Longing For The Shadow: Ryūkōka Recordings, 1921-1939
*In process of stocking* Emerging during the early stages of the recording industry in Japan, the ryūkōka style adopted western classical, blues & jazz elements into traditional and classical Japanese music.This collection of 1920s & 30s ryūkōka recordings follows on from the Kouta Katsutaro tape we put out a couple of years back, and further captures the hauntingly unique sound of a cultural merging that was starting to reflect itself via popular song, ahead of the widespread influence of weste…
Anime & Manga Synth Pop Soundtracks 1984-1990
Trailblazing instrumental synth pop experiments created to soundtrack Japan’s booming 1980s cartoon and comic industries. The brightly futuristic instrumentals on this collection reflect the mindset of composers and musicians who believed in a technological future where everything was possible!
Patlabor 2 The Movie (Original Soundtrack "P2")
Tip! *2022 stock* From the master Kenji Kawai, composer of soundtracks such as Ghost in the Shell, Avalon, Ring, Ip Man, Seven Swords and too many to list. Complete soundtrack to Mamoru Oshii's 1993 superb political thriller science-fiction mecha anime film Patlabor 2. Outstanding emotion-filled ambient soundscape and percussion mastery, with hints of minimalism and modern classical. One of Kenji Kawai's most experimental...and best!
Special Sound Series – Vol. 1: Catch in Alice
Considered by many one of the most gifted and outstanding players in the Electone community thanks to his fresh, energetic, rhythmic and sometimes humorous style of playing, from 1975 to 1977 Shigeo Sekitō released a four-LP album set titled Special Sound Series for the iconic Nippon Columbia. On the first chapter of this series, Sekitō revisits, in his own colourful style, compositions such as "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, "Oh, My Love" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Andalu…
Utakata No Hibi
** NEW limited 200 copies orange vinyl. Double LP in UV-glossy laminated gatefold sleeve with OBI + includes A1 Poster 60x60cm and lyric sheet**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 sheet** Mariah was a Japanese outfit in the field of art pop, way back in the very late 70s and early 80s with…
Is It Really Goodbye? More Ryūkōka Recordings, 1929-1938
Exquisitely melancholy, pre-war Japanese Ryūkōka Recordings, 1929-1938, delving deeper into the style’s fusion of traditional and classical Japanese and western blues x jazz on Death Is Not The End.
Sunset Gang (LP)
Wewantsounds continue its Makoto Kubota retrospective with the reissue of Sunset Gang recorded in 1973 for Showboat. The album, co-produced by Kinji Yoshino (Haruomi Hosono, Akiko Yano, Sachiko Kanenobu) and featuring Hosono, Minako Yoshida and Taeko Ohnuki, was released as Kubota had just recorded his classic first solo album, Machibouke. It marks the start of the group's unique sound mixing Japanese music with R&B, blues and New Orleans influences, a sound that would have a lasting impression …
Dixie Fever (LP)
Wewantsounds announce an ambitious Makoto Kubota reissue program with his three albums recorded with The Sunset Gang between 1973 and 1977. The albums feature Haruomi Hosono (who also co-produced Hawaii Champroo) and also includes Minako Yoshida, Taeko Ohnuki and Tatsuo Hayachi to name a few. Makoto Kubota has been one of Japan's true musical innovators and following his involvement with Les Rallizes Dénudés in the early '70s, he developed a unique sound bringing American, Hawaiian and Okinawan …
Hawaii Champroo (LP)
Wewantsounds announce an ambitious Makoto Kubota reissue program with his three albums recorded with The Sunset Gang between 1973 and 1977. The albums feature Haruomi Hosono (who also co-produced Hawaii Champroo) and also includes Minako Yoshida, Taeko Ohnuki and Tatsuo Hayachi to name a few. Makoto Kubota has been one of Japan's true musical innovators and following his involvement with Les Rallizes Dénudés in the early '70s, he developed a unique sound bringing American, Hawaiian and Okinawan …
Belladonna
Not content with liberating what many consider the rarest soundtrack on both the cut-throat Italian and Japanese collectors markets (with the repress of the music to Eiichi Yamamoto’s erotic-historic Pinky anime psych cinematic feature Belladonna Of Sadness), Finders Keepers Records return to the composer Masahiko Sato’s bottomless well in an attempt to retrieve the elixir which enticed us in the first place. From a clutch of thirteen lost cues which never appeared on the mythical Italian-only s…
Kowloon Neon City Episode 2
HDK is proud to introduce you the second episode of "Kowloon Neon City", the immaginary distopic and retro-futuristic anime released in 199X. In this second part, the story moves from the rejected city of Kowloon to its double Olympus. We will discover a world permeated by technology that brings many aspects of our reality forward, to the extreme consequences. Mei and Cheng, once again the protagonists of this story, have to fight for their lives against the global sistem of surveillance. And we…
Sound Storing Machines
** Limited edition LP with two sided insert of liner notes by Robert Millis ** The first commercial recordings from Asia were made in Japan in 1903 by Fred Gaisberg, the legendary producer and recording engineer who traveled the world making recordings for the Gramophone Company (later His Masters Voice). The recording industry barely existed at this time. Man’s ability to record and reproduce sound had only existed since 1877 (with the invention of Edison’s cylinder phonograph) and flat disc re…
Golden Dog
**500 copies** Golden Dog (Original Soundtrack) by Yuji Ohno was originally released in 1979. Ohno is best known for his soundtracks to Anime such as Lupin III and Captain Future. So if you’re fans of those particular soundtracks and a dog lover, you may well want to get on board with this jazz funk classic.
