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Johannes Fritsch LP ‘Kyo Mu / Hochtöner’ Metaphon

Edition of 500 copies, gatefold sleeve

KYO MU (Japanese for ‘emptiness and nothingness’) is a composition for the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi und audiotape, premiered in 1982 by Hitomi Endō at the Second Weltmusik-Kongress in Vlotho, Germany. The recording on this LP is from the premiere and was made by the Feedback Studio. The version for shakuhachi was performed on numerous occasions in Europe as well as Japan. According to Johannes Fritsch, however, the piece can also be performed by tenor recorders or alto recorders.

HOCHTÖNER, written in 1974 and premiered in the same year at the PRO MUSICA NOVA festival in Bremen, Germany, is a harmonic composition referencing Pythagorean tradition. It was written for and performed by the three Feedback Studio founders: Johannes Fritsch, viola; David Johnson, flute and synthesizer; Rolf Gehlhaar, percussion. The trio and the live electronics make this piece typical of the 1970s work of the Feedback Studio. HOCHTÖNER was performed several times in the 1970s during concert tours; the recording on this LP was made in 1974 at a Feedback Studio Hinterhausmusik concert.
Fritsch described the piece in a text for a CD published by cybele records in 2006.

Fantastic, a very mysterious album

$25

Shizuka 10″ LP 狂気の真珠 [ Lunatic Pearl] – An’archives

Regular edition comes in a silkscreened jacket with obi (dark blue & dark red), insert and a postcard. Edition of 550

Sub-edition of 150 exclusive to the label Silkscreened jacket, with black obi , insert and a postcard – subtle split fountain print making each cover slightly different alike a cyanotype…

exclusive 21 x 21 cm insert

Screenprinted by Alan Sherry

Following the long-awaited Paradise Of Delusion LP from 2021, An’archives announces Lunatic Pearl, a 10” EP by Japanese psych-pop legends Shizuka. As with the material on Paradise, Lunatic Pearl draws from the deep well of music the quartet recorded in 2001, this time from two studio sessions. Here, though, the group’s classic line-up of Shizuka, Maki Miura, Jun Kosugi and Seven is augmented – on the a-side, they’re joined by Yasushi Nagata on guitar; flip the record, and Kazuhide Yamaji chimes in on acoustic guitar and bass.

Both Nagata and Yamaji were members of long-running Tokyo psych-out gang Dip (also known as dip the flag); Yamaji eventually joined Shizuka for a time, appearing with them on the 2010 DVD, Owari No Nai Yume, released by PSF. Part of Lunatic Pearl finds Shizuka in Paisley Underground mode, the spaced-out acoustic mantras of “Shiroi Inochi” and the instrumental “The Street The Fairy Goes” surprisingly reminiscent of the smeared, slow-motion psychedelics of Opal’s early EPs. The latter, a weightless blur, hovers in the air on dreamy drifts of DX-7, drifting melodies landing on the track like an astral traveller, lost and delirious.

“Lunatic Pearl” itself is a monster, one of Shizuka’s most rock-reverent moments, its bold riff soaring over a rhythm section that thuds menacingly, as though they’re the kings of the rumbling spires. “Signs”, another track from the Studio EUN session, features some gloriously unhinged playing from Miura, as though he’s tearing the song’s seams apart, as the group push Shizuka’s simple, perfect song into the stratosphere.

SOLD OUT

Special “blue” edition, ltd to 150, SOLD OUT

Keiji Haino – Oren Ambarchi- Jim O’Rourke 2LP “Caught in the Dilemma…” Black Truffle

$30

Shizuka CD 妄想の楽園 | Paradise of Delusion

Offset 7 ” jacket with screened obi (dark blue or dark red)

Edition of 500

Release & shipping date : Nov 25th

Paradise Of Delusion, the first vinyl release of the music of Japan’s legendary psych-pop group Shizuka, originally appeared in June 2021. Long-awaited, the LP sold out almost immediately, and already changes hands for three-figure amounts. An’archives is pleased to announce a CD edition of Paradise Of Delusion, making this music accessible again to a wider audience. Drawn from a 2001 performance at Binspark, Nishi Ogikubo, Paradise Of Delusion is gorgeous and otherworldly.

Shizuka first came to wider attention at roughly the same time as their peers in the Japanese underground – during the early nineties, when people started to get wise to the surprisingly wide-ranging post-psychedelic sounds from the PSF label. But even by the standards of their closest peers, aesthetically speaking –Fushitsusha (with whom they shared two members, Maki Miura and Jun Kosugi), Kousokuya, Chè-SHIZU – Shizuka were mysterious.

Led by the late Shizuka herself, a guitarist, vocalist, song writer, and doll maker, with her husband Miura, a devastatingly powerful guitar slinger, their songs were potent and seductive. Shizuka’s slow iterations of simple chord changes, with her psalmic vocal melodies over the top, suggest an existential exhaustion, often torn asunder by a soaring surge of guitar from Miura. Think the happy-sad mood of the Velvets’ third album, or a more languid Les Rallizes Denudes. Whatever is happening here is relentlessly private, psychologically introverted in many ways, but opened out to the possibilities of both beauty and despair – two states that the music of Shizuka best captures.

14€

Guo Yongzhang LP Zhuizi Selections

Born in 1945, Guo Yongzhang is a true maestro of Henan Zhuizi, a traditional Chinese talking-singing art that has a history of over 100 years. Almost blind, he plays Zhuihu and Zhuibang to accompany his own singing. His vocal style is peculiar, resounding yet smooth, adopting various types of arias from traditional local operas such as Shandong Bangzi and Shandong Zaobang, and he always sings with deep feelings and great verve.

Originated in Henan, Zhuizi is included in the national intangible cultural heritage list and has been popular in Henan and its nearby regions. Its main accompaniment musical instrument is Zhuihu, a two-stringed bowed instrument made of wood, and secondly the Zhuibang, a wooden percussion played with foot tapping. Since Zhuihu has a wide diapason with a soft sound and relatively high volume, the performer can use it to imitate the voice of human and animals.

$49

Keiji Haino + Sumac 2LP/CD Into This Juvenile Apocalypse Our Golden Blood To Pour Let Us Never – Thrill Jokey

2LP clear color $26

CD $15

Masahiko Togashi & Masayuki Takayanagi LP Pulsation – Holy Basil

“On May 27th 1983, drummer Masahiko Togashi and guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, two pivotal figures in the Japanese free jazz scene that had been working together since the 1960’s, performed and record this unique set at Zojoji Hall in Tokyo. At the time, Japanese jazz musicians were trying to find their own voice, welcoming creative elements coming in from the USA and Europe. The two musicians were at the fore-front of this generation, with Takayanagi developing his own guitar style through influences of mainstream and more extreme jazz, and drummer Togashi had developed a unique approach to drums and percussions, using silence as an integral part of music making, also due to an accident that forced him on a wheelchair after 1970. The record is divided in two tracks (“Inner Pulsation” and “Outer Pulsation”), each one about 22 minutes in length, mirroring the original LP sides. The performance can be regarded as a single piece though, with a clearly symmetrical structure, even if the musicians cover much musical ground over the course of the album. The extreme abstractness of the music guarantees many possibilities, but the main themes here are pure sound and space, investigated through a massive use of silence, ever-changing dynamics and slow structural developments unfolding with a mysterious musical logic. Originally released on iconic Japanese label Paddle Wheel and out of a print for a very long time, the album has become a very sought after collector’s item and we are glad to bring this back on vinyl in collaboration with King Record Co.”

$28