Omochi 7″ “Devil / Happy Moment” Ethbo

Omochi’s debut single Devil, an amorphous urban lysergic bass pop expulsion. A motorbike ride through late night Tokyo, headlights and neon ooze across wind battered eyeballs. A sudden lurch takes the ramp up to the overpass, revealing the electrified vista. With a dime bag of psychoactive tweaks and bleeps, a foraging bassline – a Billy Cobham on K. Dial-ups crying out to connect, once the signal catches, it’s moved out of view, as the organ mourns the hint of dawn on the horizon.

A Happy Moment: percussive spasm, bass once again lurches, unfolding. Omochi’s lyrical push-me-pull-you phased out vocal, the drum machine falls down the stairs, while church organ goes secular, concentrating on the notes outside – mind your pews and Qs.

Omochi is in fact Tadaki Matsunaga, of early 2000s Tokyo three piece Femini Flyers. The Feminis were Tadaki (bass), Sachie (vocals) and Koji (drums). Their 7” single “Like You See” and “Masterbed” was an early Ethbo release – the most requested track from Japan Blues’ Boiler Room Collections video, since it was first aired, way back in 2014 .

Mastered by Kuratani, pressed at the only independent record pressing plant in Japan: Toyo Kasei. Housed in psychoactive sleeve and label artwork by Mishumaro Nakamura.

$10 only a few

Elodie LP “Le Nid D’ivoire” La Scie Dorée

Edition of 500 copies on transparent vinyl
including reproduction of  largeart-print and postcard
Seven track studio album by Andrew Chalk & Timo van Luijk recorded and mixed at Kulta Saha and Impression Lointaine, 2016-2019

One of the most beautiful Elodie they ever recorded, sometiems reminescent of Luciano Cilio and some other italian composers. No this is not ambient or furniture music, it has really to be listened…One of my favorite release so far, already in the 2020 top !

$22

Timo Van Luijk & Frederik Croene LP “Ipnopedion” La Scie Dorée

La Scie Dorée, Scie 2519, Belgium 2020
Edition of 300 copies on transparent vinyl with printed insert

On the frigid moonless night of December 6th, 1978, a 26 year-old night watchman named Pier Zanfretta was on a routine patrol in the village of Torriglia, where he stumbled into a horrifying encounter with aliens from Taetonia. In order to get more clarity about what happened that night Pier Zanfretta agreed to undergo hypnosis, to let his subconscious speak about his abduction by these aliens.
As his discours under hypnosis sounded uncannily musical and mesmerizing, even without understanding the words, it became the basis of this Ipnopedion album.
For the recording of the title track ‘Ipnopedion’ (side 1) Zanfretta’s speech was played back on headphones, then phonetically reproduced by FC and TVL, lying down in darkness as being hypnotised. Apart from this transposed text only piano and a few hypnosis inducing atmospherics and spatialisations were added.
The ‘Taetonia’ track (side 2) opens with a naieve and enticing piano play slowly being beamed into a vacuum void towards Taetonia.  As Zanfretta’s words were vague it remained unclear what happened in Taetonia but things certainly had changed…
Ipnopedion became a ritual invitation to withdraw from the concrete world, returning to it as uncanonical aliens from Taetonia.

That’s a long time I haven’t heard such a strange album, it sounds really hypnotic, mysterious and sometimes a bit disturbing but music is always rroted in a timeless and acoustic world with Timo as a wizard. This is just excellent, hard to categorize, very like the talented muscians Frederik and Timo are.

$22

Louise Landes Levi – Bart De Paepe – Timo van Luijk LP ‘Kami’  Sloowax

Like the ever changing shapeshifting nature of Kami in Japanese Shinto faith, the music on this new collaborative lp is itself a mirror reflecting, obscuring or modifying the ever changing rivers of sounds.
Louise Landes Levi has a long history in music from studying sarangi with Annapurna Devi and La Monte Young to performing with like minded poets as Ira Cohen and Simon Vinkenoog. As on the previous Ikiru lp she collaborates with Timo van Luijk  (Af Ursin, Elodie, Asra, In Camera etc) and Bart De Paepe (Ilta Hämärä, Bombay Lunatic Ensemble etc). The trio weaves several delicate threads together into a surrealist, organic and overall poetic language.  Ltd to 500 with postcard

SOLD OUT

Michael Ranta CD ” Die Mauer” Metaphon

11 track album of previously unreleased music for a ballet choreographed by Philippe Talard.
Composed, performed and recorded by Michael Ranta in 1988/1989.
Mixed by Michael Ranta and Stefan Deistler.
Mastered by Earlabs.
Program notes for the ballet by Karla Nieraad.
Translation by Christoph Heemann.
Production and artwork by Timo van Luijk.
Design by Meeuw

$15

Mikami Kan – Hijokaidan – Mikamikaidan – 三上階段 2CD Chaotic Noise recordings

ltd to 500, comes in a multi panel digipak

SOLD OUT

V/A Seito : In  the beginning, woman was the sun – Akuphone

Seitō {青鞜} gathers Japanese female artists from various electronic and experimental music fields. The title refers to a cult feminist magazine printed in Japan in the 1910s. Featuring: Fuji-Yuki’s glommy folk song, Kiki Hitomi’s haunted dub tune, Mikado Koko’s deep house hit, Miki Yui’s electoacoustic performance, Kakushin Nishihara’s noisy folk track, Kuunatic’s oriental psych blend and Keiko Higuchi’s memorable 9 minutes cover of classic Japanese folk song Okesa Bushi. All tracks issued for the first time.

