Electronic / NHK Studio

*2023 repress!!* Long out of print the 4th issue of archive series of NHK electronic music studio. Originally, Kosugi's “Catch Wave '71” was included in this issue, but, by a problem between composer and publisher, the CD was cancelled after several days of selling! Eventually, instead of Kosugi, Ranta's “Kagakuhenka” was up for renewed issue. 1. “Divertimento” Keitaro Miho     This is a live performance of live percussion instruments and electronically produced percussion instruments. Until the…

The 3rd issue of early Japanese electronic music made by NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai : National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio. Engineer Satou assisted many electronic works of avant-garde composers. Contents : Makoto Moroi 'Shosange' (1967), Minao Shibata 'Display '70' (1969), Toshiro Mayuzumi 'Mandara with source of Voice and Electric sound' (1969), Joji Yuasa 'Voices Coming' (1969), Makoto Shinohara 'Broadcasting' (1973)    1. “Small Confession” Makoto Moroi     The works ar…

Hiroshi Shiotani was an engineer of NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai: National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio, and then he cooperated with some avant-garde composers of Japan. This CD get Shiotani's works together, and released several years ago as a memorial of him when he died. It was repressed 500 copies by a private studio. All tracks are legendary early electronic works of Toshiro Matuzumi and Makoto Moroi. These works had originally released in '50s-'60s, but we have not been …

In the mid 1960’s, there was a collective of contemporary musicians in Osaka, called Art Zyklus. Because Hajime Yamashita, one of the core members, had sold a part of his privately stored sound source over the Internet, the whole picture of amazing and completely unknown activities was revealed. The release compiled works created by Art Zyklus as well as Yamashita. Worth mentioning is that ‘Music for Electric Metronomes’ by Toshi Ichiyanagi was premiered in Japan. Apart from that, the fact that …

Edition Omega Point presents work by legendary Japanese composer Joji Yuasa -- one of most important composers in Japan after World War II. "Nadja, Twincling in Stars" (1963) is the incidental music, by NHK Radio, based on "Nadja" by Andre Breton who made "Declaration of Sur-Realisme." The actual chart of constellations was played by three players (violin, piano and vibraphone) which was used as the music score. Birdsong, electronics, and sound generated from inside the piano using music c…

Tip! At the time, Yuji Takahashi was known internationally primarily as a pianist. Yet the decade from Phonogène (1962) to Tadori (1972) reveals another essential side of his work: an exploration of electronic sound, mathematics, and computers in composition, and of their changing relationship with human performance. One of the starting points was his encounter with Iannis Xenakis. Takahashi studied probability theory and set theory, and in Phonogène developed his own probabilistic approach to o…

Big Tip! Sukegawa's environmental music was heard by thousands of people, none of whom were listening. For more than a decade from the late 1980s he wrote music that played in the offices and research buildings of a large Japanese construction firm, composed by calculating backward from the response of the ceiling speakers it would emerge from, tested against questionnaires filled in by three thousand employees. It was never released, never performed in concert, never reviewed. It filled a space…

A work of genuinely monumental proportions. Jean-Claude Eloy's Gaku-No-Michi - subtitled "Tao of Music" or "Ways of Music" - stands among the towering achievements of 20th Century electroacoustic practice. Produced at the electronic music studio of NHK Radio in Tokyo between 1977 and 1978, its four hours of concrete and electronic sound unfold as what the composer called "a film without images" - an immense, spiraling architecture of sonic transformation that remains, nearly five decades on, as …

Riding an incredible high, Sound3 Co.’s groundbreaking “The Beginning of Japanese Electroacoustic” series returns with its 15th and most ambitious release to date: “Gaku-No-Michi Material”, an astounding 5CD set, presenting the French composer Jean-Claude Eloy’s legendary, monumental electroacoustic work - recorded in Japan between 1977 and 1978 - “Gaku-No-Michi” in a revelatory new way. Comprising 22 tracks, each representing an individual reel of the materials used by Eloy when performing the …

*2022 stock* "'Emerald Tablet' was recorded at the NHK electronic-music studio in 1978. It is made up of only the sonic ingredients of a tubular bell, cymbals, and 'kin,' a largish-sized bell used for Buddhist memorial services in Japan. The attack of the sound of each instrument was eliminated, and the work was taped through repeated overdubbing. This produced a variety of beautiful harmonics that otherwise could not be produced from a single instrument's sound, and the interference of harmonic…

One of the most significant archival recoveries from the deep history of Japanese electronic music. Electronic Music Works gathers, for the first time anywhere, the entirety of Shuko Mizuno's tape and synthesizer output - a body of work that, until now, had remained almost entirely unknown, even to those familiar with the composer's name. Spread across three CDs, issued by the indispensable Three Shells imprint, it presents music drawn from tapes discovered at Mizuno's home and salvaged on the v…

