Browse by Label: PSF (JAPAN)

Artist:	FUSHITSUSHA
Title:
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$36.00
Catalog #:	PSF 003/4CD

Long demanded reissue of the self-titled debut Fushitsusha double live album from the early '90s. An entirely different record to the wildly popular Double Live 2CD (PSF 15/16) which came out a couple years after this one. "This is where it all began. One of the first releases on the then fledgling PSF label was a DLP by Fushitsusha, Keiji Haino's ultimate rock unit. Haino was already an underground legend in Japan and had been for the previous twenty years, but was still virtually unknown anywhere else and this was only his second LP release. The all-black gatefold with the silver spray painted cross on the inside was one of the mysterious items to have appeared out of a scene already cloaked in mystery. The sounds it contained seemed to suggest nothing so much as the primeval mythic soul-soup from which all music originated. Word began to spread outside of Japan, and the 1000 copies pressed soon began changing hands for ludicrous sums. To the few that got to hear it, it was a record of breathtaking originality that hinted greatly at what was to follow. Haino is now one of the undoubted gods of the underground, inspiring devotion and awe whenever he plays. There have been a flood of releases, spreading the name worldwide. But throughout it all Haino has steadfastly refused all offers to reissue the Fushitsusha DLP. At one stage there was talk of the current line-up of the band re-recording all the tracks. Finally this autumn, Haino relented and these sounds will at last reach the wider listener audience they so deserve. One of the essential records of the last ten years. It is truly a joy to have it finally available on CD." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MUKAI, CHIE
Title:	Kokyu Improvisations
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 010CD

Chie Mukai has long been a legendary figure in Japan (going back to the Taj Mahal Travellers), and more recently has been working with her band Che-Shizu (2 CDs on PSF). This CD features her playing an ancient Chinese violin (Kokyu), with bits of voice, pieces of metal, bronze rings, cymbals, tape-soundscapes added in. Much appeal for anyone interested in a Fluxal/Theater of Eternal Music-influenced hour of subtle screech; the sound of "floating atmosphere."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 1
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 012CD

This is a good and obvious place to start with the Poor Strong Factory (P.S.F. -- originally stood for Psychedelic Speed Freaks, which was the name High Rise first used for their group) label -- unquestionably the best, weirdest, wildest currently ongoing label in Japan. Exclusive tracks by Ghost, Fushitsusha, White Heaven, High Rise, are here & the 68 minutes of overloaded distortion and simple, modern, psych-underground destruction going on here is honestly breathtaking. First of 7 volumes (to date), all editions of Tokyo Flashback are worth investigating.

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	U.S.E.
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 030CD

His 3rd for PSF. "Kan has perfected a form he calls Japanese Blues, but every album he has made over the past 20 years has raised it to a new height of creative intensity... regulars come back year after year to hear songs that are raucous, splendiferous, surreal, Japan Itself, both image and critique. The words are sometimes soft, as limp and multidimensional as Dali watches, other times razor sharp, slicing through the screen of conventional morality. And the triumphant voice! Like gravel scratching on a riverbed, a crow and then an eagle, screaming out of range, then soft and mellow, silky and sublime. There's nothing like it in Japan. And there's no rival to Mikami Kan anywhere else, either."? Drew Stroud.

Artist:	CHE-SHIZU
Title:	Nazareth
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 035CD

Live material from Chie Mukai's group, recorded in 1981, who play "ambient psychedelic music... includes Tori Kudo, leader of Maher Shalal Hash Baz." From Alan Cummings's "Japanese Psychedelia Primer" in The Wire: ""The dream-pop psych unit Ch�-Shizu are one of the rare examples of a traditional Japanese instrument (in this case, the three-stringed kokyu bowed fiddle) being used in a psychedelic context. Nazareth is a sometimes shambling compilation of their live recordings and features the fascinatingly atonal sound of Chie Mukai's kokyu drifting through the cracks of conventional melody. The group's interest in traditional English folk music is just one more indication of the breadth and complexity of underground Japan's continuing interaction with the West."

