"Since his early death, Kaoru Abe has attracted much attention and a loyal following among aficionados of free jazz and improvised music, but fans who might be tempted to listen for signs of the alto saxophonist's impending doom in this recording made on August 29, 1978, in Hokkaido might be disappointed, for the simple reason that there's not much music to listen to: 14 and a half minutes of actual playing preceded by a minute and 41 seconds of "rehearsal" (this amounts to little more than a couple of arpe

"Acid Mothers Guru Guru features Mani Neumeier from the legendary and influential German Krautrock group Guru Guru as well as Kawabata Makoto and Atsushi Tsuyama from Japan's holy Acid Mothers Temple. The result is a fiery fantasy filled, loud/soft...

"Another smoker from Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., in typically fine form. Benzaiten is an In C-style homage to the classic Osamu Kitajima record Benzaiten (1973). Acid Mothers Temple covers the title-track and reprise using...

"Acid Mothers Temple return with an expanded Melting Paraiso U.F.O. line-up, featuring the added guitar skills of Japan underground legend and new full-time member Tabata Mitsuru (Boredoms, Zeni Gava, Leningrad Blues Machine, etc.). IAO Chant from...

"Acid Mothers Temple and Important Records have decided to release the complete Magical Power From Mars in its entirety with the addition of the fourth and final track 'Aladdin Kane.' Magical Power From Mars comes housed with completely new front and back art and no expense was spared on more 3D lenticular covers for the front. This is the complete album available for the first time in its entirety. Magical Power From Mars is an album full of epic statements from the Acid Mothers. Each track has an...

"Recuring Dream And Apocalypse Of Darkness is by far the heaviest Acid Mothers Temple record yet. So heavy, in fact, that Kawabata Makoto jokingly said 'the album is really heavy, maybe a bit like Sunn O))). hahahaha.'...

"Acid Mothers Temple - the next generation begins! With the departure of long time bass/drum duo Shimura Koji and Tsuyama Atsushi, AMT now have a new rhythm section featuring two young Japanese musicians, Satoshima Nani on drums and S/T on bass. Thus, Wake To A New Dawn of Another Astro Era is the first record in the second chapter of this legendary Japanese psychedelic rock group. Wake To A New Dawn Of Another Astro Era finds a rejuvenated Makoto Kawabata encompassing the best of what AMT has come...

"New 2nd album by the japanese AMT trio, an outfit led by Magic Aum GiGi alias Jerome Genin, Fractal owner for the fake secret. The Soul of a Mountain Wolf is a concept album, short and definitely ROCK dominated by wild fuzz psychedelic guitar."

This is the third album by the power trio of Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins, Koenjihyakkei) and Tsuyama Atsushi and Kawabata Makoto (of Acid Mothers Temple).
Tsuyama Atsushi : bass, vocal, recorder, soprano sax
Yoshida Tatsuya : drums, vocal...

Another exciting unit out of the infamous Osaka underground rock scene. Close friends with the Boredoms and Acid Mothers Temple, Afrirampo is a bizarre duo of two twenty year old girls who sing and play guitar and drums like no one else. Scantily clad ...

This is a collection of most of the 1984 album “Glass Tube”, which was After Dinner’s first album + some other stuff, plus 30’ of live material by this Japanese new music rock band, who predated the current huge interest in all things "Japan".
Characterized by leader Haco's vocals, this is subtly detailed, almost pastel, progressive Japanese music; they don’t sound like ANYBODY else!

“Can't say I've heard anything quite like this. Truly awesome in its presentation, it's hard not to want to...

This release is by a Japanese duo that Soleil Zeuhl discovered. Yoshiyuki plays keyboards/synths/programming and Yoshihiro Yamaji plays guitar and bass. All of the drums are programmed, but they do a very good job of it, and this excellent debut does not suffer from 'canned band syndrome'.

"Amygdala is a Japanese band, heavily Zeuhl-influenced (much more on the UZ side than Magma, I'd say), with that RIO edge that seems to be the landmark of the greatest Japanese bands of these last few years...

