Japanese
$39.99
‘Presence’ is a triumph of improvised, elemental musicality that distills aspects of myriad folk traditions in pursuit of the artist’s own truth. For 40 minutes of singularly weird, locked-in performance, Rai Tateishi diverges his formative training in the shinobue (a bamboo flute) to applications for its elder sibling, the shakuhachi,...
$54.99
With Umwelt, room, An’archives releases the first vinyl LP by Japanese singer, songwriter and guitarist, Kotonashiso. An elegant collection of seven slow-moving, free-ranging song forms, Umwelt, room is reflective, pensive, and yet has a great, expansive sense of movement, each song’s parameters feeling almost infinitely flexible. Born in Tokyo in...
$54.99
An’archives are proud to announce the release of the debut album by Tête de Chou, the trio of Mark Anderson, Kurumi Kido, and Arlo Wynks. Some may know Anderson for his membership of Greymouth, 番長Taste, Mysteries Of Love, and Suishou No Fune; Kido and Wynks have more personal, sporadic musical...
$54.99
»Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« is an introduction to the folk-pop world of Eddie Marcon. It follows in the footsteps of other collections of Japanese artists on Morr Music, such as yumbo, Andersens, and the »Minna Miteru« compilations, »Carpet Of Fallen Leaves« draws together songs from Eddie Marcon’s twenty-two-year history, including...
$59.99
Originally released in 1974, this album features Kunihiko Sugano, often referred to as a piano magician, who is the sole leader remaining in TBM following the 5 DAYS IN JAZZ concert recordings sponsored by TBM. Echoes of Erroll Garner's "Genius KUNI" can be felt throughout the music. Now reissued by...
$59.99
Originally released in 1974, this is Isao Suzuki's second album, following his acclaimed debut, "Brow Up," which introduced him to the jazz world. The album features exquisite interplay with Kazumi Wataabe, showcasing a unique musical synergy that makes it a true masterpiece. Now reissued by the legendary "Wa-Jazz" label, TBM...
$42.99
A collection of ten hypnotic guitar renditions that dive deeply into the traditional compositional musicality that underpins Harakami’s hallucinatory beatscapes before reconsidering them under a fresh, innovative and engaging new light. River: The Timbre of Guitar #2 Rei Harakami signals a new level of awareness and understanding of both Rei...
$72.99
This sense of speed, this sense of elation. The man who knows no end, Takeshi Inomata, breaks through the limits of groove with his ever-changing stick work. Another masterpiece released by Takeshi Inomata, a great drummer who has always kept his eye on the times and opened up new horizons,...
$74.99
"Kiso," "Asama," "Hakuba," and "Hida" evoke the landscapes of Akira Miyazawa's past, as he intricately weaves his feelings and emotions into the music. This work represents one of the pinnacles of Miyazawa's artistry. Released in 1970 as part of Victor's "Japanese Jazz" series, Miyazawa stated, "We are Japanese, so I...
$99.99
Yosuke Yamashita, Itaru Oki, Yuji Ohno, and Kimiko Kasai. An astonishing jazz workshop with a never-before-seen encounter. Japanese jazz was so sharp and original. Yosuke Yamashita Trio, Itaru Oki Trio, Yuji Ohno Trio, and Kimiko Kasai. Three trios and one vocalist, Trio by Trio Plus One. This is a live...
$42.99
At the start of the 60s, a new wave of gospel-influenced jazz started to emerge, with hits such as Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' "Moanin'" and Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song" epitomizing this evolution in the genre. The terms "soul jazz" and "funky jazz" were coined as a way to...
$69.99
Released in 1980, this is the first collection of Kyohei Tsutsumi's work to be recorded overseas. An original album recorded in LA that conveys the atmosphere of the West Coast during the heyday of AOR. The musicians who participated include Victor Feldman (perc), a regular in Steely Dan sessions, the...
$64.99
“Parallelisme”, Koshi's second album released in 1984 from Alfa/YEN label, was produced in collaboration with Haruomi Hosono again. They created the deeper and more aesthetic techno-pop sound. Along with Koshi’s compositions, it features a song by Barbara “Au bois de Saint-Amand.”...
$59.99
Iyo Matsumoto's 10th album, "Private File," was released in 1989. It is a city pop album with songs by melody makers such as KAN, REIMY, Kunio Muramatsu, Yasuharu Konishi, Senri Oe, Kenjiro Sakiya, and Yoshimasa Inoue, and arrangements by Tatsuya Nishiwaki, Hiroshi Shinkawa, and Satoshi Takebe. It includes the Japanese...
$69.99
An original album released in 1988. The album has been re-evaluated due to the songs written by Tsunehiro Izumi, who is well known for writing songs for Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe and La Moo, and Kingo Hamada, whose works such as Reiko Takahashi's "Sunset Road" and his own "Machi...