Premiere release! Two sound compositions discovered at Toshi Ichiyanagi’s home in 2018 to be released for the first time! One is an unknown early work created on a computer and the other is material for an experimental short film by Toshio Matsumoto. Particularly, the former piece was revolutionary. the quirky sound he made on the computer at the time was unheard of especially because a computer could only create simple sounds then. Moreover, it also includes an unknown electronic ambient piece …

The details of Shikisokuzekuu-Kuusokuzeshiki (1964) are unknown except that it was created at the NHK electronic music studio. According to Toshi Ichiyanagi, there were various discussions about the title, but it would seem to have been eventually broadcasted on the radio with the title Kuu after a producer renamed it. Here, the original title is used, following Ichiyanagi's initial intention. This work has no relation to the short experimental film Shikisokuzekuu (1974), produced by filmmaker T…

Tip! Celebrating the 90th anniversary of the birth of Maki Ishii (1936-2003), we present "Electronic Convergence," a collection of his pioneering electroacoustic works. These tracks represent a crucial era in the history of Japanese electronic music, primarily produced at the NHK Electronic Music Studio around the 1970s. Ishii’s unique fusion of traditional Japanese aesthetics and cutting-edge technology remains incredibly avant-garde even today. In February 2026, special memorial concerts will …

Big Tip! Born in the mid-1950s, the NHK Electronic Music Studio was a world-leading lab where Japan’s electronic music took shape. This album gathers works created there between 1968 and 1974—a vivid snapshot of chance operations, ring modulation, waveform experiments, broadcast collage, and intense hand-made tape craft. Launched in 1993 in memory of the studio’s founding architect Hiroshi Shioya, our project treats these tapes as living works—not nostalgia. We re-check sources, rebuild the li…

Excellent minimal electronic album of this Swedish avantgarde composer.  Since Sven-Erik Back's début in the 1940′s he has been regarded as a radical avantgardist, his compositions are kept together by a never failing formal imagination and an intuitive sensitivity to sound qualities. Electronic Music was released on vinyl by Fylkingen Records (FYLP 1021) in 1978.

These pieces were recorded between 1963 and 1973 at the NHK electronic music studio, Tokyo. Includes 12-page booklet with liner notes in Japanese. This version was withdrawn from sale due to objections from Takeisha Kosugi. His track was then replaced by one by Michael Ranta, and the album was re-released under a different catalog number.   1. “Divertimento” Keitaro Miho     This is a live performance of live percussion instruments and electronically produced percussion instruments. Until then, …

A collection of small tape music pieces by the legendary composer and pianist Yuji Takahashi. All of them are premiere release on disc.tr.1 Meikai no Heso (The Umbilicus of Limbo, 1963) It is also known as Window to Antonin Artaud, or The Umbilicus of Limbo. it was performed in a version of tape and instruments - poetry reading of the French poet Antonin Artaud, which was modified on the tape, and bass instruments as well as percussion instruments. This is a live recording of Musicians Group: Ne…

Early Japanese electronic music made by NHK electronic music studio. Engineer Satou assisted many electronic works of avant-garde composers. The following works (except Yuji Takahashi) had released in 1967 and 1969 on LP (Victor VX-52, VX-99), and they are very rare now.' Contents : Yuji Takahashi "Phonogene" (1961), "Yori-Aki MatsudairaTrangent '64" (1964), Minao Shibata "Improvisation for the electronic sound" (1966), Joji Yuasa "IKON on the source of White Noise" (1965), Toshiro Mayuzumi "Cam…

The fifth in this superb series covering historical Japanese electronic music from the Nhk studios, the first covering pieces engineered by Tsutomu Kojima (prior volumes dealt in pieces assisted by Shigeru sato and Hirosi Siotani) highlights herein include Jo Kondo’s “never return” (harsh/psychedelic vocal/piano cutups from 1971 !!!), Hifumi Shimoyama’s fumon iv a, and oto no hajimari wo motomete perennial Joji Yuasa’s my blue sky.   1. “Beyond the Clouds” Keiki Okasaka A work was intentionally…

Recent issue of Japanese electronic music made by NHK electronic music studio after EXPO'70. This CD consists of 4 works assisted by engineer Tsutomu Kojima who assisted many electronic works of avant-garde composers. (Jean Claude Eloy's well known concrete music "Gaku-no-Michi" was also assisted by him.) 1. “Palace of Green Space for Electronic Music” Kiyotomi Yoshizaki (1979) Opposite concepts such as “Science and Art, Yang and Yin, Symmetry and Dissymmetry” are generally constructed based on…