“Post Floral and pre-Yellow Magic Orchestra "all-star" band featuring among others Haruomi Hosono on bass and Takashi Matsumoto on drums. This album, produced by the Tokyo-based band, encapsulates a transformative moment in the nation's counterculture movement and its contribution to the global evolution of psychedelic music. With intricate guitar work, haunting vocals, and experimental compositions, the album remains an enduring influence in the global psychedelic music landscape. An all-time Japanese...

Somehow I don't think Ayuo was thinking of Ameri"The creator of two of the most fascinating releases on the New Japan series (Izutsu and Red Moon) now turns his hand to one of the most curious of all Japanese musical forms, the Noh play. Mixing the....

“Batoh is back! Solo again after last fall’s new Silence album, the Japanese psychedelic guru makes some one-man performances,, with others featuring Ghost and Silence family members, including free drumming legend of Fushitsusha and early Ghost, Hiroyuki Usui. In the richness of an all-analog production, Batoh decries the existential opacity of our latter-day faith, drawing deeply from the musical, linguistic and spiritual traditions of ALL countries, fused into a new music for the believers and non...

"Behind the Shadow Drops is the new solo endeavor from Takaakira 'Taka' Goto, founding guitarist and composer of iconic Japanese experimental rock group, MONO.
Established in 2016, Behind the Shadow Drops combines Goto's disparate but commensurate interests in many different forms of music, most notably ambient, trip-hop, industrial minimalism, and modern classical.
Recorded at Goto's home studio and mixed with esteemed producer and percussionist, John McEntire (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake...

"Phoenix Records reissues Brast Burn's Debon -- a classic of Japanese Kraut obscurity originally released in 1975 on Voice Records, now digitally-remastered. Brast Burn are often linked with Karuna Khayal, with many aficionados concluding that they...

"Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails) and Japanese noise legend Masami Akita (Merzbow) share a mutual love for the EMS Synthi, a British synthesizer from the early '70s notorious for its patch matrix, portability, and distinct tone. Astonishingly, these two disparate artists meld into a single sound as they flex the analog circuitry of the EMS Synthi in new ways; giving this classic synth a modern workout and proving that, in capable hands, a 40-year-old analog synthesizer is a tool for the ages...

"Japan's proggers Flied Egg, consisting of former Strawberry Path alumni Shigeru Narumo and Hiro Tsunoda, supported by former Brush leader, Masayoshi Takanaka, released two albums in the early '70s, Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Machine being the first and undoubtedly the better of the two. Dr. Siegel's..., originally released in 1972, is a much more keyboard-oriented affair, with Narumo adding a Moog, celeste and harpsichord to his usual Hammond and piano line-up. On this album, the musical influences are more...

"In his third CD for Tzadik, Mamoru Fujieda continues his fascinating exploration of the creativity of, by and about plant life with five more pieces from his continuing series Patterns of Plants. Utilizing the violin in combination with two Japanese...

''Jazz, contemporary classical and traditional Japanese folk music blend seamlessly in Satoko Fujii's powerful and unique musical universe. Presented here are three intimate groupings: in duo with her long time associate Sachi Hayasaka, in trio with th...

Natsuki Tamura-trompette, Curtis Hasselbring-trombone, Andrea Parkins-accordion, Satoko Fujii-piano. "Min-Yoh means folk music in Japanese. Almost all of them are made by people, not by professional composers. And they were arranged as they were

Pretty fascinatingly hypnotic noisy electronics, sounding somewhere like early Suicide (without Alan Vega’s singing), Pascal Comelade’s early electronic experiments, ala Parallelo and Plaster Falling by John Bender. Conditionally highly recommended!

“Japanese experimentalist Hiiragi Fukuda supposedly picked up an aging monophonic Yamaha synthesizer, hooked it up to a cheap digital delay, turned on his hand-held cassette machine, and began improvising; a couple days later, the five-song album...

Great price on a excellent document by this long-standing Japanese new-psychedelic/progressive band. The CD is almost an hour long and the DVD is 90' and is in stereo and 5.1 surround...

"Returned from early '90s Japan are the holy sounds of Ghost. Their collective, clearly inspired by various forms of transcendental music throughout history, created a new syncretic psychedelia with these albums, mixing the texture and vibe of multinational forms of traditional music, with strummed antique stringed instruments and the haunting wail of a recorder on top of their heavy beats and guitars. The considerable depth of this approach was explored through...