★EM Records
New Games / Rhythm & Sound
*2024 Repress. A new edition with changed details such as the back of the jacket and the label. Shrink packaging + sticker pasting.* "A miraculous object with a line-up of recording and mixing by Fumi Nishikawa, mastering and cutting by Rashad Becker, and binding by Tomoo Gokita. An instrumental group led by Koshiro Hino = YPY, Goat's memorable first LP is a reorganization of the best performances of the 1st "New Games" and 2nd "Rhythm & Sound". They create music with noises, muted sounds, and p…
Istikhbars and Improvisations
*2024 repress* Mustapha Skandrani. Besides having an excellent name, this man, a luminary of Algerian music, possessed a unique musical sense, able to transcend the borders of musical cultures to create a distinctive fusion of Arabo-Andalusian and European styles. "Istikhbars and Improvisations", recorded in 1965 in Paris, is a solo piano album presenting a trans-Mediterranean crossover based on traditional Algerian vocal pieces known as Istikhbars. Playing these istikhbars (which have roots in …
Nanyatoyara
The folk arts of Japan, including music, are an ever-evolving wonderland. Riyo Mountains, a Tokyo-based folk song research/DJ duo, is actively documenting the folk music of various regions in Japan; here they present the fifth in their series of musical documents on EM Records. This particular release focuses on the thunderous drums and powerful vocal phrases of the singular Nanyatoyara dance and song, featured at summer festivals in the northern prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, places with long…
Music for "Cyber Café"
In 1991, Yuji Takahashi and Mamoru Fujieda collaborated in staging a sound installation at the Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo, making extensive use of the new artistic possibilities provided by the advent of personal computers. In this installation, a culmination of their investigations into the aesthetic use of new technology, these two renowned leaders of Japanese experimental music used sensors and transducers on objects and in the space itself, via MIDI conversion, to trigger pianos, synthesiz…
Emily's Illness
Comes with 6-page foldout sleeve, translucent blue vinyl. Including rare photos and lyrics. Originally released in 1967; Nora Guthrie’s ultra-rare “Emily’s Illness” is a lost gem of songcraft originally released in 1967, now reissued in the same 7″ vinyl format (b/w “Home Before Dark”) as the original. Featuring the pure vocals of the 17-year-old daughter of Woody Guthrie, “Emily’s Illness” was written by Eric Eisner (The Strangers) and impeccably arranged by Artie Schroeck. A romantic collabora…
Beam Penetration
Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Ban…
Air From Air
BioVinyl LP. The poetry of the human voice encounters the magic of contemporary electronic musical technology. Heart, mind and spirit, conveyed by the word, are augmented and altered, enhanced and embraced, by electronic sound. “Air from Air” is a collaboration between Japanese vocalist/producer Dove and American electronic duo Georgia. This singular partnership is a collection of audio poems in which words breathed by Dove are modified and expanded, cradled and celebrated, syllable by syllable …
Ecological Plantron
"Ecological Plantron" was a CD released in 1994, the audio document of an installation held in 1994 at a gallery in Tokyo. The Plantron is a bioelectric interface developed by botanist Yuji Dogane; it was designed to give voice to plants, using electronic means to make audible the energy of the natural world, prioritizing the non-human aspects of nature. Dogane was assisted in the project by composer Mamoru Fujieda, who helped to convert the vegetal energies into audible sounds. Though they stre…
Isophonic Boogie Woogie
In restock Reissue of the legendary Afro spiritual minimal electronic masterpiece 5-track first LP (plus 2 bonus tracks) from horn wizard and original underground FM radio DJ Roland P. Young, featuring soprano sax, clarinet, and electronically-processed bass clarinet. An enjoyable outing from a neglected musician. Cosmic Afro-minimal electronic winds recorded in 1970s San Francisco. Classic explorations from the dude who was responsible for the legendary Infinite Sound LP on Arch 1750.
