Merzbeat
* 20th anniversary edition gatefold reissue on pink vinyl. Limited to 300 copies * Merzbeat, a beautiful and distorted dream of drum samples, jazz, swing, noise and bliss, by Harsh Noise giant, Masami Akita (Merzbow), last press issued by Aurora Central.
Amlux
** Limited edition of 100 tapes, 50 on blue colored version (this one) and 50 on original colored version cover. ** Certainly Amlux is a very cohesive and well-constructed piece; starting more softly than usual, the record slowly builds into the chaotic harsh sound that Merzbow is well known for, but this time adding some actual recognizable music elements (like rhythms), and constructing various surprisingly well-texture soundscapes, that made of this album a more focused and immersive piece th…
Amlux
** Limited edition of 100 tapes, 50 on original colored version (this one) and 50 on blue colored version cover. ** Certainly Amlux is a very cohesive and well-constructed piece; starting more softly than usual, the record slowly builds into the chaotic harsh sound that Merzbow is well known for, but this time adding some actual recognizable music elements (like rhythms), and constructing various surprisingly well-texture soundscapes, that made of this album a more focused and immersive piece th…
Door Open at 8 A.M.
** Limited edition of 100 tapes, 50 Copies with yellow coloured cover artwork (this one) and 50 Copies with pink coloured cover artwork ** Introducing Masami Akita's homage to free-jazz. Door Open at 8am is one of the most adventurous outings made by Merzbow. Recorded during the same era as Aqua Necromancer, this new recording also incorporates the use of sampled sounds. However, this time Akita is paying homage to his love of free jazz, free-jazz drummers to be precise. It includes tracks such …
Kofu II
* Glass-mastered CD housed in a die-cut customised debossed outer case (14.5 x 14.5cm) with rounded obi, 16pp inserts with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper. * Meitei’s 2020 album Kofū was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s Kwaidan and 2019’s Komachi. All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being w…
Fieldwave, Vol. 2
Fieldwave, Vol. 2 is the second release in our compilation series created by broadcaster, sound collector and Nonclassical A&R consultant, Nick Luscombe, bringing together artists with field recording at the heart of their work. This second volume focuses on the sounds of Japan, with tracks from Japanese musicians and from British artists who have gathered recordings via trips to Japan.“I created the Fieldwave compilation series in 2020 as a window to the world of field recordings and wider acou…
World Speaks
** Edition of 300 ** World Speaks is the new album by Piotr Kurek. It consists of seven vivid paintings. We are greeted by processed voices. A bit later we listen to a fine reed solo, while an organist performs a meditative melody. Hints of a human presence, but World Speaks sounds uninhabited. Instead we enter a glassy reality where the simulation is at play. And where nothing seems what it is: are we witness to the choreography – or the rocky seashore?
“At that time I was playing with various…
Imagery Resonance
Legendary Japanese noise artist Aube on a more ambient aprroack to start with before the maelstrom of blissful droning noise.
Live (LP)
* Ltd. to 285 copies, silkscreened jacket with obi (tan or light blue), inserts and postcard * An’archives are proud to present a reissue of the self-titled first album by the trio of Akiko Hotaka, Takuya Nishimura and Ikuro Takahashi. Originally released in 2020 as a limited CD-R on the Uramado label, those who had the chance to hear this collection of live recordings, documenting a brief window of exploratory activity for Hotaka during the mid-2010s, were knocked out by its elemental force, Ho…
Sweet Inspirations at Muon (LP+CD)
* Ltd. to 385 copies incl. cdep, silkscreened jacket with obi (orange or yellow), inserts and postcard * With the release of Sweet Inspirations At Muon, the first appearance on vinyl of Tori Kudo’s mythical early ‘80s primitive rock gang Sweet Inspirations, another piece of the seemingly endless puzzle of the Japanese underground has fallen into place. Recorded some time in 1982 at Yokohama venue Muon – precise details are sketchy – we’re now given another chance to discover what was going on in…
The Night (LP)
*Ltd to 400, silkscreened jacket with obi (light blue, tan) inserts and postcard* LSD March is a band from Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, whose members revolved around Shinsuke Michishita, guitarist/singer, the band’s black star, before being reborn nowadays, after several years of hiatus, as a duet with Ikuro Takahashi, legendary drummer who was the heart muscle of Fushitsusha, and of most of the underground Tokyo bands. Shinsuke Michishita has a taste for immersion, for plunging into the electric …
Eihwaz (LP)
*LP ltd to 285, silkscreened jacket with obi (red or black) inserts and postcard* Albedo Gravitas is an extension of Albedo Fantastica (released on An’archives in 2018), the duo of Keiko Higuchi and Sachiko (Kousokuya, Overhang Party, Vava Kitora). Both of them are well known names to those who are evolving in the Japanese underground waters since each has been involved in many projects and each has a consisting discography on labels as Musik Atlach, Improvising Beings, Utech. Their respective…
1982 -85 (LP)
* Edition of 100, orange vinyl * After Dinner from Japan, embraced new wave, traditional Japanese music, free contemporary and avant-garde rock. Founded under hand of delicious female vocalist, musician and composer Haco in 1981, broaching a very interesting collective cohesion; their background, though however various, brought them together during times of recording and live performance.
