Japan'archives mailorder

Taeko Tomioka CDR Monogatarinoyounifurusatohatooi – Label On Demand

Please note that’s an official ltd re-release with a pro duplicated CDR

An avant-garde masterpiece (produced in 1977) in which the young Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborated with contemporary writer/poet Taeko Tomioka on the eve of YMO’s formation.

Only a very few, $29 SOLD OUT

Daisuke Tobira CD ギター (Guitar) Bumblebee records

Sweet and introspective lo-fi avant folk from Osaka and originally released in late 1999, this is considered to be a monumental and yet very mysterious relic: virtually nothing is known about Tobari outside of these minimal recordings and the few photos that accompany them. Tobari’s outsider status only adds to the enigma behind these recordings.

$30, we only have a few copies

Yuki Fuji LP one Butoh – Akuphone

Ltd to 500, 28-pages A5 Portfolio

A musical immersion into the most exciting avant-garde dance style of the past century. Created in Japan in the 1960s by Tatsumi Hijikata, butō is the “dance of the obscure body”. It broke with the traditions of classical Noh and Kabuki Theater, which, at the time, seemed outdated in the national context. Nourished by a European artistic avant-garde, butō stands out as a mirror of the socio-political turmoil of a post-World War II Japan. One Butoh resonates as a perfect acoustic introduction to this subversive art and propels the listener deep into his own soul.

Fuji-Yuki is a Japanese vocalist who uses her voice like an instrument. With special vocal techniques, glossolalia and electronic pedals, she creates a wide variety of sounds. Inspired by the spirits of Buddhism and Shintoism, she creatively transforms her vocals into an ambient drone or prayers resonating in a church-like space. Her live performances are always different, depending on the place and space they take place in. She is also known as the vocalist of the experimental band Sarry.

$25

The Rabbits LP Mesh Key

First-ever vinyl release of criminally unknown early ’80s Japanese punk band.
Fully remastered from the band’s original early ’80s cassette releases, and housed in a sturdy tip-on sleeve. Includes a double-sided, illustrated insert. Includes digital download card.

Singer-songwriter Shoichi Miyazawa’s tale is a confounding one. He grew up in a small town in Yamagata Prefecture (in northern Japan), loved Dylan and The Beatles, and had very little exposure to, or interest in, underground music. And yet, shortly after 24-year-old Miyazawa arrived in Tokyo in 1978, he began performing solo shows at tiny clubs in the city, singing and playing guitar. His performances quicky devolved from brisk acoustic jaunts to lengthy, heavy dirges sung in a snot-nosed wail over a blown-out electric guitar detuned to produce a kind of sonic sludge.

At one of his earliest gigs, a mutual friend introduced him to Endo Michiro, who would soon become the legendary front man of Japanese punk icons The Stalin. It turned out Miyazawa and Endo had attended Yamagata University at the same time just a few years earlier, but hadn’t known each other at school. In Tokyo, they became fast friends, moved into the same apartment building, and for years were inseparable. Endo played guitar and drums on Miyazawa’s debut release, the “Christ Was Born in a Stable” flexi disc. But while Endo was social and outgoing, Miyazawa preferred to be alone, avoiding concerts unless he was performing.

$32

Edition of 500.

HUH LP “You don’t need magic “An’archives

[An’36] March 31st

12″LP black vinyl, comes in a 2 colors silkscreened jacket with obi (black, red, green tea), inserts and a postcard. Edition of 285

Printed by Alan Sherry & liner notes by Jon Dale

HUH are the wild, freeform duo of Kyosuke Terada and Takuma Mori. Based in Tokyo, and playing together since 2007, HUH have released a clutch of cassettes, CD-Rs, and digital albums; they’ve toured Europe (in 2017) and Australia (2019); and they count amongst their collaborators the likes of T Mikawa of Incapacitants, ASTRO, and Government Alpha. You may know Terada from his duo with Shizuo Uchida, MAI MAO, who recently released an LP on An’archives, but he’s super prolific, performing solo and in groups like The Obey Unit, Bay City Rolaz, Praymate, Terror Shit, Death After Death, and more. Takuma Mori also records solo and is one half of duos Cosmetic i and Don’t Let Me Fantastic.

So, they’re busy, energetic musicians – but even that doesn’t quite explain the bustling energy and furious dislocation of the music they make together as HUH. It’s incredible, brain-blatting stuff, moving at a fierce clip between ideas, instruments, and styles – on a track like “Jewels in blue pee”, for example, a plunking banjo riff is repeatedly effaced by stumble-drunk drums, rumbling bass, and incongruous, high-wire blasts of electronics. There are voices in here, but they’re often mangled and distorted; rarely comprehensible, they melt into the unpredictable structures Terada and Mori build out of their junk kit.

HUH call themselves ‘free-form freak-out / noise improvisation’, and there’s a touch of the Familiar Ugly in the collective stammer and stutter central to their music. They’re remarkably untroubled by anyone’s expectations, resulting in a music that’s as confusing as it is compelling, full of clamour and vigour, but never for the sake of it: these seven improvisations, sometimes song-like, sometimes careening and hyperactive, sometimes smeared and abstract, all make their own kind of perfect un-sense. Line them up next to similarly puzzling yet enthralling gutterpunk improv units: Smegma, Bone Cure, Nihilist Spasm Band, Crayon Skidder. 

24€

Eliane Radigue 2CD Naldjorlak – Saltern

Double-CD album with custom packaging and screen printing by Alan Sherry. Includes extensive liner notes by Gascia Ouzounian, Éliane Radigue, and Charles Curtis, and a reproduction of Radigue’s never-before-published original drawing of Naldjorlak.

Saltern presents a thrilling new live recording of Naldjorlak for solo cello, composer Éliane Radigue’s first piece for an acoustic instrument, paired with a remastered version of the long out-of-print, original 2006 recording. Composed in 2005 in close collaboration with cellist Charles Curtis, Naldjorlak marked a striking shift in the music of Radigue, who has since composed exclusively for instrumentalists with her celebrated Occam series. This album brings together two complete performances by Curtis, recorded nearly 15 years apart (Paris in 2006 and Los Angeles in 2020), drawing attention to the evolution of the piece and to its inherent mutability. The sound and spirit of Naldjorlak are centered around the re-tuning of the entire cello to the wolf tone, a uniquely unstable frequency, creating a haunting, almost feedback-like resonance within the instrument itself.

$23

Shizuka 2LP Heavenly Personae + CS

Deluxe Double LP Tri-Fold w/ Laser Etched Side

& Direct Only Edition with Limited Shizuka “4” Cassette

Heavy tip-on tri-fold jacket with ink pigment foil stamping, gloss film laminate finish with mounted booklet and printed inner sleeves. 

Black Editions presents Shizuka’s sole studio album, 1994’s Heavenly Persona, a monumental, transcendent work originally issued by P.S.F. Japan on CD in 1994; Now newly remastered and in its first ever vinyl edition on double LP with a laser etched fourth side. Presented in a deluxe tip-on tri-fold jacket with ink pigment foil stamping, gloss film laminate finish and printed inner sleeves and mounted booklet. It includes her extensive, heart wrenching final interview, translated for the first time to English alongside high-resolution archival images.

SOLD OUT