Thankful…
Kizaki Ondo
“Kizaki Ondo” is a folk song from Nitta Kizaki town in Gunma, north of Tokyo. Played annually by local performers at the Bon-Odori traditional summer dance festival, it features unabashed lyrics about prostitution along with a rhythmic drive sure to appeal to fans of contemporary electronic genres as well as aficionados of traditional musics. The first track is a wildly echoing vocal version recorded in 1980, redolent of humid summer nights; the second track, recorded in 1981, is an instrumental…
Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm (2LP)
Henry Kawahara has been called “the Jon Hassell of Japan”, but upon closer inspection one finds that his work operates on very different terms. Like Hosono's forays into computerized Ryukyu folk “sightseeing music” or Tsutomu Ōhashi's Ecophony trilogy, Kawahara's world projected ancient musical traditions and notions of cultural identity onto the modern digital plane through a fusion of cybernetic thinking and pan-asian cultural introspection that makes Western attempts to do the same seem quain…
Bird Caged: Birdfriend Archives
Very sick comp of new Japanese music - selected by a Japanese person, released on a Japanese label. Enter a world unknown!
Osharaku
Osharaku is a traditional Japanese form of musical entertainment, featuring mainly voice, shamisen and percussion, with a repertoire of folk and popular songs, performed by farmers and fishermen for local audiences. This compilation, compiled by Riyo Mountains, is the fourth release in the EM Records / Riyo Mountains Japanese folk series. These recordings feature legendary Osharaku masters, recorded in their homes, brilliantly capturing the casual warmth and vitality characteristic of the style.…
Stealth
Stealth” is the aptly-titled debut album from Tokyo-based composer/producer Takao. Gliding in under the radar with thirteen slyly sweet and subtle miniatures, these pieces are refreshing light-explosions of gentle harmony and modestly grand melodies. Fans of New Age and tonal minimalism will enjoy this music, but its brevity reveals a pop-influenced aesthetic as well, and the level of care and detail in the arrangements and recording evinces a nuanced, surprisingly mature sensibility. There’s a …
Sakai Ishinage Odori
**Comes with 8-panel fold-out liner notes with rare photos and English translation. Housed in reverse-board-printed jacket** Archival 1982 recordings from the "agricultural industrial" celebration, complete with dense drum rhythms, chanted vocals and handcrafted bamboo flutes, plus 2017 versions of the same pieces by Sugai Ken. EM Records is proud to present, following “Yumi Kagura”, the second edition of the Japanese folklore music series, directed by Riyo Mountains. Japan has a long tradition …
Three Amazonian Essays
Belgian composer Lieven Martens Moana, formerly known as Dolphins Into The Future, interprets and re-imagines Spaniard Juan Alberto Arteche Guel's 1990 Finis Africae album "Amazonia", a Balearic classic. Utilizing analog and digital instrumentation and recording techniques, Martens, inspired by Takemitsu, Ives, Joji Yuasa and others, refers to ethnomusicology, collage, sound art, electronic music and modern composition in the construction of a narrative take on the original release. Using excerp…
Early works 1980-82
CD version. Innersleeve with liner notes and lyrics, as well as photos. With this release, EM Records shine a light into the dark and yet strangely uplifting world of Inryo-fuen's early '80s wonderland: a surreal, adventurously analog, positively negative realm of freedom. Following the EM Records release of Inryo-fuen's enigmatic Ho-aku (EM 1125CD), Early Years 1980-82 collects the band's earliest recordings, originally released on flexi and vinyl, here re-edited, re-mixed and remastered.…
Five Rhythm Works
Beginning in 1974 and based in New Zealand, the sound-performance group From Scratch used an evolving array of percussion instruments -- including found and repurposed objects as well as custom-made percussion instruments -- to create a distinctive rhythmic music, texturally rich and tonally sumptuous. The music has a sophisticated, fluid, and intelligent polyrhythmic drive and prominently features pitched percussion, using microtunings and just intonation in tightly structured pieces that evolv…
Amazonia
Come join Spaniard Juan Alberto Arteche Guel and his musical co-adventurers on their good ship Finis Africae on an imagined musical journey along the Amazon. This is a CD and vinyl LP reissue of their 1990 album, a rare and highly sought-after Balearic classic, Guel's masterpiece. Finis Africae was part of the musical flourishing that emerged at the end of the Franco regime, and this album, guided by the visionary Guel, captures the mature results of that era of new-found openness and freedom. C…
The Reconstruction Of
Compuma aka Koichi Matsunaga reaches back through time to 1970s Hawaii to perform a mind meld, with his old-school Roland drum machines and present-era compumagic Vulcanizing and reshaping Haku's original home-grown analog synth madness. Haku aka Frank Tavares composed a number of theater pieces and songs to highlight the multiethnic character of his native Hawaii, and released an LP of his compositions in 1975 (reissued by Em in 2015 (EM 1136CD/LP)). In Haku's work, new age musical elements, tr…