1982-85 includes all their first production; the complete 1st album “Glass Tube", 2 tracks from the 1st 7” s…
Mios
In 1989, pianist and composer Yumiko Morioka put together a group of diverse street musicians and semi-professional players for a project that would come to be called the Synergetic Voice Orchestra. Inspired by Yumiko’s love of different musical cultures from around the globe, the band drew on influences from India, Ethiopia, Mali, Korea and China to create an album that merged these sonic identities with more traditional sounds from the southern Japanese city of Okinawa.
Having released her sol…
Himitsu No Kaikoroku
** Edition of 285, comes in a silk-3 panel foldout jacket with obi (green, tan, yellow) inserts and a postcard. Liner notes by Patrick O’Brien ** Shūko No Omit is a trio of Yonju Miyaoka on guitars and vocals, Yuya Oishi on drums, and Taiju Sugimori on bass: a classic framework for a rock band, and yet... Led by Yonju Miyaoka, a young prolific musician from Osaka who lives with schizophrenia, Shūko No Omit could have found a home in the P.S.F. records catalogue curated by the late Hideo Ikeezumi…
Paradise of Delusion - 妄想の楽園
** Edition of 300. Duotone insert + offset insert + postcard set Old style / tip-on offset & partially silkscreened jacket with obi ** Shizuka first came to wider attention at roughly the same time as their peers in the Japanese underground – in the nineties, really, when people started to get wise to the surprisingly wide-ranging post-psychedelic sounds emanating from the PSF label, predominantly, and a few other, similar creative cells. During that window of opportunity, Shizuka only released …
Innéisme
Tip! *Limited vinyl with uncoated sleeve, printed inner and download card (300 only)* Inspired by Noam Chosmky's "universal grammar", it refers to man's innate ability to develop language. It is that English, Occitan, French patois, Hindi, Pygmy or French cohabit on this record, juxtaposing on rhythms and beats that appear as a fantasized primordial tradition. If My Jazzy Child aka Damien Mingus, questions languages about Innéisme, he also questions musical languages, mixing Asian rites and free…
Maza Gusu
Tip! *Limited vinyl with uncoated sleeve, printed inner and download card (300 only)* On Maza Gusu, Mikado Koko transforms into Mother Goose, hissing Charles Perrault's fairy tales from her native tongue in your ears. Her unsettling, regressive voice is backed up by a subtle and chilling electronic soundscape sprinkled with traditional Japanese instruments, creating a realm of sound that feels both weirdly familiar and deeply unknown. Mother Koko hurls you deep down the rabbit hole, back to your…
Kagiroi
I met Sugai Ken a few years ago in Tokyo, outside the Dommune radio studios. His personality and music, a very special brand, touched me. His music is a coded vision of a dream world. A trade that is progressive yet traditional - in the most positive sense of the word. Recently out of the blue, Sugai San sent me a collection of personal field recordings he made of folklore groups and public performances in Tokyo, Toyama, Kanagawa, Kyoto, Tottori, … The close listener already knows that Sugai San…
Oto to Secchi
** Editin of 100 ** Tsss Tapes presents Oto to Secchi by Anne-Françoise Jacques and Takamitsu Ohta. A slow walk through Oto to Secchi, a collaborative sound installation by Ota and Jacques at Bonjour! Gendaibunmei, Kyoto. Recorded on August 2019. Installation organized by Takamitsu Ohta. Recorded, edited and mastered by Anne-Françoise Jacques.