★An'Archives
Tête de Chou
*350 copies limited edition* An’archives are proud to announce the release of the debut album by Tête de Chou, the trio of Mark Anderson, Kurumi Kido, and Arlo Wynks. Some may know Anderson for his membership of Greymouth, 番長Taste, Mysteries Of Love, and Suishou No Fune; Kido and Wynks have more personal, sporadic musical histories, which informs the intimacy and gently exploratory nature of the eight pieces contained here. The trio’s movements seem spontaneous and open-ended, which makes sense …
Umwelt, Room
*300 copies limited edition* With Umwelt, room, An’archives releases the first vinyl LP by Japanese singer, songwriter and guitarist, Kotonashiso. An elegant collection of seven slow-moving, free-ranging song forms, Umwelt, room is reflective, pensive, and yet has a great, expansive sense of movement, each song’s parameters feelingalmost infinitely flexible. Born in Tokyo in 1984, Kotonashiso began playing music in 2000. After taking a long break from making music between the years 2005 to 2016,…
Dioramas
*350 copies limited edition* On Andrew Chalk's 2025 album for An'archives, 'Dioramas,' he returns to the art of the miniaturist, after the long-form exploration of 2024's 'Songs Of The Sea.' It's an appropriate mode of address given the title - each of these fifteen pieces indeed feels like a replica of a specific scene, rendered in miniature. As with much of Chalk's music, they set out to explore humble terrain, a thread of melody in slow motion, or a weave of texture, sometimes in aquatic repo…
Chita
Tip! *LP ltd to 415, black vinyl, 2 color (blue and black) silkscreened jacket with obi (black or light grey), 2 inserts and a postcard. Printed by Alan Sherry* Chita, the third album proper by Japanese guitar pop trio Usurabi, is their most elegant, stylish confection yet. Over the past four years, Toshimitsu Akiko (vocals, guitar), Kawaguchi Masami (bass) and Morohashi Shigeki (drums) have been recording, playing live, and releasing songs of rare melodic warmth, centring Toshimitsu’s unique mu…
Kata No Wadachi
LP ltd to 315 copies. Kata No Wadachi is the latest album by Banetoriko, the solo noise project of Tamaki Ueda. Her first release both on An’archives and on vinyl, it follows several albums for the Neurec imprint–2017’s Beside the Sluice and 2022’s Yorioto Hogiokuri–and several other cassettes and CD-Rs. With Kata No Wadachi, the Banetoriko world, inspired by the Yokai (“strange apparitions”–supernatural figures, ghosts, spirits) of Japanese folklore, is at its most resonant yet.Recorded across …
Doppelgänger ga boku wo
LP ltd to 315 copies. An’archives is proud to present the latest album by Japanese free saxophonist and vocalist Harutaka Mochizuki, Doppelgänger ga boku wo. Since the early 2000s, Harutaka has quietly, yet steadily, released a string of solo and collaborative releases that have allowed multiple perspectives on one of the most singular voices in modern music. In collaboration, he seems to prefer the duo format, and digging through his discography, you’ll find releases where he pairs with Tomoyuk…
Tori Kudo & 3C123
LP ltd to 400, black vinyl, 2 color silkscreened jacket with obi (grey, tan), inserts and a postcard. An’archives are pleased to announce the release of a self-titled album by Tori Kudo & 3C123. A reissue of a cassette that was originally released on Uramado in 2020, this is the first time this live session has appeared on vinyl. The performance, featuring Kudo on piano and 3C123 on clarinet, was recorded on October 18, 2009, at the Uramado venue in Shinjuku. A beautiful and quixotic forty-minut…
Suikyō
Tip! *315 copies limited edition* The latest release on An’archives, Suikyō, documents a first-time meeting between three Japanese improvisers: Takashi Masubuchi on guitar and harmonica; Ayami Suzuki on voice and electronics; and Tomo on hurdy-gurdy. Recorded at Permian on the 29th of January, 2023, it’s a stunning, forty-minute long improvisation of rare artistic sympathy. Notably, it was the first time the trio had performed together, though Masubuchi and Suzuki have prior form as a duo; on th…
血と雫 Je Prie pour que la Goutte ne Tombe pas
* ltd to 400, black vinyl, color silkscreened jacket with obi (white, dark blue), inserts and a postcard * Je prie pour que la goutte ne tombe pas (I pray that the drop does not fall) is the first international release by Japanese trio Chi To Shizuku. While they have released five albums and a 7” in Japan, their spectral, haunted rock songs haven’t yet reached a much wider audience overseas. With this album, then, a live recording taken at Koenji HIGH, Suginami, Tokyo on 23rd November 2021, the …
Sun & Fireworks
* LP ltd to 400, black vinyl, silkscreened jacket with obi (orange, dark blue), inserts and a postcard * Sun & Fireworks is the first studio recording, after several live albums, for Los Doroncos, the Japanese psych rock quartet led by Kiyohiro Takada, aka Doronco. The group’s singer and songwriter, he’s perhaps best known as a sometime bass player for legendary Japanese group Les Rallizes Dénudés; he was also an early member of their sound crew, recording the material that appeared on OZ DAYS L…