$59.99
Another gem from the Yen Records treasure trove (Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi production). Cheeky, unhurried, fairly minimal synth pop, with a dusting of tittering bleeps, bloops, and sleigh bells for dimension. Mostly dry and Disneyland plump, but of course nothing Hosono is quite what it seems. Après-Midi is far...
$42.99
Compiled by Tsunaki Kadowaki artwork by Yoshirotten mastering by Kuniyuki Takahashi Tsunaki Kadowaki, a staff member at Kyoto’s record store Meditations, the supervisor of "New Age Music Disc Guide", and the founder of Sad Disco, curates the fourth installment of "Midnight in Tokyo" themed around Ambient Kayo. The Midnight in...
$39.99
Audiopile Review: Yumiko Morioka’s 1987 sole release Resonance, a kankyō ongaku classic, is mercifully repressed by Métron Records, who initially reissued it back in 2020, those copies now hitting triple digits price points online. Considered a notable part of the Japanese Environmental Music movement of the 1980s, Resonance actually has...
$39.99
SHITSURAI unfolds like ambient origami, embodying the essence of Japan’s age-old traditions and the ephemeral beauty of its changing seasons. Conceived as a commissioned work for Japanese integrated art brand WARA, Hiroshima-based composer Meitei (Daisuke Fujita) sculpts a soundwoven narrative inspired by the 24 sekki — nature’s poetic calendar of...
$29.99
Taba, the new album from Japanese musician, songwriter and traveller Satomimagae, unfolds as a series of vignettes that document both the personal and the universal, seen and unseen. Observing and absorbing the fleeting scenes and sounds of life flowing outside of her home studio, Satomi sings beyond herself, in an...
$59.99
Gloriously mature and engrossing movements for cello, flute and tape self-released from the Japanese duo on their Ozato label. It’s hard to write anything about Torso’s music without giving the impression that this is polite, nicely buttoned-up contemporary classical dishwater. It isn’t. The same constituents are there - bowed cello,...
$54.99
Mesh-Key is thrilled to announce a deluxe, expanded reissue of Moon Beams by Tokyo visionaries, Tsuki No Wa. Originally released on CD by Japan's Soundscape label in 2003, Moon Beams is a bonafide opus -- a masterful mix of jazz, latin, folk and electroacoustic, topped with bandleader Fuminosuke's soaring, spectral...
$36.99
Audiopile Review: It’s possible to be a fan of an artist while simply missing a significant portion of their artistry. Plenty of MFs worship the godlike Peter Hammill as a prog deity for his work with Van der Graaf Generator, without even knowing that his late 70s solo...
$59.99
Audiopile Review: The arrival of affordable home recording technology in the 1980s is mostly celebrated for birthing all manner of scratchy post-punk and tinny synth pop. Don’t get us wrong, we love that stuff. But it also allowed folks from the pre-punk progressive underground to experience a previously impossible artistic...
$54.99
Audiopile Review: The arrival of affordable home recording technology in the 1980s is mostly celebrated for birthing all manner of scratchy post-punk and tinny synth pop. Don’t get us wrong, we love that stuff. But it also allowed folks from the pre-punk progressive underground to experience a previously impossible artistic...
$39.99
Hiroshi Yoshimura was commissioned in 1984 by Japanese multi-national personal care company Shiseido to create something that might be entirely out of his own wheelhouse: music that could complement a fragrance. Mixing bird song and sea sound with environmental field recordings, plus the usual electronics paraphernalia, he just released something...
$39.99
Audiopile Review: A weird theory: when a serious artist gets goofy, it stinks, but when a goofy artist gets serious, it rules. Does anyone think ‘The Laughing Gnome’ is David Bowie’s best song? Or how about Bowie’s hero, the godlike Peter Hammill? As we’re sure you’ve noticed, his novelty single...
$42.99
Another fine out-of-print album from 1984 from the Japanese bassist/keyboardist. This one is mellow and quite easy to get into. Composed by Yoshio Suzuki. Suzuki plays all the instruments on tracks 3-10. Musicians: Yoshio Suzuki (all tracks): Acoustic and Electric Pianos, Synthesizers, Upright and Electric Bass, (also Linn Drum machine...
$39.99
“Subtle, playful. Softly spoken yet speaks volumes. This is powerful stuff! The absence of music like this is what made me start producing…” —Jackson Bailey/Tapes “Fairy-tale of dub new-age heaven. Rainbow scenery is spread out in my brain. It's hard for me to get out this world” —H.Takahashi 7FO: pronounced...
$22.99
When it first slipped out back in 2015, Manabu Nagayama’s ‘Light & Shadow’ passed most people by. Yet it’s a genuinely overlooked gem a musically expansive and uplifting Japanese deep house workout that first featured on a promo-only compilation back in 2015. A softly spun slab of slow-building brilliance full...
$59.99
The collection titled "exQuisxx" is a creation of POiSON GiRL FRiEND's own music, and is comprised of pieces from three different works: "Shyness," "Mr. Polyglot Remix," and "Love Me," all released by Nippon Columbia between 1993 and 1994. The title "exQuisxx" is a coined term that merges the French word...
