★Alchemy Records
Starring LeChat
An FM dial tuned to Japan, 1985 - then fed through the loudest band the country has ever produced. Kyonetsu No Hatsune Kaidan, issued by Alchemy Records in 2018, was the first new studio album in three and a half years from Hatsune Kaidan - the union of noise legends Hijokaidan and the Vocaloid singing synthesizer Hatsune Miku - and it aims its feedback at a very specific target: the golden age of Japanese pop, from anime themes to the classic kayokyoku songbook.
By 2018 the project had settled …
ベスト : Best
Japan's most famous pop star does not exist, and here she fronts its most ferocious band. Hatsune Kaidan is the improbable union of Hijokaidan - the Kyoto-born group that has defined Japanese noise since 1979 - and Hatsune Miku, the turquoise-haired Vocaloid singing synthesizer developed by Crypton Future Media, a virtual idol who has filled arenas without ever drawing breath. Best, issued on CD by Alchemy Records in 2018, gathers fourteen tracks from the project's strange and glorious run - stu…
Alternate Flash Heads
Ninety-nine tracks in thirty minutes - the physical limit of what a compact disc can hold. Alternate Flash Heads, the second solo album by the saxophonist Ryoko Ono, issued in 2015 by Alchemy Records and produced by Jojo Hiroshige himself, is one of the great conceptual gambits of recent Japanese music: a single composition shattered into 99 palindrome-titled fragments, designed to be shuffled - so that no listener ever hears the same album twice.
Ono, born in Sapporo in 1975 and long based in N…
Giga Noise
Twenty-five artists, eight hours, one room. In May 2016, the Giga Noise mini festival brought together an entire cross-section of Japan's noise underground at Tokyo's Akihabara Goodman - a marathon showcase of mostly lesser-known and emerging acts from across the country, an event with few precedents even within a scene famous for its density. Giga Noise (Future of Noise), a sprawling double CD issued by Alchemy Records, is its official document - twenty-five live performances, and a snapshot of…
Triple Echo Live
Recorded in the same year that saw the release of the Triple Echo trilogy, Triple Echo Live is the document that completes the picture - the drone project of Jojo Hiroshige brought to the stage, unfolding in real time before an audience. Issued by Alchemy Records on CD in an edition of only 100 copies, it has remained one of the most elusive entries in the noise legend's vast catalog.
Hiroshige needs little introduction. Born in Kyoto in 1959, he founded Hijokaidan in 1979 - the band that, more …
Kill
Solmania's first album in 18 years: a single 64-minute slab of avant-garde guitar torture from Masahiko Ohno and Katsumi Sugahara, wrung from self-built multi-neck guitars bristling with extra pickups. Not a static wall but a continually evolving storm of feedback and tone. On Alchemy, 2016.
Five Elements
A 2015 collaboration between Jojo Hiroshige on guitar and Haruo Ueda on electronics, structured around the natural elements. The Hijokaidan founder steps away from pure noise into a more textural dialogue, his guitar set against Ueda's shifting electronic fields. On Alchemy.
Little Something
An instrumental solo guitar album from Jojo Hiroshige, founder of Hijokaidan and self-styled King of Noise. Improvisation for solo electric guitar pushed to a dense, heavy extreme that is hard to believe comes from a single instrument. On Alchemy.
Hijokaidan featuring Nasca Car
A 2015 meeting between Hijokaidan and Nasca Car, the Osaka electronic project of Nakaya Koichi. Two studio tracks and two live sets across more than forty minutes, the King of Noise's wall of sound crossed with Nasca Car's pulsing acid-house and new-wave electronics. On Alchemy.
生きている価値なし～The Very Best Of Jojo Hiroshige
Jojo Hiroshige - known and feared throughout the world not only as a member of the legendary ‘‘Hijokaidan,’’ often referred as ‘‘King of Noise,’’ but also as the owner of the prestigious label “Alchemy Records,” which has released countless “Japanoise” masterpieces.
