Music from Japan / All styles

Jutok Kaneko (guitar), Mick (vocals), Hiroshi Yokoyama (synth) and Toshiko Watanabe (drums). 'Miraculously unearthed live tape from one of the earliest incarnations of Tokyo heavy psychedelic legends Kousokuya. For a group with a 25-year history on the Tokyo underground scene, Kousokuya have left very little imprint of their activities. Once heard, though, their sound is unmistakeable Ð a grinding, soaring sonic-blackhole that charts the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one else this side of…

Sato’s first studio meeting with Keiji Haino sees a rare melding of open minds and taut strings. Common languages are invented, experimented with and discarded at will. Haino revisits the evocative nylon-strung guitar style he first explored on Hikair yami uchitokeaish kono hibiki (PSFD-8017), laying down fields and forests of string texture, while Sato burns blazing trails of narrow-beam intensity straight through the middle of your skull.

The dark elf of the current Japanese noise psych scene, Mr. Keiji hAINO (from Fushitsusha, and many other projects) teams up with Eddie and Bill (they're girls, really!) from the heavy Japanese bass drums combo COA. Previously hAINO has collaborated in a similar fashion with Tokyo heavies Boris, so he's obviously into rockin' with some younger musicians outside of the typical PSF psych folk axis. That's not to say this isn't folky and psychedelic, as parts of it surely are. Together, Bill and Ed…

Gorgeous new bag of home-recorded mystery from Haino. Apparently recorded alone, late at night and at minimal volume, these latest recordings tremble with the same deep-welled emotional sensitivity and sense of veiled threat that animated classics like Watashi Dake?, Affection and Era of Sad Wings.

This work shows Umezu's various musical talent. For example, Umezu changes Irish trad called the Star Of the County Down into Japanese fisherman's folktune by his own interpretation. Or while his recording, he find the way of blowing the highest tone what is limits of possibility of bass clarinet. This highest tone is in the tune called 1970, Umezu's masterpiece. And he expresses his love of Ainu traditional in the tune called Chakton. Chakton is a rhythm pattern of Ainu music. Umezu was inspire…

Alto sax player Katsura Yamauchi was born in Oita, Kyushu, in 1954. In 2002 he quit his company job to become a full-time musician, and each year since '03 has traveled to Europe and strengthened his ties with musicians in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and so on. In the process he met and found a kindred spirit in one of France's leading improvisers, soprano/sopranino saxophonist Michel Doneda (who happens to be the same age as Yamauchi). They've played together many times since…

Kato Hideki: electric bass and bass synthesizer; James Fei: oscillators, filters, spring reverb, contact mike, and miscellaneous electronics. Based in New York City since 1992, Kato Hideki -- a former member of Otomo Yoshihide's group Ground-Zero and Tony Buck's band Peril -- has been involved in myriad projects in America and Europe, including Fred Frith and Ikue Mori's Death Ambient, and a multimedia collaboration with Nicholas Collins. Taiwan-born James Fei studied with Alvin Lucier and Antho…

Kanryu: Debut Live in Korea 2006 sees Mikami reunited with the masterful Korean komungo player and vocalist Shin Heyon, who played together him on the Fukon group release (PSFD-8001). Eight years on that epochal cross-cultural meeting, Mikami journeyed to Seoul for two nights of concerts. Shin's stringed komungo brings a thick and knotted presence to the overall sound, while Seoul-resident Japanese musician Sato Yukie tosses in swirling metallic blats of electronics and guitar. There's a gorgeou…

Incredible screaming voice and guitar sound. New dimensions of real Japanese folk legend.

Imahori Tsuneo (guitars, devices) & Yoshida Tatsuya (drums, darbuka, voices, devices). This work was created by Yoshida Tatsuya and Imahori Tsuneo through a process consisting of composition and improvisation; and file exchange, overdubbing, and extensive editing on computer. Japanese hyper duet works by Imahori Tsuneo and Yoshida Tatsuya. This work reveals their remarkable aptitude for music through their improvisation, composition, extensive editing and so on. Play it loud!

The private home recordings presented here have been unearthed by Masayoshi Urabe which seem to date from around 1983. There's the unmistakable feel of low-level mania throughout, as Kawani moans, jabbers and obsesses wordlessly into a microphone over an patterned tapestry of feedback and amped everyday objects (rubber bands, cans, bottles, knives, steel pipes, shoes, chopsticks etc). Includes English linernotes.

Starting with her work in After Dinner in the '80s, up to her current activity as a soloist and in projects like the female trio Hoahio, and Yesterday's Heroes, with Terre Thaemlitz, Haco has long been the reigning songstress of avant-garde music. But she isn't only a highly acclaimed vocalist and composer/lyricist; in recent years she's been exploring areas unrelated to vocalizing or pop melodies, with projects that focus on the sounds that surround us in our daily lives. One of these is View M…

This is where it all began. One of the first releases on the then fledgling PSF label was a DLP by FUSHITSUSHA, Keiji Haino's ultimate rock unit.

From 1978, the earliest group recordings by Fushitsusha yet to be released. A vital document for understanding the Japanese underground and the truest, most exciting rock group of the contemporary era. Now here's something unexpected and utterly fascinating. The earliest years of Fushitsusha have long been shrouded in mystery, palely illumined by only the dimmest of rumours and half-facts. As a live entity the group seems to have begun sometime in 1978 (also the year that Friction, Japan's first…

Thrilling document of seriously wired Japanese improv collective, raising electric ghosts and phantom sonorities live in New York. Exias-J (short for Experimental Improviser's Association of Japan) have been around since 2000, and this is their second release on PSF. The group express a dedication to bringing the sounds of classic euro free improv into collision with free jazz, minimalism, electronic music, scalp-raising rock improv and a dozen other musical discourses. Balance of Chaos captures…

In the trio album Lunch in Nishinomiya, Haco (contact microphones, oscillators, effects) joins forces with two leading Montreal improvisers known for their innovative playing-Diane Labrosse (sampler) and Martin Tétreault (turntable, surfaces, small electronics). When Labrosse and Tétreault came to Japan in 2003, they found a kindred spirit in Haco. The three recorded an improvised music session at Haco's studio in Nishinomiya (near Osaka), and later completed the construction and mix through an …

This is a duo album by trumpeter Axel Dörner, who is one of the leading artists on the new Berlin improvised music scene, and no-input mixing board player Toshimaru Nakamura, who garners critical acclaim in the West as well as in Japan. Dörner's playing is far removed from conventional trumpet styles: he constructs his sound mainly from hissing noises, clicks and sputters. Nakamura spins out a delicate electronic sound using only the mixing board's internal feedback. At times they produce sounds…

A work of contemporary music performed in the rock idiom by Japanese underground rock legend, Asahito Nanjo. Nanjo is active in a wide variety of rock groups, but Group Musica exits in order to pursue a more universal musical vibration. Group Musica is an ensemble that pursues the free use of every type of Western and Eastern musical instrument, is propelled by the vibrations of very subtle rhythms, and that has internalized the methodology of minimalism. The concept behind this album is transfo…

The long-awaited solo album of amazing 'howling voice' performer Ami Yoshida is finally here. It's hard to believe Yoshida's sounds, with their myriad nuances, are those of a human voice -- they could easily be mistaken for minute digital noises. Over the past several years, this artist's work -- including projects with Yoshihide Otomo (guitar, turntable); and the duos Cosmos, with Sachiko M (sinewaves), and Astro Twin, with Utah Kawasaki (analog synthesizer) -- has garnered considerable attenti…