★Hitorri
The Very Fabric
*300 coipes limited edition* "The Brønshøj Vandtårn is a concrete water tower, built almost a hundred years ago in the suburbs of Copenhagen. It's 20m wide and 34m high - smaller than some similar shapes I've played in, but with a large, lingering reverberation. Some sounds seem to float away as if through liquid, others acquire a shifting haze, and some just prefer to sit around. Thomas Buhl-Wiggers, of the Cejero festival and label, kindly invited me to play there in the summer of 2022 and arr…
Bottomless/Blank
** 200 copies** Electronic sound artist Takuma Kuragaki was born in 1968. Since he began his musical activity in the 1990s, he has presented his creations not only in live music venues, but also in museums and galleries. In 2009, Kuragaki earned an award for excellence in a contest featured in Sound & Recording Magazine in which entrants produced works incorporating material field-recorded by Ryuichi Sakamoto in the Arctic Circle. In 2017, Kuragaki took part in the 3-CD compilation album Prix Pr…
Misrepresenting Memory
** 200 copies** A solo album by guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama, who carries out an energetic performance schedule in and out of Japan. Amazingly, this is his first solo album since the 2008 release of "The Ancient Balance to Control Death" on the U.S. label Western Vinyl. That album included both acoustic guitar and singing, so "Misrepresenting Memory" is actually Akiyama's first instrumental solo album with guitar in 13 years, since the release of the CD-R "Terrifying Street Trees" in January 2006 on…
Rotating, Rotating
** 200 copies** Zhao Cong is a Beijing-based experimental and improvisational musician. In addition to performing in live events in Beijing such as Zooming' Night, organized by composer andperformer Zhu Wenbo, she has in recent years been expanding her range of activity, visiting Japan each year and performing in various locations around the country. She has also released solo and duo albums on Zhu Wenbo's cassette label, Zoomin' Night. This CD contains three solo tracks: tracks 1 and 2, each ab…
No-Instrument Air Noise
As a sax player, Junji Hirose has been a prominent figure on the free jazz/improvised music scene since the late 1970s. But he has another side: he performs on non-electronic noise instruments called SSI (self-made sound instruments), which he creates by putting together odds and ends and everyday objects. Hirose has released (on the Hitorri label) the CDs SSI-4, SSI-5 and SSI-6, which respectively document performances on the instruments of the same names. No-Instrument Air Noise, compris…
Bwoouunn: Fleeting Excitement
Alto sax player/improviser Masahide Tokunaga released his second solo album in 2015, and the highly original playing on that recording, comprised entirely of powerful long tones, received critical acclaim. Two years later, his third solo album shows that he has reached new heights. Proceeding in a comfortable way, his performances here consist mainly of long tones, but add subtle changes in timbre and volume with impressive technical skill, producing a highly creative sound space which could eve…
For Tentou Mishima
Kazuo Imai (born in 1955) studied with Masayuki Takayanagi and Takehisa Kosugi, and has been performing improvised music since the 1970s. While his principal instrument is the guitar, he also makes extensive use of viola da gamba, electronics, everyday items and natural objects, freely performing music born of myriad sounds. This album is comprised of five pieces from Imai’s live performance on the final day of a solo exhibition by graphic artist Tentou Mishima (who died in 2012), held at the ga…
Ssi-6
As a sax player, Junji Hirose has been a prominent figure on the free jazz/improvised music scene since the late 1970s. But he has another side: he collects odds and ends and everyday objects and puts them together to create instruments which he uses in noise performance. Hirose calls these noise instruments SSI (self-made sound instruments). He released the CD SSI-4 (hitorri-997) in 2013, and SSI-5 (hitorri-993) in 2015. This is Hirose's new release, SSI-6. In contrast to the roaring sounds of …
Ssi-5
As a sax player, Junji Hirose has been a prominent figure on the free jazz-improvised music scene since the 1970's. But he has another side: he collects everyday odds and ends and puts them together to create instruments which he uses in noise performance. Hirose calls these noise instruments SSI (self-made sound instruments). In 2013, he released the CD SSI-4 (hitorri-997). This is his new release, SSI-5. To make the SSI No. 5 instrument, he put together about 30 vinyl chloride pipes and, using…
Alto Saxophone 2
Masahide Tokunaga, born in 1982, is an alto sax player & improviser active on the Tokyo scene. This CD is his second solo album, and his first since the 2009 release of 'Alto Saxophone' on the Slub Music label five and a half years ago. Like that CD, these 7 tracks (recorded in January 2015) are made up entirely of subtly changing long tones played on the alto sax. This album is just as unique, but compared to the previous CD, which is made up entirely of soft playing, its sound is a great deal …
Me no Tawamure
Naoaki Miyamoto: guitar. Recorded by Yumi Kobayashi and Yohei Hamamoto at GOK Sound, Tokyo, January 9, 2009. Mastered by Ryuji Seto (phat tuesday sound). Photo and design by Naoaki Miyamoto. Guitarist Naoaki Miyamoto was born in Tokyo in 1976. He started performing in 1997, and in 2003 launched his own label, Marrakech Recordings (which has released 2 CDs to date). Since 2002, Miyamoto has also been performing in other countries including France and Germany. His music is made up entirely of elec…