Japan Top Albums
Speed And Space
**Black Vinyl edition ** Recorded in November 1969 at Teichiku Kaikan Studio, Tokyo, "Speed and Space - The Concept of Space in Music" is one of those landmark works in which Masahiko Togashi is accompanied by talented musicians who possess a unique style and innovative approach. The album is an exploration of Togashi's notion of the “Time Law" and can be seen as a study of how texture, rhythm and differing rates of change effect our perception of the passage of time in music.
Sounding quite o…
Independence
**Black Vinyl edition ** The quintessential album by Takayanagi Masayuki. Considered the 'Lochness monster' of Japanese free jazz records due to its incredible rarity, this album was the debut recording of Takayanagi Masayuki as leader with The New Directions, a trio consisting out of bassist Yoshizawa and drummer Toyozumi "Sabu" Yoshisaburo. Recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan studios on 18 September 1969 (released in 1970), "Independence – Tread on Sure Ground," is largely regarded as the first tr…
Amalgamation
*CD Version* Reissue of this legendary album from 1970 featuring Hiro Yanagida, Kimio Mizutani, Mototeru Takagi. Number seven on the Japrocksampler Top 50. Divine excessive jazz-rock stylings by this batch of period-visionaries presumably recorded sometime in 1970 by Rudy Van Gelder and Creed Taylor at the Toshiba Records 1st Studio. All of that "real" psychedelic goo gets smeared about quite a bit; acoustic string flap AND electric gonzo-muff battle overdriven organ lines played by said Masahik…
Love Will Make A Better You
*2024 stock* "Number six on the Japrocksampler Top 50, available again for the first time in over a decade!" "Commencing with singer Akira Fuse's goggle-eyed one-day-old-baby innocence, Love Live Life + 1's album opener 'The Question Mark' escorts us through an eighteen-minute free-rock R&B adventure like nothing before or since. Clanking harsher than even the title track of Funkadelic's Free Your Mind & Your Ass Will Follow, and twice as long; cosmic as the Cosmic Joker's Galactic Supermarket, …
Duo Recital (art edition)
*Special art edition* In 1961, soon after Toshi Ichiyanagi returned from the USA, two concerts were performed at the Sogetsu Art Center; "Toshi Ichiyanagi Concert" [1], at which some member of 'Group Ongaku' joined, a s well as "Toshi Ichiyanagi and Kenji Kobayashi Duo Recital", which recording is used for this album. It was a major opportunity for its audience to experience the works of Toshi Ichiyanagi and the avant-garde philosophy directly in front of their eyes. Six months later, John Cage …
Kokkyou Junreika
Packaged in a mini LP sleeve with obi, 4-page & 12-page booklets of lyrics and Japanese liner notes and anti-static CD sleeve in a resealable clear plastic sleeve.. Tokyo playwright, director and artist J.A. Caesar sprang to prominence in the early '70s largely through his work with Shuji Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki Theatre, specializing in vaguely sinister music reminiscent of a Hammer House Of Horrors soundtrack. 1973's Kokkyou Junreika release, often considered Caesar's finest work, was culled fr…
Heavier Than a Death in the Family
Limited double red 180-gram vinyl reissue. Comes in a hand-numbered sleeve. Phoenix Records releases the oft-bootlegged Heavier Than A Death In The Family by legendary Japanese rock/psychedelic noise band Les Rallizes Dénudés. This "album" is in fact, a blistering assemblage of live performances (all recorded in 1977, except for "People Can Choose," which was recorded in 1973) which sits at an esteemed #3 position on Julian Cope's Japrocksampler top 50 list. Reverb so heavy, it will split your …
Uganda
**tip-on sleeve with OBI strip.** The respected Japanese jazz drummer Akira Ishikawa was not messing around when he recorded the 'Uganda (Dawn Of Rock)' album with his band the Count Buffaloes. For this offering, originally released in 1972 on Toshiba Records, Akira Ishikawa takes us on a deep tripped-out journey. 'Uganda (Dawn Of Rock)' is a fusion of progressive and psych rock with African percussion workouts, dergy-wah wah blues-funk, and jazzy sensibilities; with different genres morphing an…
Music for theatrical drama. Obscure Tape Music Of Japan – Vol.4
This is volume 4 of Omega Point's newly-reissued Obscure Tape Music of Japan series, featuring two early works of music concrète composed for theatrical drama by legendary Japanese composer Joji Yuasa. The sounds on this recording, especially of "Oen" is so experimental and strange, but this music was not for avant-garde theater. "Mittsu No Sekai" contains elements of a mechanical beat (suggestive of a machine civilization) that could be the precursor to industrial music. Composed for the …
Utakata No Hibi
Japan styled CD edition with printed innersleeve, OBI and 36x36cm poster **A legendary yet long lost crown jewel from the early 80s Japanese Electronic and Jazz Rock scene - new powerful master, much appreciated by the artist, dbl.12″ in UV-glossy laminated gatefold sleeve with OBI+ includes A1 Poster 60x60cm and lyric shee** Mariah was a Japanese outfit in the field of art pop, way back in the very late 70s and early 80s with 5 albums up their score from 1980 to 1983. The album from 1979 entitl…
