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Tomoyuki Aoki & Harutaka Mochizuki LP “Tomoyuki Aoki & Harutaka Mochizuki LP” Nashazphone

Vinyl LP pressing. Reissue of the now long sold-out debut album (2014) by the guitar and saxophone duo of Aoki Tomoyuki (Up-Tight) and Harutaka Mochizuki. Initially limited to 200 CD copies only, this record features nine, reverb drenched, mourning pieces characterized by this duo’s specific melancholic language via guitar and alto saxophone. Immediately evoking the Velvet Underground inspired electric and echo filled ballads of Les Rallizes Dénudés, it is also augmented with haunting horn improvisations simultaneously reminiscent of Anthony Braxton and Kaoru Abe.

This is one of my favorite album recorded in the last decade !

$23

Chie Mukai & Yonju Miyaoka CD “Songs of Trees” Tall Grass records

Comes in jewel case, with 8 page booklet and English translation kraft sheet.
artwork by Yonju Miyaoka
Lyrics translation by Alan Cummings
Long notes by Takuya Sakaguchi, Short notes by Alan Cummings and Yu Hirayama.

“Chie Mukai (Ché-SHIZU), an erhu player with a cult following in Japan and abroad, has been performing her unique style for over 40 years. And the newcomer Yonju Miyaoka, who has been quietly attracting attention both at home and abroad with his work on “Bunsuirei,” “Shuko No Omit,” and “Sayozoku”. These two artists of different generations, who naturally gravitate toward each other based on their aesthetics and sensibilities that they can somehow communicate without saying it out loud, have a chance encounter that transcends generations in their gentle, song-filled performances and mysterious songs. At times sharp and gentle, at other times fresh and simple, this is a journey into daydreams.”
Text by Tsunaki Kadowaki (Meditations). If there’s only one thing I can add is how I’d have loved to have it released on An’archives….

$15 SOLD OUT

Sayozoku CD “星 Studio” Tall Grass records

Sayaka Tenjin – vocal, percussion, instruments
Yonju Miyaoka – vocal, guitar
Yasuo Kikuchi – Bass

$12

Preorder, copies are on the way

Toshi Ichiyanagi- Michael Ranta – Takehisa Kosugi LP ‘Iskra 1975’ Metaphon

Toshi Ichiyanagi, Michael Ranta and Takehisa Kosugi originally got together in the summer of 1975 for an open-air concert in Sapporo. The concert felt like a great success but was unfortunately not recorded. As the desire arose to record together, they managed to arrange a studio session in the NHK Studio in Tokyo, with presence of sound engineers. What was supposed to be a soundcheck for this session became the session itself: a haunting 50-minute séance of intense avantgarde improvisation using a large instrumentation and live processing (tape echo, ring modulation, phasing). A trident travelogue of the momentum masterfully controlled by the ensemble spirit, transcending the boundaries of psychedelic underground.

Official reissue of this underground classic from 1975, originally released in a tiny edition on the small Japanese Iskra label.
As the original master tapes of these recordings seem to be lost, the master had to be taken from an unplayed original LP copy. It was carefully restored and mastered by Jos Smolders with amazing result.

$23

Release date : July 1st

Gu-N LP

ltd to 385 copies -Silkscrened jacket with obi (tan, orange or black) & inserts, liner notes by Michel Henritzi

Formed in 1994 by Hidenobu Kaneda (Yuragi), alongside Fumio Kosakai (Incapacitants, Hijokaidan, C.C.C.C.) , Ikuro Takahashi (Fushitsusha, Kousokuya, LSD March), Ryuichi Nagakubo (C.C.C.C., Yuragi), and Morihide Sawada (Yura Yura Teikoku, Marble Sheep), Gu-N played regularly at Plan-B in Tokyo, but released little during their relatively short time together. Hazy and hypnotic, their laminar improvisations, four of which appear on this untitled album, are compelling, oneiric visions for the ear.

In his liner notes for the album, Michel Henritzi writes that these Gu-N recordings situate the group within a broader trajectory of free improvisation and collective sound within Japan – Taj Mahal Travellers, East Bionic Symphonia, Marginal Consort, each of whom sprung, in many ways, from the radical vision and creativity of Takehisa Kosugi. But there’s a unique spirit here that aligns Gu-N with these predecessors, while also marking out singular territory.

Kosakai’s background in noise, via his participation in Hijokaidan and Incapacitants, can be heard in the unrelenting oscillations and heavyweight drones that purr throughout each of these four tracks. Both Kosakai and Nagakubo were members of C.C.C.C., perhaps the clearest precursors to Gu-N in their psychedelic density, though Gu-N trade in C.C.C.C.’s volcanic energy for a more tempered, sensuous exploration of tone and time.

There’s also a brutish element to Gu-N’s improvisations – see the saturated spectrum, rumbling and phasing throughout the album, and the crushing, almost Amon Düül-esque drum tattoos that Takahashi pounds out on the second track (recorded in 1998), punctuating the music from deep inside its hallucinatory murk. Elsewhere, as on the third track (one of three recorded in 1994), Kosakai’s cello scrapes out armfuls of buzz-tone as Sawada’s bouzouki trills out, elastic and vibrant, across spindrift electronics and lung-spun winds.

What’s most impressive here, though, is the way each player, formidable musicians in their own right, defers to the might of the communal and the collective. The quintet broke up in 1998, leaving behind scant recorded evidence – just one, self-titled CD, on Pataphysique, released in 1995. This LP is a most welcome addition to the small but blissful body of recorded work made public by this mysterious quintet of spirit channelers.

24€

Camp One LP “Revengeful is the mask of darkness” Zaius Tapes

Some 40 years after it’s release, Camp One’s sole album from ’81 remains as mysterious as ever, the quartet of D Jones, I Good, L Williams & P Sage still hiding in plain sight. Ask any deep digger you might know, it seems none of them can shed any light on this stunning, enigmatic lp. There are those who’ve never seen a copy, let alone heard it. Speculation here, an educated guess there, not exactly Captain Kidd’s treasure map. ‘Revengeful’ doesn’t fit neatly into any niched genre; its almost a Baroque-like, outsider take on Prog Rock & Postpunk at once, eccentricity crackling off it’s grooves. Imagine if you will, the fattier bits of A Moore’s oeuvre, the suet of L Voag + the gristle of Mark Perry, all baked into a most succulent Yorkshire pudding for the ears. After a recent Negative Reaction reissue, this one is a nice addition to some obscure and hard to categorize stuff

$24

Tori Kudo / Maher Shalal Hash Baz LP “maher goes to the worldly frequency”

Ltd to 205, each copy comes in a pasted Deutsch Grammophon recycled jacket, so they are all different

comes with a risograph booklet.

We don’ t have many !

$48