Yuji Ohno (大野 雄二, Ōno Yūji, born 30 May 1941 in Atami, Shizuoka, Japan) is a Japanese jazz musician. Ohno is known for his musical scoring of Japanese anime television series, particularly …
Kokotsu/ Ecstasy
The 1970 erotic lounge record by Japanese maestro of percussion, Masami Kawahara, reissued now! The present record is a standout work amid the myriad records of the x-rated / lounge genre of the 1960s and 1970s that catered to adult audiences in both the east and the west. Masami Kawahara, who was a mainstay in both the jazz and pop scenes in Japan, brought together musicians including Akira Ishikawa, Masaoki Terakawa, and Jake H. Concepcion for this recording.
As would be expected of such a ste…
Kayobi No Onna
**500 copies** A golden era gem from the master himself, Masahiko Satoh, presented by Mitsuko & Svetlana Records. Archival reissue of long-lost treasure from genius pianist and composer whose resume includes hundreds of legendary albums and collaborations with Midori Takada - Lunar Cruise and Ton-Klami) among many others. Very rare soundtrack of a nine-episode suspense drama that aired on TV in 1969 and 1970. Filled with exquisite jazz, soul-jazz, folk-jazz, and mystery-jazz, plus groovy affairs…
Japan
The first Be With foray into the archives of revered German library institution Selected Sound is one of our favourites on the label - the super in-demand Japan from Victor Cavini, originally released in 1983. Rare and sought-after for many years now, this is one of those cult library LPs that never turn up. With Daibutsu the giant Buddha of Kamakura’s presence gracing the hefty front cover, this is a record bursting with dope samples for adventurous producers: it’s koto-funk madness!
Shintokumaru
Fourth J.A. Caesar album, originally issued on Victor in 1978. More crazy theatrical prog, but less bombed than the above, and seemingly more reliant on missing visual imagery. "This is another J. A. Caesar's album. Though we can not find his name on the cover, he composed all the tunes. A recorded live album and the music in the album must be very magical. Now is the time you have to estimate his genius for this unknown Japanese artist."
Woman At 23 Hour - Love In
Identical and deluxe reissue of this deliriously mega-rare and hardly known Itoh Kiyoko record. Normally if you want to score a copy of the original vinyl you are required to donate most of your vital organs to some yakuza-typed black marketer, but luckily enough, this one here is easier to attain without ripping out a lung or a liver to pound off. The CD is housed in an eye-popping foldout jacket. It was the final album Itoh recorded in 1971 and on this effort she got backed up by again a bunch…
BaraMon
The Tenjo Sajiki Company was an avant garde theater troupe formed by Terayama Shuji & was an audience participation street theatre designed to shock along the lines of the Living Theatre. Popular music was always incorporated in their projects, and so lots of rocker runaway teens were quickly attracted. By the early 70s, J.A. Ceazer and Kuni Kawauchi (of the GS group Happenings Four) had joined, and the music got really fucking weird along with the performances. Instead of just staging a version…
Saraba Hakobune
Another rarity is this original soundtrack album to Terayama Shuji's last movie with music by JA Seazer (Tenjo Sajiki, JA Caesar). Released in 1984, it was Terayama's last completed movie and Seazer's last contribution to his visionary and reactionary world. Saraba Habobune's soundtrack is just stunningly beautiful, far removed from Seazer's trademark bombastic scores. Instead it ventures into more pastoral and almost meditative psychedelic realms filled with traditional string plucking, eerie f…