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Gran Guignol CD “Gran Guignol” + CD ” Live 1981″ + 18 x 18 cm booklet 34 pages

Grand Guignol performed avant-garde performances in a white-faced style reminiscent of dark dance. Based in Fussa, they performed at many live houses, including the legendary live house “Kichijoji Minor,” and were supported by music fans at the time as an artistic band that not only included their music but also their equipment, lighting, flyers, and fashion. However, despite their growing fame, they disbanded in 1981, much to the regret of many.
Grand Guignol’s only LP was recorded in 1981, towards the end of their career, and released by the legendary Pinakotheca label in 1982. 

Second CD is the live recording held at Shibuya “Yaneura” on February 13, 1981, just before the band broke up. When they first formed, they repeatedly performed shocking performances with white make-up, but as they performed more than 50 times in total, their taste gradually changed to a pop line. This recording is from their final stage when they were at their most pop, and the finish is a powerful expansion of the characteristics of their only album. It also includes songs that were popular at the live shows at the time but were never recorded in the studio. 

Only a very few, ltd to 300 sold out at source

$65

Usurabi LP Chita

LP ltd to 415, black vinyl, 2 color (blue and black) silkscreened jacket with obi (black or light grey), 2 inserts and a postcard
Réf : [An’48]
Printed by Alan Sherry 
Photos by Akiyama Noriko 
Chita, the third album proper by Japanese guitar pop trio Usurabi, is their most elegant, stylish confection yet. Over the past four years, Toshimitsu Akiko (vocals, guitar), Kawaguchi Masami (bass) and Morohashi Shigeki (drums) have been recording, playing live, and releasing songs of rare melodic warmth, centring Toshimitsu’s unique musical vision, where melancholy and joy can co-exist, a split-second flick of her wrist switchblading the guitar from languorous sweetness to overloaded rock action.

Chita expands on the smartly sculpted pop and rock songs found on their previous albums, Remains Of The Light (2021) and Outside Of The World (2023), while infusing the music with more of the rough-housing energy that also coursed through the live CD, Once In A Red Room, they self-released in January 2024. There’s still a through-line, of course, that connects the music here to Toshimitsu’s earlier groups, Doodles and Animone, ,but Chita feels more deeply like a sussed, sharp take on the crumbling edges of sixties psychedelic folk and rock: the harmonica that blasts through the opener, “Bansho”, is pure Dylan in effect.

One of the many smart things about Usurabi, though, is that they never feel beholden to the historical moment. Soon after “Bansho”, we encounter “TurnOff”, a lush pop song that turns on a dime, with Toshimitsu tearing fuzztone notes from six strings that are like a more folk-reverent Kaneko Jutok. And there’s something about the guitar and bass riff that doubles through the thrilling two-and-a-half minutes of “Hakanonaka” that’s a dead ringer for the Only Ones. Flip the record, and things get more expansive, the spindly jangling of the title song spiralling ever inwards, before the sweet, sugary rush of “Kanata” resolves to the martial rhythms that pulse through “Aseranai”, winding the album down to its poetic, becalmed resolution.

Distribution in UK : This Ain’t Distribution / Japan Blues

Shop in Paris & distribution in France : Souffle Continu 

US : Worldgonemad

25€

ROLF GEHLHAAR LP “Wege / Ways” – Metaphon

Rolf Gehlhaar (1943-2019) was an instrumental and electronic music composer, and a pioneer in computer controlled interactive music. He grew up in the US where he studied philosophy and composition at Yale University. In 1967 he moved back to Germany to become Stockhausen’s personal assistant and member of his performing ensemble. In 1969 Gehlhaar co-founded, along with Johannes Fritsch (Metaphon 012) and David Johnson, the Feedback Studios in Cologne, a new-music performance center and publishing house. He later moved to England, where he became in 1979 a founding member of the Electro-Acoustic Music Association and later on senior lecturer in design and digital media. Gehlhaar’s compositions include symphonies, instrumental works, experimental and electronic music, interactive computer controlled music and everything in between.
The three previously unreleased tracks on this LP only show a glimpse of the versatility of his adventurous and innovative musical ideas.
The LP comes with a foldout insert including photos and extensive program notes.

$27

coming in the next days

In Camera ( Timo Van Luijk & Christoph Heemann)LP Arrival – La scie dorée

Four years after we got Lost in Spice we reached the point of Arrival. An altar on the surface of the water is burning with flames. Behind it you can see a half of the Earth’s globe, and on it there’s a bright throne. A pale, translucent ruler wearing a crown sits in the throne. The globe is surrounded by a ball of shadows on which sits a larger dark ruler on a dark throne. Behind the globe are mountain peaks, and all of it is reflected in the water. Above the mountains are clouds which merge into rivers and end in a curved horizon on which forests stand, and the sun rises between them. Above this horizon is another sky with lunar crescents and comets. Above this sky are rows of angels bent over, above which the stars shine. The sun shines in the top left corner and the crescent moon in the right.

A few copies available $27

Mimic CD Works – Enban

Yasuo Sugibayashi, who has led the band “Kujira” since the early 1980s, played electronic music before forming Kujira. Around 1980, he released two singles and one album, but the albums were completely anonymous, with no artist name written anywhere on the cover, and the solid electronic sounds that could not be related to the rich world of songs that would later become Kujira, were only known to a small number of people as mysterious independent records. Perhaps because the electronic sounds were connected to the later world of electronica and acoustic music, some of the next generation of musicians in those fields whispered about his existence, and this time all of his works have been compiled into one CD. Mastering was done by Taku Unami, and his mysterious activities at that time are revealed in an interview with himself, liberating the unknown early ’80s electro music! After all, he only performed live once at that time! That one performance was the opening act for JUKE led by Shinro Ohtake, which shows his isolation from the scene and his solitary nature.

$24

Keiji Haino 2CD Black Blues – Room 40

Two matte laminated, monochrome printed and embossed sleeve and insert cards. Plus 6 panel fold out poster

20 years since its first release, Black Blues remains one of his most provocative recordings – a collection of 6 songs, recorded twice over. On version Violent, the other Soft; and the differences could not be more radical.

Only a very few $28 SOLD OUT

Sara – Tatsuya Nakatani – Otomo Yoshihide – Toshiji Mikawa CD Soul Boat – Nomart Editions

$16

Sara – Ayako Kanda CD Fujin / Raijin – Nomart Ed.

Interesting duo with voice, piano & percussions

$16