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.
3untitled
* Edition of 100 * Tsss tape presents 3untitled by Masayuki Imanishi. Field recordings, contact microphone, objects. Recorded in Osaka, Japan, September 2020. Mastered by Francesco Covarino.
Scandal
** Matte laminate and embossed sleeve, monochrome print and includes a full colour collage fold out poster from Masami Akita ** Scandal collects together three newly unearthed and revised pieces from Merzbow recorded between 1992 and 1995. Each of the pieces here typifies work that sits at a nexus between the experimental cassette and electronic collisions of Masami Akita’s late 1980s works and the emergent noise language that resolved into a series of now legendary recordings completed during t…
Nova Naturo
** Matte laminated sleeve, full colour print and insert card ** On Nova Naturo, Japan’s Haco expands her already divergent song craft into a zone that meshes field recording, electronics and layers of floating voice into an imagined sound environment that encourages a sense of a deepened interior terrain. Haco’s work in groups including the now legendary After Dinner and Hoahio have earned her a unique and respected position in the Japanese music communities, but it is with her solo work that sh…
Triwave Pagoda
** Deluxe 40-minute Cassette, limited edition of 150, each with full-color six-panel j-card in clear Norelco case, plus full-color outer o-card featuring collage art by Masami Akita ** "Triwave Pagoda" is a blistering sonic depiction of space travel through rough and choppy atmospheres. Turbulence is ever-present and the cacophonic, dying equipment is about to give out. But the occasional shooting comet is still visible. And behind the controls is an impeccably credentialed master of flight who…
Shinkai
** Hand stickered & stamped LP with lyric insert ** Five years after the release of ‘Pressure Loss’ the modern master of electronic minimalism Nicola Ratti returns to Where To Now? in collaboration with Japanese MC ‘MA’, for a suite of submerged, outsider Trip-Hop. ‘Shinkai’ meets at the crossroads of the gloomy sonic snapshot world of Tricky, the South London DIY avant pop bloom of Curl/Mica Levi, the outer fringes of Hip-Hop heralded by the Anticon crew, and the deep textured minimalism of Mac…
Okinawa Kaidan: Saya No Yume Ha Yoru Hiraku
** 2021 Stock. Limited edition of 186 hand-numbered copies. Full on-body printing cassette housed into a very special handmade glossy cardboard slipcover sealed with two stickers. ** Xn Recordings presents Okinawa Kaidan: Saya No Yume Ha Yoru Hiraku (Saya’s “My Dreams Bloom At Night”) by Saya Kaidan. Performer – Jojo Hiroshige, Junko, Futoshi Okano, Toshiji Mikawa, Okinawa Electric Girl Says. Producer – Jojo Hiroshige.
Rhythmelogic
** 2021 Stock ** The drum duo "Dada Rhythm" was formed in 2008 by Uzamashi Okamoto and Kasei Yamada, and since 2018 they have changed their name to "Dinarzum", and also work as "Nichientai", playing only seven cymbals. The duo creates a tapestry of syncopated movements where inorganic and tribal organic qualities, which are similar to minimal electroacoustics, intertwine in a dense way. Rhythmelogic was recorded on April 16, 2016 at their base of activity, Shin-Imamiya Nchichi Building, and was …
Tokedashita Garasubako
Hereby a classic Japanese acid folk tale, also credited by the wizard master Julian Cope in his ‘Japrocksampler’ top 50 list. Tokedashita Garasu Bako, or Melting Glass Box, was a studio-only project of Nishiokai Takashi (Itsutsu No Akai Fusen), “Singing Philosopher” Tetsuo Saito and Takasuke Kida (of influential psychedelic freaks Jacks). Guest musicians included Kazuhiko Kato (Folk Crusaders, Sadistic Mika Band), Kazuo Takeda (Blues Creation) and mastermind Haruomi Hosono (Apryl Fool, Happy End…
Last Afternoon
** Edition of 200 ** The second release on Constructive is ‘Last Afternoon’ by Japanese composer Takuma Watanabe. Having studied at Berklee College in the USA he is currently living in Japan where he composes for film using a string ensemble founded by himself. This is Watanabe’s first full length artist album. ‘Last Afternoon’ features collaborations with American vocalist and composer Joan La Barbara known for her recorded works with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Robert Ashley and composer and so…
Self Portrait
** Edition of 285,comes in asilk-screened tip-on/ “old style” jacket with obi (red or black), with inserts and a postcard. Liner notes by Jon Dale ** It’s been almost three decades since Japanese guitarist and songwriter Masami Kawaguchi first broke cover, with his group Broomdusters and their debut album, 23 hours 30 minutes (Purifiva, 1997). In the intervening years, Kawaguchi has maintained single-minded discipline, through his membership of some of the Japanese underground’s greatest groups …
Remains of the Light
** Edition of 285, comes in a silk-screened (2 colors with metallic ink) 3 panels foldout jacketwithobi(red or black), inserts and a postcard. Liner notes by Michel He nritzi ** Remains of the Light, the debut album by Japanese trio Usurabi, is a gorgeous thing –six generous, deftly melodic songs that stretch out slowly, breathing deeply, yet never outstaying their welcome. The members of Usurabi started playing together in 2017, but they’d known each other for several decades, meeting via their…
Maebashi
The idea for Suemori's new alias arose in conversation with Osàre! Editions label boss, Elena Colombi. An inheritance from his grandfather, the name sets the tone of the album that synthesises traditional Japanese instruments into an electronic format. Dub and drone’s eerie resonance collides with staccato electro and fizzling acid on ‘Yakkosan.’ Driven by a meditative beat, flutes and choral voices glide through 'Senpai Kouhai' while ‘Hankumoi’ shudders with lucid synth. The cultural iconograph…