"Words are different to sounds in that the images they create are limited. They’re like a two-edged sword – sometimes they can be used effectively, but sometimes they restrict the range of the images employed. When I was young I read…
Abe Kaii
A 1982 cassette by Abe Kaii, the duo of Jojo Hiroshige and Toshiji Mikawa, named in sly homage to free jazz saxophonist Kaoru Abe. A monolith of free jazz and psychedelic space rock from two future architects of Japanese noise, near impossible to hear for decades, reissued on Alchemy in 2017.
Live! Destroy Noise Symphony
A 2018 live document from Hijokaidan in their definitive musical form: Jojo Hiroshige on guitar, Junko's voice, Toshiji Mikawa on electronics and Futoshi Okano on drums, fusing into a single dense wall of sound. The King of Noise captured live and unrepentant. On Alchemy.
Zouvneree
Harsh noise at full saturation from Incapacitants, the duo of Toshiji Mikawa (Hijokaidan) and Fumio Kosakai. No melody, no rhythm, no let-up, only a dense and strangely psychedelic block of electronics pushed toward ecstatic overload. One of the defining names in Japanese noise, on Alchemy.
初音階段ライブ！
A 2018 best-of from Hatsune Kaidan, ten tracks chosen by Jojo Hiroshige from the project's run of releases. The Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku singing anime themes, Velvet Underground and Yoshiko Sai while Hijokaidan's noise rises to swallow her whole. Noise is melody. On Alchemy.
水中Joe
★ First complete limited edition ★ With obi ★ first time in analog form. Mysterious sounds bubbling up again from the bottom of the deepest water-----Imagination Wharf An amazing second album released one year after the masterpiece "Great Music"! The insane album by the talented group "Wharf of Remembrance" is finally available on analog LP! It is said to be extremely difficult to create an impact that surpasses this one, and this is the first analog release of a classic album that will remain i…
Aiyokujinmin12kyudan
First press limited edition ★ 2-disc LP set ★ With obi The compilation album "Aiyokujinmin12kyudan" which features many artists from around Alchemy Records such as Hijokaidan, Subvert Blaze, Omoide Hatoba, Rapes, and Sekiri, is now available on vinyl for the first time! The legendary event "Aiyoku Minjin Jujiki Gekijo" was held at the legendary live house "Minor" in Kichijoji. The LP released by Pinacoteca Records in 1980 recorded the event, and inspired the Kansai indie warriors around Alchemy …
Fubi
★ Limited edition ★ With obi Totsuzen Danball has a unique world of their own that refuses to be easily categorized. Their 4th album "Fubi" (1991), recorded at the same time as the masterpiece "Yokushi Onryoku", is finally available on analog for the first time! This is the only work that Totsuzen Danball left behind on Alchemy Records, and although it contains only three songs, the shortest among their many albums, it contains the longest song in Japanese rock history, "Around the Lost World" (…
Noise, Violence And Destroy
Sabotage Organized Barbarian, best known by their acronym S.O.B were part of a hardcore punk movement in the 80s that envigorated Japanese youth along with other acts like GISM and Gauze. The ravaging tempos and punishing aural densities grappled with the ears, and their sphere of influence quickly broke the banks of their native Osaka, with acts like Napalm Death acknowledging the bands importance for their own sound and grindcore to come. In 1988, S.O.B teamed up with Alchemy Records founder …
京大西部講堂 1983.9.17 Live
Sta-Kaidan was a miraculous collaboration band formed by Michiro Endo of The Stalin and Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan, which became the origin of the later "Kaidan Collaboration" series, such as SOB-Kaidan with SxOxB, Togawa-Kaidan with Jun Togawa etc. Recorded at the Kyoto University in September 1983 by one of audience, this legendary live recording in chaos and violent paformance, which had been out of print for many years after being released as a CD in 2014 to commemorate the 35th anniversar…
Best
The long-awaited analogue version of the crazy collaboration between Japan's world-famous King of Noise, Hijokaidan, and vocaloid Hatsune Miku! The first vocaloid to join the staircase series, which has seen numerous collaborations with Stalin, S.O.B, Atomic Bomb Onanies and even idols such as BiS and avandoned, is called "Hatsune Staircase"!
The first vocalist, Shiranabata Kamin, and the second vocalist, Rusha, have been performing live continuously and have gained many fans in Japan and abroa…