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Meitei CD Kofu – Kitchen Label

On ‘Kofū’, Meitei masterfully closes his trilogy of lost Japanese moods with an engaging interrogation of artforms and aesthetics as a provocation — or, as fashioned in the album’s subtitle, a “satire of old Japanese aesthetics”. Each entry’s distinct flavour has earned Meitei acclaim for conjuring a bygone culture through his transportive form of ambient music. ‘Kofū’ arrives as a deconstruction of this approach.

These stories cloud the overall mood of ‘Kofū’, but Meitei takes a Mizoguchi-like approach to mould that unimaginable pain with tenderness. ‘Oiran I’’s hidden subtitle is Hana, and ‘Oiran II’ is Shiokaze. As Meitei explains, “Hana means gorgeous and glorious. Shiokaze is the sea breeze — for her life.” Tracks like ‘Urameshi-ya’ and ‘Gen’ei’ provide a meditative space amidst the turbulence, while ‘Shōnen’ takes a turn for the cinematic. The eight-minute odyssey is engulfed by shadowy voice loops, mixed best for a headphone experience in a solitary setting.

Meitei bids farewell to an expedition first sparked by a passion for a long-forgotten cultural past. ‘Kofū’ is a definitive conclusion with an open invitation to listeners from Japan and beyond — encouraging continued appreciation of this sacred part of history, wholly untethered from the world at large.

Glass-mastered CD housed in a die-cut outer case with rounded obi, 16pp inserts with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper.

Only a few $26

Meitei LP/CD Kofu II – Kitchen Label

180g heavyweight vinyl in 12″ debossed sleeve with capped obi, 16pp inserts (22 x 14cm) with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper. LP ships with tracking. Glass-mastered CD housed in a die-cut customised debossed outer case (14.5 x 14.5cm) with rounded obi, 16pp inserts with words in Japanese and English from Meitei. Offset printed, full colour on premium matt paper.

Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in its first two tracks of Kofū II – a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds and flutes, all united in bustling harmony. Happyaku-yachō is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field as Meitei conjures the vibrancy of a dense Edo of the past. The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate Kaworu, a composi- tional piece lifted from his Komachi sessions – a final requiem to his late grandmother.

The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, even a vengeful assassin (Shurayuki hime, known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snow- blood’).

We only have a very few

CD $26

LP $40

Reiko & Tori Kudo LP Tangerine – A Colourful Storm

Limited LP with insert and postcard. Insert contains Japanese and English lyricssheet, postcard contains artwork by the artists. A Colourful Storm presents Tangerine, a collection of songs by Reiko and Tori Kudo. Recorded at Village Hototoguiss, Japan, in 2011 and 2012

Originally released on CD by Hyotan in 2013 

Delicate with a lot of strange details, honestly this is one of the most beautiful album ever recorded.

All Reiko Kudo albums are highly recommended but this one is the last recorded, already 10 years ago !

$24

Mototeru Takagi – Susumu Kongo – Nao Takeuchi – Shota Koyama CD Live at Little john, Yokohama, 1999 – NoBusiness

CD $12

Itaru Oki Quartet CD Live at Jazz Spot Combo 1975 – NO business

CD $12

Kang Tae Hwan CD Live at Café Amores – No Business

CD $12

Kang Tae Hwan – Midori Tanaka CD An eternal moment – No Business

CD $12

Wadada Leo Smith – Sabu Toyozumi CD Burning Meditation

CD $12

Kaoru Abe / Sabu Toyozumi CD Mannyoka – No Business

CD $12

Choi Sun Bae quartet CD Arirang Fantasy – No Business

CD $12

Barre Phillips – Motoharu Yoshizawa CD Oh my, Those Boys ! NoBusiness

CD $12

Ton-Klami CD Prophecy of Nue NoBusiness

Midori Takada, Kang Tae Hwan- Masahiko Satoh

$12

Derek Bailey – Mototeru Takagi CD/LPLive at FarOut, Atsugi 1987 – NoBusiness

CD $12

LP $18

Masayuki Takayanagi / Noboyushi Ino / Masabumi Kikuchi CD Live at Jazz Inn Lovely 1990 NoBusiness

$12

Tetuzi Akiyama / Michel Henritzi CD “Shinjuku No Kage” Dyin’ Ghost Records

Distant meeting between 2 abstract bluesmen, drifters and friends. ltd to 150

$10

Yasumi no Kuni CD “Concert 1975” Super Fuji

Long-running Japanese folk group, originally formed in 1969 by the members of Jacks & Teruyuki Takahashi, recorded live just after Fy Fan second album

$32

Kazuki Tomokawa book “Try Saying You’re Alive!: Kazuki Tomokawa in His Own Words” Blan Forms

Paperback , 14 x 20 cm – 256 pages – english

Kazuki Tomokawa has lived many lives: poet, self-taught guitarist, actor, day laborer, basketball coach, painter, bicycle race tipster, and incomparable drinker among them. Above all, he is a legend of Japan’s avant-folk music scene and his searing lyrics and raw, unvarnished vocals have influenced generations of musicians since his mid-1970s debut, when his unique sound brought him to prominence in the turbulent worlds of Tokyo’s underground film and music. Here, in his contemplative and utterly original style, the “screaming philosopher” charts the last six decades of his life, reflecting on everything from keirin to nuclear disaster to his own itinerancy, all the while providing an unfiltered view into the explosive cultural zeitgeist of postwar Tokyo. Originally printed in 2015, this translation is the first of Tomokawa’s writings to ever be published in English, and is accompanied by Blank Forms Editions’ reissue of Tomokawa’s first three solo records from 1975–77: Finally, His First Album, Straight from the Throat, and A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth. Try Saying You’re Alive! is a memoir like no other, delivered with the incisive tongue and stubborn charm of one of Japan’s most singular living musicians. 

Kazuki Tomokawa (b. 1950) is a prolific singer-songwriter from Hachiryu Village (now the town of Mitane) in the Akita Prefecture area of northern Japan. Since his first release in 1975, he has recorded more than thirty albums. The 2010 documentary about his life, La Faute des Fleurs, won the Sound & Vision award at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and that same year saw the Japanese release of the book Dreams Die Vigorously Day by Day, a collection of his lyrics spanning forty years. His most recent albums are Vengeance Bourbon (2014) and Gleaming Crayon (2016), both on the Modest Launch label. 

Damon Krukowski is a musician and writer based in Cambridge, MA. His most recent book is Ways of Hearing (MIT Press, 2019) and his latest album is Damon & Naomi’s A Sky Record (20|20|20, 2021). 

Daniel Joseph is a translator, editor, and musician. He holds a master’s degree from Harvard University in medieval Japanese literature, and recently contributed translations to Terminal Boredom (Verso, 2021), a collection of stories by science fiction pioneer Izumi Suzuki.

$24

Masayuki Takayanagi CD Action Direct – Dangerous – Jinya

recorded in Yokohama 1991

$35

Special Disk Union – with bonus CD Action Direct Endless Final – April 27, 1991 at Nagoya

Only a few and only for regular customers

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