Artist:	FUSHITSUSHA
Title:	Pathetique
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 050CD

The fourth overall release by Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha group (following the Double Live LP (PSF 3/4), Double Live CD (PSF 15/16) and Allegorical Misunderstanding (Avant 008). This has 4 long tracks, 74 minutes of music; stylistically it's in the heavy over the top guitar trio mode a la PSF 15/16 and absolutely the dream Fushitsusha release that everybody was waiting for. Packed again in a gorgeous black fold out, with a first: English lyric translations.

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Jazz And Other Things
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 060CD

Fifth album for the label, and another astounding visionary triumph for the emotionally bursting singer/guitarist. The second track here, where Mikami enunciates just one word over and over, is one of the most spirally, physically stroked tracks in the extensive PSF catalog (we're only talking about the world's most aesthetically perfect record label). "Mikami is the blues; pure uncut humanity and universal force that don't need no words ? you going to tell me you didn't understand a single word of Blind Willie Johnson's 'Dark Was the Night,' or Loren Mazzacane's early moaning, or even Ayler's soul scream? Mikami's got a voice, a soul, and a guitar and you should be able to deal with those." ? Alan Cummings. Comes with English notes and lyric translations.

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Tsugaru
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 062CD

Vajra is a new trio made up of Kan Mikami (vocals, guitar), Keiji Haino (vocals, guitar) & Toshi Ishizuka (percussion; ex-Brain Police, currently with Cinorama & Tomokawa's group). "The name Vajra is a sanskrit word which has many meanings, including 'outsiders' and 'those people with the power to change an era.' Tsugara refers to an area in the far north of Japan, which has given birth to many of Japan's most powerfully unique musicians, writers and performers (it is also Mikami's birthplace). This CD represents an improvised studio performance of unprecedented force and musical empathy. Ferocious, bleak, beautiful and inspiring -- the true soul of Japanese spirituality!"

Artist:	CINORAMA
Title:	Garden, The Garden
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 063CD

2nd album for the label. Cinorama is a trio, made up of Toshiaki Ishizuka (percussion, piano, synthesizer; also member of Vajra), Sachiyo Sakata (vocal, clarinet, flute, jews harp, ocarina) & Hiromichi Sakamoto (cello, musical saw, auto harp, kalimba, musicbox). They are also joined by Haino on one track as well (voice, maracas). Together they create a mysterious haze of pastoral sound, a mysterious progressive-folk hybrid that is full of alien intuition and knowledge. One of the unknown monsters in the ever-expanding PSF catalog of real music.

Artist:	TAKAHASHI, AYUO
Title:	Private Tapes 1985-1995
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 064CD

First release on the label by the son of avant garde pianist Yuji Takahashi, and a one-time member of Fushitsusha. "20 tracks self-recorded over a period of 10 years. Sound-wise it's enticing mixture of Hammill-ish progressive rock, dark folk, medieval-influenced instrumentation and some almost Xpressway-like singer-songwriter stuff (entirely in English). Influenced by Arabian, Celtic and Chinese court music, James Joyce, biwa music (the traditional accompaniment played by blind musicians to recitations of Japanese epic poetry), Richard Thompson and Joao Giberto; impressive stuff. "

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Shibuya Appia Document
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 065CD

Tomokawa's seventh release for PSF consists of live performances recorded in 1993-95 at Shibuya Apia. He plays acoustic guitar and sings throughout, with only minor backing on piano or accordion. The power of musical performance demonstrated here is typically staggering; Tomokawa's guitar playing is purely invigorating and intense (as physical as acoustic playing can get), and his voice is a towering outlet; an emotional songform beyond all international limits.

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	21st Century Hard-y-Guide-y Man
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 068CD

"Solo hurdy-gurdy improvisations. Haino has long been a fan of medieval music, which is one of the few places where the hurdy-gurdy makes an appearance. It's a pity that the instrument isn't more used since it has great possibilities for higher-minded multiple drones that can vary in sound from a high-pitched violin-like scraping and squealing to deep quaking resonances. The beauty of the instrument is that you can combine the various drones to build up a multi-layered effect...He's been experimenting with them over the past year or so in various permutations -- solo, with Fushitsusha, with Vajra and in duos with other musicians. The sounds produced have ranged from gentle accompaniment to a dense brain-altering fug that blows everyone else off stage...Five tracks of beautiful late-night drones, suffused with instantly recognizable Haino atmosphere of mystery." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	IMAI, KAZUO
Title:	How Will We Change?
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 070CD