$59.99
With her unique fusion of ambient techno, trip-hop, and French pop, along with a coquettish whispering voice, POiSON GiRL FRiEND is now gaining worldwide attention. She successfully completed a North American tour with ten shows and two performances in China last year, and she has already announced upcoming tours in...
$59.99
With her unique fusion of ambient techno, trip-hop, and French pop, along with a coquettish whispering voice, POiSON GiRL FRiEND is now gaining worldwide attention. She successfully completed a North American tour with ten shows and two performances in China last year, and she has already announced upcoming tours in...
$39.99
Audiopile Review: Black Editions has done an incredible job of making classics from Japan’s P.S.F. label available in obscenely luxurious vinyl editions. We’re particularly grateful for those ragged and radiant White Heaven albums. Of all the P.S.F. bands, White Heaven concocted the most palatable brew of heavy rock, lo-fi murk,...
$46.99
Following the success of the Tokyo Glow and Funk Tide sets, Wewantsounds once again teams up with Tokyo-based DJ Notoya for a breezy selection of funk and boogie recorded in Japan for King Records in the '70s and '80s. Most tracks here are making their debut on vinyl outside of...
$29.99
Audiopile Review: Well known in Japan, Ichiko Aoba’s music took over a decade to break beyond her home country. Ba Da Bing! was the first to release one of her albums domestically, 2021’s Windswept Adan, an album that became a mainstay here in the shop, driven entirely by word of...
$42.99
"This is the first LP release of the soundtracks to two short films, 'La Folia' and 'Pantai to Tamago Hime,' which are only shown at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. Joe Hisaishi reconstructed Vivaldi’s 'La Folia' with a modern approach. The music from the play is recorded so that it...
$59.99
Soundtrack recorded for the film based on the image album. Jacket image is a watercolor painting for the cover of the original comics of Nausicaa taking a gun to relieve a dying baby Ohmu from suffering which she tried to save, though it was beyond help....
$99.99
Audiopile Review: You may remember Naoki Zushi from our recent-ish write-up of his excellent album ‘IV’. He’s perhaps best known as a member of Japanoise legends Hijokaidan, but has surprising links to the lofi indie pop scene, specifically Nagisa Ni Te. As a solo artist, he produces truly epic psyche...
$59.99
Double LP version. Green color vinyl version. A classic compilation that emanated out of Osaka, Noise Forest brings together a powerhouse of early '90s Japanese noise stalwarts: Merzbow, C.C.C.C., Solmania, Dislocation, Monde Bruits, Masonna, Violent Onsen Geisha, and Incapacitants. The ultimate Japanoise collection, originally released in 1992 on the cult...
$39.99
***An almost impossible to imagine archive of underground DIY sounds from Japan dating 1979-1981. Inspired by the UK compilation album of the same name released in 1980 by Morgan Fisher, a one time member of Mott The Hoople, which features “miniature” works by an incredibly diverse group of 50...
$209.99
For the first time on vinyl, all 24 tracks from Shinichiro Yokota's 2016 and 2019 albums, previously only available on CD in Japan via Soichi Terada's Far East Recording. Homegrown 90s soulful melodic club music nostalgia from one of the true pioneers of Japanese house. Full unadulterated pleasure forever -...
$39.99
While Les Rallizes Dénudés’ YaneUra Oct. ‘80 (DRFT13) was being prepared for release, a mysterious tape was unearthed. Discovered amid the piles of recordings left behind by frontman Takashi Mizutani, the undated cassette contained no recording info, and was referred to as “Unknown” during the archival process. There was...
$22.99
A special Halloween drop in the form of part one of a two-part Japanese post-punk, goth & new wave mixtape, the first in a tranche of globally-focused mixes reissued in partnership with Philadelphia’s punk archivists World Gone Mad....
$22.99
special Halloween drop in the form of part two of a two-part Japanese post-punk, goth & new wave mixtape, the first in a tranche of globally-focused mixes in partnership with Philadelphia’s punk archivists World Gone Mad....
$46.99
2025 repress; double LP version. Midnight In Tokyo is a compilation series that aims to be the perfect companion to nights in Tokyo, collecting tracks by Japanese artists that sound best at night. Vol. 2 focused more on '80s jazz fusion, but the latest installment, Vol. 3, picks up where...
$46.99
Audiopile Review: No one causes quite a stir around the shop quite like Shinichi Atobe when a new release is announced. And we’re blessed with two of them this week! Thought we were gonna get blanked on the Ongaku 1 EP that dropped in the first half of 2024, disappearing...
$64.99
Limited Edition of 299 copies. Black vinyl. Urashima present the eagerly awaited reissue of Merzbow's seminal album Mercurated on double vinyl, originally released on CD in 1996 by Alchemy Records. This milestone in the noise genre captures the essence of Masami Akita's innovative approach to sound, an exploration of the...
