Music from Japan

“A large tree thousands of years old, like Akira Sakata, seems to sway a variety of creatures as if they were being drawn to it. Is it a festival with Ming as a Shinto priest? Takeharu Hayakawa, who has a strong thud, changes his behavior like a ninja, and Masataka Fujikake wraps everything up and makes a deep rumbling of the earth. As for me, I'm on the same level as the piano and electronic sounds. Let's just say that it organically connects the past and the present. A rare improvised world th…

A live recording by Akira Sakata (alto sax, clarinet, voice), Masayasu Tsuboguchi (piano, synthesizer), Takeharu Hayakawa (bass), and Masataka Fujikake (drums). An improvisational giant, Akira Sakata, is a direct hit to the brain.

The tape recorded in a studio by Yuji Takahashi (synthesizer, sampler) and Masahiko Togashi (percussion) on November 23, 1988 was found for the first time in 34 years, and is now available for download. This album is the culmination of the Takahashi-Togashi duo that began in the spring of 1988 at the Shinjuku Pit Inn, and is an improvisational performance in which Togashi responds to Takahashi's lead. Each member's different musicality is inspired by the other's, and the music is built up in dia…

Space in the Sun was one of Akio Suzuki’s major sound projects, a unique construction completed in 1988 and located on the meridian line, which took around 18 months to build. Its purpose was to allow Suzuki to spend one day, on the autumnal equinox, purifying his sense of hearing in nature. This release comprises a 44 page book containing plans and materials from the time alongside texts, and two CDs of environmental recordings created on site at Space in the Sun. To date only tiny fragments of…

*2023 stock* "I think the first time I heard Merzbow must have been in 1994. I was a compulsive cassette trader back then and I was sent a tape from a fanzine editor I traded with in the USA. It had two long form pieces on it that just said Merzbow//Noise. I remember at the time not really knowing what to make of it. It was effortlessly deep and aggressive, but also very emotive and almost lyrical in the way the waves of sound would erupt and decay. In those days it wasn’t so easy to discover in…

Tip! First ever vinyl issue of the minimal, masterful debut from Toshimaru Nakamura. Nine tracks of abstraction originally released on CD in 2000.

**120 copies limited release. Pro-pressed CD in blood soaked white cardboard envelope. The blood is real. Assembled with red paper obi and thin inner- and outer sleeves. All signed and numbered on the backside of the blood soaked envelopes.** Tip! The Sunday lunches with his South-Austrian parents, the thick nearly rare beefsteaks accompanied by heavy red wine and uplifting Humpa and Schuhplattler music have carved an impression into Rudolf's mind, that still keeps burping up at times, but was e…

Tip! Introducing the 11th volume in the No-Input Mixing Board' series from Toshimaru Nakamura. Utilising a unique instrument and free improvisation approach, Toshimaru masterly controls waves of feedback to create structured layers of crackling pulses, drones and bass patterns. Featuring four live sets recorded in 2021 and 2022, and demonstrating a harsher side to more recent output, he continues to successfully explore and discover new avenues from his equipment. 'As most of you will know, it w…

Tokyo's experimental musicians Toshimaru Nakamura and Suzueri collaborated on a CD released in April 2023 on the Italian experimental label Superpang. Includes two improvisational songs using piano, mixer, and self-made instruments.

Wewantsounds is delighted to announce an extensive reissue program of Meiko Kaji's first five album released in Japan between 1972 and 1974 on Teichiku Records. The program, in partnership with Teichiku and Meiko Kaji, will see her first five albums reissued on vinyl for the first time ever in their original Japanese artwork and remastered audio. Famous for her early 70s exploitation movies ('Lady Snowblood', the 'Female Prisoner Scorpion' and 'Stray Cat Rock' series) revered by Tarantino, Meiko…

CD reissue of material that was released on cassette in 1998 and suspended in decades of obscurity, which is a shame because this is arguably some of the most underrated and brutal material ever produced by the project...a true deep cut and essential release for fans of not just Government Alpha but Harsh Noise in general.

Japanese master drummer Takeo Moriyama returns to BBE Music’s J Jazz Masterclass Series in a majestic live set showcasing his exemplary musicianship and stature as one of the leading names in Japanese modern jazz. Recorded in December 1990 at the jazz club Lovely in Nagoya, this set sees Moriyama’s quartet deliver an exemplary session of the finest modal, post-bop and spiritual jazz. Moriyama is backed by long-time colleague Fumio Itabashi on piano and the group perform a stunning rendition of I…

*2023 repress* BBE Music is proud to present another instalment in the J Jazz Masterclass Series: East Plants by Takeo Moriyama, one of Japan’s finest jazz drummers. A genuine ‘under the radar’ album known only to a handful of Japanese jazz collectors, East Plants is now available again, reissued for the first time as a double 180g LP, with exact reproductions of the original artwork, obi strip and insert. It also comes with the original notes fully translated. This reissue is fully endorsed by …

*200 copies limited edition* Unfettered harsh noise from the legendary Japanese noise artist Masami Akita aka Merzbow. Tirelessly churning layers of distortion are punctuated across two tracks with glistening, jagged feedback and thrashing pulsations that lash at the ears and utterly invigorate the senses.

Available for the first time as the artists originally intended!

More than 25 years after their first partnership, international collaborators Smegma and Merzbow reunite for an all-new album that pushes the conceptual springboard of random composition generation even further. Consisting of two movements spread over 93 tracks, XCIII presents a collage of abstract electronics, unconventional instruments, reel to reel tape manipulation, loops and effects, best experienced in unique combinations on shuffled play.The first movement, Climactic Gruesome Costumes (wh…

** 160g black vinyl record housed in a full color, reverse board jacket. Color labels. Record placed in white paper innersleeves. Limited edition of 150 copies ** Celer's Being Below is a mini-album of short songs created with digital and analogue instruments, recorded in 2020. Written with a structure that reflects shifting states, overlooking the past and future as a split pathway with the present endlessly fluctuating between. The pangs of rumination. An exercise in loop-less writing. Mastere…

Hyper Tip! This incredible box, released in a deluxe wooden edition with digital printing on the lid limited to 300 copies, contains the first album “Cosmos from Diode Ladder Filter” released on CD on Alchemy Records , “2” released on Midi Creative , “3” released on double LP on Tiliqua Records and the four CD EPs released on P-Tapes, California based label run by Damion Romero, reissued for the first in a complete box, accompanied by a square pin and a series of photos of the impressive equipme…

Incapacitants' Repo, first released by Alchemy Records in 1989 in 300 copies: harsh noise from electronics, amplification and feedback, the last album made by Toshiji Mikawa alone before Fumio Kosakai joined.

**Limited Edition of 199 copies. Vinyl reissue comes with its original captivating, amazing and psychedelic artwork by Japanese designer and artist Masahiko Ohno faithfully reproduced in LP format, in a limited edition of 199 copies, with a twelve-inch insert format plus psyco-postcard using the same original CD art, and beautifully follows the sound material of the vinyl grooves in a journey into the depths of chaotic and magnitude interstellar space ** Noise music challenges traditional aesthe…