Solo improvisations for viola da gamba, gut guitar, electric guitar & live electronics. "Imai's resume places him firmly at the centre of Japan's free improvisation scene. He studied for 13 years under the guidance of late guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, and played on occasion with the New Direction ensemble. He was the only graduate of Takayanagi's infamously tough private music school; in addition he was a student of Takehisa Kosugi and participated in Kosugi's 'legendary' pioneering multi-media improv unit, The Taj Mahal Travellers. He also made live appearances with groups such as East Bionic Symphonia and the Kosugi Quartet.... the ghost of Takayanagi especially hovers over Imai's improvisations for acoustic guitar. His work on the viola da gamba displays an amazing sense of control over technique and pure sound, coupled with a very enticing emotional intensity. And for all you loud guitar freaks, Imai also reveals a love of volume and distortion in his work on electric guitar."

Artist:	HIRANO, GO
Title:	Reflection Of Dreams
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 071CD

2nd album for PSF, that is nearly an all-solo affair, with Hirano playing piano, pianica, organ, windchime, glockenspiel, percussion, voice. "...a compilation of 14 short tracks recorded between 1990 and 1995. There is a genuine late-night quality to most of the tracks -- delicate, almost hesitant in places, gorgeously lyrical in others -- a real contrast to the buzzing harshness of his last album. I'd almost be tempted to use the word ambient to describe a lot of this album, but that word has become particularly debased of late... and besides, there is a quality of surreal, dreamlike naivete to Hirano's works that's thousands of miles away from most purveyors of fleaty textures... puzzling, but good." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Dune 963
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 072CD

Sixth solo album for PSF. "There's not really a lot to say about Japan's most powerful singer-songwriter of the post-war generation. He is simply one of the most unique artists you're ever likely to hear (or not). This CD sees the shaven-headed powerhouse in a slightly more pensive mode than the previous Jazz, and Other Things -- there's a warmer, gorgeous semi-acoustic glow to the proceedings (at least compared to the last outings full electric attack). Some amazing Tsugaru tongue-action too. It's still not too late to remedy your ignorance re: one of the contemporary world's original truth-tellers. You need this." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	YAMADA, CHISATO
Title:	Fantastic World
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 073CD

"PSF debut by Chisato Yamada, the godfather of Tsugaru Jamisen (the traditional three-stringed folk instrument from the north of Japan -- also played by Zorn hero Michihiro Sato). Here Yamada's amazingly vibrant, percussive attack and spirit power are featured in two avant settings. Two tracks recorded late last year feature Keiji Haino on guitar and percussion, amply fulfilling Kan Mikami's prediction that these two masters would create a fuckin' immense music if they ever met. The other three tracks are a suite for contemporary flute/percussion trio and tsugaru-jamisen, composed by Ken'ei Sasamori, recorded in 1978 and promptly lost for the next 17 years. Yamada is a true out-on-the-edge innovator, and these classic recordings prove that his experimental leanings have a long history. Yamada's age (he's now in his sixties) has only served to increase his unique power and authority. An essential, and too little known voice!"

Artist:	PHILLIPS/KEIJI HAINO, BARRE
Title:	Etchings In The Air
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 074CD

A crazed, unique duo album, with Haino on vocals only, and Phillips on bass and vocals. "Barre was in Tokyo recently for a couple of workshops and performances, and managed to make it into the studio for a follow-up to Two Strings Will Do It (PSF 45). Haino's vocal work, as opposed to his actual singing of identifiable 'words' hasn't had that much recorded exposure of late, but here given the space and a collaborator of Barre's canniness he shows just how wild a field of sound he can summon up and control. Phillips is always a joy to hear in the relatively unconfined solo and duo space, where his technique can be given full room to flourish. This is just a beautiful release, lots of room for both performers to move, nonstop inventiveness, emotional communication beyond works (even some humour!). Oh yeah, and the recorded debut of Barre's vocal technique." --A. Cummings.