Recent issue of archve series of NHK electronic music studio. This issue consists of 5 works in 70s – 80s of new generation composers. 1. Jo Kondo “Tokyo Bay” (1987) This piece is a rearrangement of an instrumental piece into electronic music. The original piece was called "Non Projection," a piece for two pianos and orchestra. At that time, we were already in the age of PCs, though PCs were able to create beautiful sounds in the usual sense, Electronic music can only be heard on tape. In this c…

Recent issue of archve series of NHK electronic music studio. Some foreign composers visited and worked at NHK electronic music studio. The frst apperance was Karlheinz Stockhausen's “Telemusik” ('66) assisted by Hiroshi Shiotani, it's included in vol.1 of this CD series. In this new release, three works composed in 70s assisted by Tsutomu Kojima. 1. Jean Claude Eloy “Gaku-No Michi” (1978)French composer Jean Claude Eloy visited Japan three times between 1977 and 1978 and spent a total of nearly…

Recent issue of archive series of NHK electronic music studio. This issue is a collection of Joji Yuasa includes works on past issue of this series. “My Blue Sky (No.1)” and “Music for the Main Pavillion of the Okinawa Oceanic Expo” has released on CD by Omega Point. 1. ”Projection Esemplastic” (1964) – sound fileWhen I was asked to create electronic music for NHK, I decided to use only white noise, which originally contained all frequencies, and cut out various components from it to compose the…

From participation in the early Fluxus to giving an introduction of Futurism, Kuniharu Akiyama (1929-1996), a renowned music critic, was involved in a vast range of activities. Particularly in the 1960s, he recorded a lot of music on tape for himself. To our surprise, the music compiled on this CD was actually discovered from a series of ambient music pieces played in the Athletes’ Village at the Tokyo Olympics! During this period, Akiyama was fascinated by the sound of Sanukite stone from Sanuk…

Even to a die-hard Early Electronic Music acolyte, Frank W. Becker's name isn't a readily familiar one, despite issuing a half-dozen LPs of vaguely Berlin-school music via Toshiba EMI while based in Japan in the mid-late 70s. "Celebration," a "Private" issue on his own Gorilla imprint, starts out sure enough with the titular, 1976 side-length bit of protracted sequencing and minimalism-inspired forms - all with a vague new-age lilt to it b/w of calming ocean noises & an almost Terry Riley-ish …

Hiroshi Shiotani was an engineer of the first days of NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai: National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio, and then he cooperated with some avant-garde composers of Japan. This CD was gotten Shiotani's works together and was released in 1993 as a memorial of him when he died. It was repressed 500 copies in 2001 by a private studio orgasnized by Shiotani's student. All tracks are legendary early electronic works of Toshiro Matuzumi and Makoto Moroi. These works …

The final issue of archve series of NHK electronic music studio. Recent issue of archve series of NHK electronic music studio. 4 engineer Kiyoshi Inamura, Masao Toku'ono, Kishichi Sasaki and Sadamu Ohtsu assisted 50-60's works. Especially works of Matsushita and Kon were made at out of headquater of NHK (Osaka and Fukuoka branch) - they had only poor know-how and equipments. contents: Toshiro Mayuzumi "Aoi no Ue" (1957) - qiute different work for Joji Yuasa's same title. Shin'ichi Matsushita "Ku…

Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer, teacher, and music theorist active from the the 1950s on. Influenced by Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio, Pousseur may be lesser known than those contemporaries but his composition and technique is regarded by many as equaling if not surpassing much of the work of those more famous names. Realized in the same Cologne radio studio as much of Karlheinz Stockhausen's most famous work, this collection brings together some of Pousseur's gr…

Hiroshi Shiotani was an engineer of NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai: National Broadcasting association) electronic music studio, and then he cooperated with some avant-garde composers of Japan. This CD get Shiotani's works together, and released several years ago as a memorial of him when he died. It was repressed 500 copies by a private studio. All tracks are legendary early electronic works of Toshiro Matuzumi and Makoto Moroi. These works had originally released in '50s-'60s, but we have not been …

Brand new CD of this series was released just now!! Recorded at the NHK electronic music studio, Tokyo in 1955. The sixth & most recent entry into the “other” series of compilations collecting early japanese electronic music ... starting out w/ Shibata’s 1955 “musique concréte for stereophonic broadcast” (a kind of insane extended take utilizing water & machine noises ... even crowd-reaction documentation & varèse-lineage percussion-room sonics), Takemistu’s 1958 “sky, horse and death” (crystal-…

The name of Matsuo Ohno is well-known as a creator of sound effects of Japanese animation 'Astro Boy' (Takehisa Kosugi assisted in the work). This three issues are retrospective collection of his works includes unpublished electronic compositions from 70's to recent years. with 24 pp booklet, texts are in Japanese and English (with comment of Jim O'Rourke). 'Memory in The Beginning' (2004). This work is Matsuo Ohno's brand new album recorded in July 2004. Ohno's vision is a torrential flow of vi…