Oto no Hajimari wo Motomete vol.12 - The World
Brand new issue of archive series of NHK electronic music studio. This issue will be a collection of Toshi Ichiyanagi's tape works at NHK studio as his memorial.
Kofu III
** 180g heavyweight vinyl in 12" debossed sleeve with capped obi, 32pp booklet (22x14cm) with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper. ** Hailing from Hiroshima, Meitei, unveils the final chapter of his transformative Kofū trilogy. “Kofū III” marks the apex of a musical journey that began in 2020, unraveling an introspective exploration of the artist's psyche while delving deep into the essence of Japanese culture. This latest release invites …
Kwaidan
** 5th Anniversary Edition. Limited 180g smoke haze vinyl, 12″ sleeve with capped obi, 8pp insert, offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper. Includes two previously unreleased bonus tracks. ** Meitei (冥丁) is a Japanese artist from Hiroshima, who started out as a freelance composer, making various kinds of music across genres. Having done it for eight years, his goal was to eventually release his own original music as an artist. Living in Kyoto for the past two years has deeply influence…
Individual Beauty
The long awaited second album by Colored Music, the avant-rock unit of Atsuo Fujimoto and Kazuko Hashimoto, is now available on vinyl. In 1983, two years after the release of their first album "Colored Music" in 1981, which has been reevaluated worldwide, they released their second album "Individual Beauty", which was planned to be released as a cassette book but ended up being put aside. In 1983, two years after the release of "Colored Music," the album was released as a cassette book. This is …
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 …
Non Band
2022 limited edition of this Japanese no wave gem from 1982. With extended liner notes and interviews with band members about the recordings of the album, as well as unpublished photographs from 1981 by Jibiki Yuichi.
'The Japanese punk rock movement known as Tokyo Rockers began in the summer of 1978. It incubated an independent music culture as well as a host of fascinating, individualistic musicians. One of the more striking units was the male-female duo Maria 023. Non played bass for them, an…
Leo
Meandering, autobiographical solo works from Aki Tsuyuko, tracking her 30 year relationship with her beloved Kawai Dreamatone organ. As so touchingly explained in the release notes, Aki’s relationship began with her instrument of choice after her Dad (who worked as a salesman for the Kawai corporation) brought one home for her. From here, she started to explore the vast combinations of tones and colours the half digital / half analogue organ can produce, regularly retreating away to practice a…
N . D . E
First ever vinyl pressing of Haruomi Hosono's full album N.D.E. Featuring Goh Hotoda, Yasuhiko Terada, Yasuaki Shimizu, Bill Laswell & François Kevorkian. Ever since his days as a pioneer of Japanese electronic music in the 1970s, Haruomi Hosono has constantly pushed forwards musically. The 1990s was a particularly fertile decade for the Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder. Following two decades spent creating and releasing innovative electronic pop, imaginary sound worlds and inspirational ambie…
No-Input Mixing Board
Tip! First ever vinyl issue of the minimal, masterful debut from Toshimaru Nakamura. Nine tracks of abstraction originally released on CD in 2000.
From my eyes to the sun
Moritariron a noise artist living in Kochi, became rirongg and completed his first work "From my eyes to the sun" in 2023. A train whistle rings out in the dark universe... What is it that I understand, understand, and remember? Comes with a novel (not artificial intelligence) by a mysterious author. Mandala Acoustic World All 5 songs included. It is a conceptual work that captures sound as a visual vision and evokes a kind of universe, nature, science, religion, and human beings, but he asserts…
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 …
Music Now For Harp
Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the first international reissue of Ayako Shinozaki's hard to find LP "Music Now For Harp" released in 1974 by Nippon Columbia. The LP was released on the label's cult "Master Sonic" series and features Shinozaki's harp soundscape on works by renowned composer Toru Takemitsu and Katsuhiro Tsubono. The highlight of the album is the spaced-out liquid 25-min ambient epic 'Heterodyne' featuring cult musician Takehisa Kosugi (Taj Mahal Travellers, Group Ongaku) on…
06 06 16 - St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin
“06 06 16 (St. Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin)” documents a rare three-hour concert by the legendary avant-garde improvisation collective Marginal Consort, on their first-ever appearance in Germany. The event was presented by Manuela Benetton on 6th June 2016, in collaboration with PAN and 33-33. It was supported by Initiative Neue Musik e.V.
"Marginal Consort is a rare gift of restlessness, aspiration and sense, growing ever deeper." — Lawrence English
Non Band II
* Japan only edition of their 2nd album. Comes with a bonus CD * NON BAND were formed in the early 1980s. Bassist and vocalist NON had been in a number of bands before going solo and then reconsidering her choice; NON BAND was the eventual concession, a three piece that placed NON with Kinosuke Yamagishi on violin and clarinet and Mitsuru Tamagaki on drums.
'The Japanese punk rock movement known as Tokyo Rockers began in the summer of 1978. It incubated an independent music culture as well as a …
Kakashi
2023 much-needed repress. A wonderful, rare record wrapped in a mysterious yet playful ambiance. Or maybe it’s just the impression that the Japanese language often gives me. ‘Suiren’ is an odd jazz-fusion-wave tune that sounds like its boiling, waiting to burst but somehow manages to stay in control. Like the nervous tick of a leg fidgeting under the table of a restaurant on a first date.Yasuaki Shimizu is a Japanese composer, producer and saxophone player. He worked with Ryuchi Sakimoto on cert…
Ta Yu Ta I
"I listened to the demo recordings for the “Ta Yu Ta I” CD. The track begins with the sound of a stone, and, for a moment I doubted my ears, thinking that it was the iwafue stone flute that I had lost overseas in 2005. The flute actually used on this recording was a replica on an ancient flute, one of three that have been handed down within my family. But until that moment when I heard the sound of it echoing inside my skull, I had completely forgotten about it. It was my living flesh that breat…
Divin
*Packaged in a deluxe, gatefold Stoughton tip-on jacket. Hi-res download included* Junko Tange’s second and final album - a minimalistic, phantasmagoric masterpiece of distant, dreamlike voices woven through pulsating, dubbed-out drum machines, synths and static, originally issued by Osaka’s Vanity Records in 1981. Did this unassuming dental student (who vanished from the music world following this release) inadvertently invent dub techno? You be the judge. Label head Yuzuru Agi said this was hi…
Hosono House
*2023 stock* The unbelievably prolific Haruomi Hosono is one of the major architects of modern Japanese pop music. With his encyclopedic knowledge of music and boundless curiosity for new sounds, Hosono has put his unmistakable stamp on hundreds of recordings as a session player, producer, and auteur of his own idiosyncratic musical world. Born and raised in central Tokyo, his adolescent obsession with American pop culture informed his early forays into country music, which he would revisit late…