Duo Recital
In 1961, soon after Toshi Ichiyanagi returned from the USA, two concerts were performed at the Soget su Art Center; "Toshi Ichiyanagi Concert" [1], at which some member of 'Group Ongaku' joined, a s well as "Toshi Ichiyanagi and Kenji Kobayashi Duo Recital", which recording is used for this album. It was a major opportunity for its audience to experience the works of Toshi Ichiyanagi and the avant-garde philosophy directly in front of their eyes. Six months later, John Cage made his first visit …
Osorezan / Doh No Kembai
Their transcendental debut, from the lendary Geinoh Yamashirogumi, a music collective formed in Japan in 1974. Their approach psychedelic music with from a rather Krautish point of view and their first album from 1976 about which I write this review is rather a collage of strange noises, screams, a few rhythms patterns and wide open structures that seem to be borrowed from late 1960s psyched out free jazz. And you can bet, this is an ever flowing freak out but definitely an intense and mi…
The Tale Of The Heike
Akira Sakata, a legendary Japanese jazz musician active since the early '70s (Yosuke Yamashita Trio,Akira Sakata Trio) and a marine biologist, has toured and recorded with The Thing, Jim O'Rourke, Bill Laswell, Merzbow, Chikamorachi, et al. The Tale of the Heike is an intense solo performance originally released on CD in 2011, and now available on vinyl for the first time. This edition is expanded to include four pieces from the 2013 DVD release of a live ensemble performance of the piece. Akira…
Independence: Tread On Sure Ground
**2008 release, long out of print, very few copies available** New release in Tiliqua Records ongoing Archival Series is this quintessential album by Takayanagi Masayuki. It was his debut recording as a leader with his newly erected unit The New Directions, a trio consisting out of bassist Yoshizawa and drummer Toyozumi "Sabu" Yoshisaburo. Recorded at the Teichiku Kaikan studios on 18 September 1969 (released in 1970), "Independence – Tread on Sure Ground," is largely regarded as the first true …
Catch-Wave
Takehisa Kosugi is an inter-media artist and performer who started his career back in the '60s in Tokyo. With his first band Group Ongaku (free anarchist-conceptual improvisations) he was introduced to the Fluxus avant-garde movement. During the '70s, he was a member of the mystical, psychedelic, droning rock band Taj Mahal Travellers. He co-founded the band in 1969. Since the end of the '70s until now, he has released several solo albums and commissioned works for events and sound installa…
Aube
Killer LP of haunting, contemporary yet timeless synth scapes and pulsating ambient from Japan’s Synth Sisters. Chee Shimizu’s 17853 label has become the focus of much attention over the past couple of years as electronic music from the far east has gained traction, with Chee's record shop Organic Music becoming something of a centrepoint for collectors far and wide. Although this is only the second release on the label, it's the one everyone seems to be talking about, penned by Osaka's R…
![Ne [Sound Encounter]](https://cdn.soundohm.com/data/products/026/masami-tada-ne-sound-encounter.jpg.500.jpg)
Ne [Sound Encounter]
Japanese sound artist Masami Tada had participated in the workshop of Takehisa Kosugi at Bigakko in 1970’s. His name is known as a main member of legendary improvisation group "East Bionic Symphonia" and "GAP" in mid '70s (both LPs released by ALM Records are extremely rare as you know). Nowadays Tada is mostly interested in photo installations and sound performance - he called 'sound encounter' - used many bamboo cylinder and some amplified objects. All CDs are released from SOH Gallary in Toky…
08.09.13 Collective Improvisation
Marginal Concert is the collective improvisation project made up of Kazuo Imai, Tomonao Koshikawa, Kei Shii, and Masami Tada. All of the members were students of Takehisa Kosugi at Bigakko art school in 1975. They started the project on the invitation of Imai in 1997. Each year Marginal Consort holds from one to several concerts in which they perform continuously, without interruption, for two to four hours. Various electronic and acoustic sounds blend and coexist, and myriad sound colors…
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…
Opera from the works of Tadanori Yokoo
2015 restock....Very last copies, long out of print: back in 1969 avant-garde composer Toshi Ichiyanagi hooked up with Uchida Yuya’s damaged psych rock group Flowers and illustrator Tadanori Yokoo to realise a double-LP set that would combine Fluxus-damaged pop art moves with abstract acid rock, avant electronic drone, frail almost-songs, rehearsal sketches, big band marches bisected by iron-blue drones, wildly evocative field recordings and intimations of limitless, hallucinatory space, all in …