamlessly intertwine sound art, minimalism, ambient and experimental mus…
Spectre: Machines of Loving Grace
Machines of Loving Grace, available in half speed mastered 180g double lp housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish. Machines of Loving Grace, the new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. It is an object freed from constraints, formats, genres, territories: the gospel of a new world. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion, his previous LP, this lover of electronic music, who has also been putting his sensitivity to the service of mo…
Garden of Shadows and Light
Garden of Shadows and Light is the first collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Toop, presenting the entirety of a concert performed in London in August 2018. With their collective musical experience encompassing collaborative work with figures as diverse as Evan Parker, Akiko Yano, Arto Lindsay and Christian Fennesz, in contexts ranging from pop session work to film scores to sound installation, no one could be sure how Sakamoto and Toop would approach their first concert together as …
From the Heart, It's a Start, a Work of Art
** 2021 Stock ** Shinichi Atobe exists out of time, producing material that’s both inimitable and genuine. "From the Heart, It's a Start, a Work of Art” was released back in 2017 and is perhaps the most unique and enduring of all of his output over the years. Curiously, it has origins going all the way back to early 2000, when three of the tracks here were originally produced and cut to acetate at D&M in Berlin (in an edition of 5!), presumably lined up as a follow-up of sorts to Atobe’s legenda…
Hymn to Eternal Death
Hymn To Eternal Death is the new full length from Maso Yamazaki's "Controlled Death" project. Nearly an hour of new material, composed as a multi-format release mixing the echo-saturated death electronics style with funereal organ and synthesizer music. Presented simultaneously as a deluxe 10" lathe cut record and cassette box, as well as a CD edition. Mastered by Grant Richardson.