$22 only a very few

Keiji Haino – Jim O’Rourke & Oren Ambarchi CD or 2LP ” In the past only geniusus were capable of staging the perfect crime…” Black Truffle

For its 50th release, Black Truffle presents the ninth album from one of the label’s core ensembles, the power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi. Drawn from a November 2015 performance at Tokyo’s now-defunct SuperDeluxe, the record’s opening piece drops us immediately into the maelstrom, abruptly cutting into an extended episode of Ambarchi’s pummeling drums, O’Rourke’s fuzzed-out six-string bass, and Haino’s roaring guitar and electronics. Eventually settling into a hypnotic bass and drum groove over which Haino unleashes some almost Ray Russell-eque skittering atonal screech, these opening 13 minutes act as a potent reminder of the trio’s power.

2LP $25

CD $16

Joji Yuasa LP “Aoi-no-Ue” Edition Omega Point

New designed cover version of OMEGA POINT’s early LP  limited to  50 copies !

 This work “Aoi-no-Ue” is composed mainly based on metamorphosed sound of Noh-chant. The other sound  is concrete sound such as birds songs, water drops, glasses, warped sound of vibraphone, some genera ted electronic sound and others. My Blue Sky (No.1) is a special electronic work for me, for most of  my other works on this field are based on White Noise. Where as only this piece is exceptionally us ing the other generated sound. – from liner notes by the composer

Only a very few $35

Toshi Ichiyanagi LP “Music for Tinguely” Edition Omega Point

New designed cover version of OMEGA POINT’s early LP limited to 50 copies!
Ichiyanagi is the best known composer for domestic and foreign avant-garde music fans. Especially in  his brilliant 60’s, he made many great tape music. This LP consists of his obscure three tape works . “Music for Tinguely” was made from junk objects of kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely. “Appearance” is  live electronic music. It was not only premiere performance but also John Cage and David Tudor part icipated in performance. Very noisy and hard core!! “Music for Living Space” was composed for inner space of ‘Sun Tower’ of World Expo in Osaka. Computer generated voice reads architect Kisyo Kurokawa’s manifest.

Only a few $35

Great White Light LP Omega Point 1

Great White Light organized by Seiji Onishi, Kazuo Kawasumi, Mitsuyoshi Shioya, Goji Hamada performed at the Kishi Memorial Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo, on February 13, 1971. Ten years after the performance, Onishi released a recording of it in LP format as an appendix to his collection “The Works of Seiji Onishi 1966 → 1981”, hereinafter referred to as “Works”). Given that “Works” was published in a small edition, and Onishi moved to Belgium soon after, it was difficult to get our hands around this documentation of the use of sound in the Japanese art of the 1970s. A reissue of this recording is Japanese Art Sound Archive’s 1st LP release.

Great White Light was full of noises created by the wind from the air blowers hitting the microphones. The artists stood in the center of the venue surrounded by the devices: six loudspeakers and air blowers, all facing outward, with a fixed microphone in front of the air outlet of each blower•3. Seats for the audience surrounded the circle, and a beam projector was set next to the wall. During the performance, Onishi operated the transformers of the blowers, and Shioya the lighting. Hamada performed his “action voice” with four microphones•4. In addition to this setup, Taj Mahal Travellers joined as a guest performer. Initially, they had planned to perform only with the blowers and voice, but just before the concert, they got suddenly overtaken by pre-performance anxiety and decided to invite the guests.
(note: this reissue was made from original LP, and some sound problems – slight surface noise and vibration – are on recording.) Ltd to 300, just incredible, noisy and libertaire !

SOLD OUT

Reizen CD “Different Speed”  Edition Zeroso

Japanese musician, based in Tokyo, who composes and performs using mainly drone and minimalist techniques. Plays electric guitar, the insides of pianos, and creates works of phonography. Formed the drone quartet NERAE in 2007. In 2011 he shifted to solo performance. His work has been released on P.S.F. Records, Fylkingen Records and Edition Omega Point, etc. Performs frequently around Tokyo. Notable performances outside Japan include TUSK Festival (UK, 2015), UK tour with Elodie (2016), Empty Gallery (Hong Kong, 2017). In June 2019 with some friends he founded edition zeroso (0奏), a small imprint and series of live performances based in Tokyo.

$17