The wind is spring - there is a rainbow in the sky - love is hiding in the waves
Since forming in 1999, Suishou No Fune (A Ship Of Crystal), the vehicle for long-term musical collaborators Pirako Kurenai (guitar, voice) and Kageo (guitar), have been one of the most compelling groups in the Japanese underground. Their long, languorous songs are devastating in their simplicity, as though the gently sung ballads of the Velvet Underground’s third album were re-scored by the legendary Japanese free-rock gang, Les Rallizes Denudes. Their new album, 風は春、空は虹、愛は波間に隠れている (The wind is …
Outside of the World
Tip! *400 copies limited edition* Outside of the world, the second album by Japanese trio Usurabi, is a rare pleasure – a guitar pop album that’s deep with spirit, bristling with energy, melodically rich and precious: full of life. It’s even more thrilling than its predecessor, 2021’s Remains of the Light, also released by An’archives, its eight songs falling together just perfectly. If you’ve ever swooned to the sound of rattling, humming organs on countless ‘60s garage rock sides, the wistful …
Nine Death Stages
* Edition of 325 copies, silkscreened sleeve w/ obi (black or kraft), postcard * Kusōzu : Nine Death Stages is the second album by the Tokyo trio Archeus, which consists of Keiko Higuchi (voice, percussion, trombone, shamisen), Shizuo Uchida (bass strings), and Tomo (hurdy gurdy, voice). It follows their debut, self-titled and self-released CD and cassette from 2021 and is further proof – if any were needed – that these musicians, who’ve known each other for some time, but only started playing t…
Tsilla
*300 copies limited edition* On Tsilla, Jean-Noël Rebilly and Andrew Chalk pay homage to the late French writer and engraver Cécile Reims. While she may be best known as interpretative engraver for surrealist artist Hans Bellmer, and she also worked with Leonor Fini and briefly for Salvador Dali, Reims’ most powerful and enduring works were made either in collaboration with her husband, the writer and artist Fred Deux (who signed their collaborative work “cf deux”), or by herself. Later works by…
You Don't Need Magic
Tip! HUH are the wild, freeform duo of Kyosuke Terada and Takuma Mori. Based in Tokyo, and playing together since 2007, HUH have released a clutch of cassettes, CD-Rs, and digital albums; they’ve toured Europe (in 2017) and Australia (2019); and they count amongst their collaborators the likes of T Mikawa of Incapacitants, ASTRO, and Government Alpha. You may know Terada from his duo with Shizuo Uchida, MAI MAO, who recently released an LP on An’archives, but he's super prolific, performing solo…
Renoir Of The Toys
Renoir Of The Toys is a deep dive into the world of Youri Kun, the nom de plume of Japanese guitarist, singer and songwriter Hiroshi Nar. It follows a similar compilation, Unheld Ball, released in 2022 on Japanese label Inundow; like that album, Renoir Of The Toys draws from the rich catalogue of outsider psych-garage and rock recorded by Youri Kun over the past two decades. Deeply wired into the history of Japanese underground music, Nar was a founding member of legendary ‘70s outfit Datetenryu…
Paradise Of Delusion
*Limited edition of 500 copies.* Paradise Of Delusion, the first vinyl release of the music of Japan’s legendary psych-pop group Shizuka, originally appeared in June 2021. Long-awaited, the LP sold out almost immediately, and already changes hands for three-figure amounts. An’archives is pleased to announce a CD edition of Paradise Of Delusion, making this music accessible again to a wider audience. Drawn from a 2001 performance at Binspark, Nishi Ogikubo, Paradise Of Delusion is gorgeous and ot…
Lunatic Pearl
*Limited edition of 550 copies.* Following the long-awaited Paradise Of Delusion LP from 2021, An’archives announces Lunatic Pearl, a 10” EP by Japanese psych-pop legends Shizuka. As with the material on Paradise, 狂気の真珠 [Lunatic Pearl] draws from the deep well of music the quartet recorded in 2001, this time from two studio sessions. Here, though, the group’s classic line-up of Shizuka, Maki Miura, Jun Kosugi and Seven is augmented –on the a-side, they’re joined by Yasushi Nagata on guitar; flip…
Ricshari
LP ltd to 285. Silkscreened chipboard jacket with obi (textured tan & black), inserts and a postcard. An’archives are thrilled to announce the release of Ricshari, the first LP from Japanese free improvising duo Mai Mao. Consisting of Shizuo Uchida of Hasegawa-Shizuo, Albedo Gravitas, Archeus, Kito Muzukumi Rouber, Terror Shit, UH, etc. on bass, and Kyosuke Terada, of HUH (who have their own release due on An’archives soon), TERROR SHIT, Bay City Rolaz, Praymate, The Obey Unit, etc. on guitar, t…
An'34
*385 copies limited edition. Silkscreened chipboard jacket with obi (tan & white), inserts and a postcard* On their latest release, An’archives dives into the past, disinterring a revelatory collection of recordings from Japanese free-sound quintet Gu-N. Formed in 1994 by Fumio Kosakai (Incapacitants, Hijokaidan, C.C.C.C.) and Hidenobu Kaneda (Yuragi), alongside Ikuro Takahashi (Fushitsusha, Kousokuya, LSD March), Ryuichi Nagakubo (C.C.C.C., Yuragi), and Morihide Sawada (Yura Yura Teikoku, Marbl…