Artist:	PHILLIPS/MOTOHARU YOSHIZAWA, BARRE
Title:	Uzu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 075CD

"Two of the world's master freeform bassists in a lush textural showdown. 25 years ago Moto Yoshizawa and Barre Phillips began playing solo bass improvisations. They are now recognized as two of the most unique voices in the world of freeform playing. This is their first ever duo recording. Yoshizawa's otherworldly circling electric soundscapes collide and fuse with Phillips' mastery of acoustic human textures in an orgy of sensitivity, pure inventiveness, whatever...A crystallization of a quarter of a century's freedom." -- A. Cummings

Artist:	MUSICA TRANSONIC
Title:	2nd
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 076CD

Second album by the trio of Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins), Asahito Nanjo (High Rise) & Hajime Kawabatat (Toho Sara). "Improvised heavy psychedelia from the Magnificent Three. If you've heard the staggering first album by this PSF supergroup then you'll know what to expect. Basically, more of the same. Totally over the top, utterly stupid, hugely inventive, loud and obnoxious -- in other words, just what you need. the sound has been slightly cleaned up this time, so you can hear a bit more of what is going on."

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Ring
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 077CD

"Second album from the amazing supergroup of Haino, Mikami and Ishitsuka Toshi (from Cinorama, etc.). Following on from last year's Tsugaru, this is a lot closer to Vajra's stunning live sound. Ishitsuka's martial power drumming provides the perfect foundation for Haino's soaring, roaring flights into the infinite abyss, which in turn combine in rare grace and (sub) conscious empathy with Mikami's improvised vocals (Mikami sings entirely in his native Tsugaru dialect which is totally incomprehensible to speakers of regular Japanese). The raw invention and communication here are honestly on a par with anything you care to think of. There's something very very special about this group -- three masters at the peak of their powers, playing with total commitment, total sensitivity, total passion."

Artist:	BROTZMANN/KEIJI HAINO, PETER
Title:	Evolving Blush Or Driving Original Sin
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 079CD

Studio recordings of duets for reeds (Brotzmann) and vocals (Haino). "Texture and rhythm; restraint and release; space and fullness. Brotzmann senior toured Japan in April this year, and exceedingly memorable shows were played with Fushitsusha and Evan Parker amongst others. You couldn't be there, but luckily he also found time to step into the studio with Keiji Haino. This is the result, and a most worthy addition to Haino's on-going duo series (previous collaborations with Barre Phillips and Chiato Yamada) it is indeed. Brotzmann's style of late has tended to hold in check all that legendary ferocity, and the occasional outburst sounds all the more powerful for the surrounding restraint. His use of space has developed into something really special, and it is here where the link with Haino is perhaps the strongest. With a number of dates behind them the sense of telepathic communion and empathy between Haino and Brotzmann on this release is almost tangible. Two contemporary 'legends' at the peak of their powers. A superb exhibition of controlled alchemy." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	AMM
Title:	From A Strange Place
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 080CD

"Undisputed deans of the meta-music, captured live on their first ever tour of Japan in October 1995. After 30 years of AMMusic there's very little left to be said about the group. Suffice to say that this is more of their totally committed style of pure improvisation, scaling new heights of non-derivativeness. Music created with a piercing awareness of place and time, once created never to be repeated, even by themselves. This set was marked by an extreme level of quietness, a grappling with silence and subtle vibration, and their mastery of instantaneous technique. An instant captured. Gone yet living." The trio of Prevost (perc.), Rowe (guitar) and Tilbury (piano).

Artist:	URABE, MASAYOSHI
Title:	Solo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 081CD

New CD issue of what was previously a limited LP-only PSF release. "Urabe is doubtless an unknown name to most of you. Here's the beef -- he's a young (well, thirty one) alto saxophonist. Born in Tokyo, he first took up the alto sax in 1985, mostly concentrating on solo work. In recent years his base of operations has been the famous Kidoairaki Art Hall (which also played host to Masayki Takayanagi in his later years), just down the road from the Modern Music shop. This album was recorded there on May 22nd of this year. I believe that this is his first release. Urabe basically concentrates on the relationship between sound and silence, and those mysterious spaces in between ('ma'). All extraneous notes/sounds are stripped away, leaving Urabe with a very minimal (though strong) sound. High keening notes, sparkling clusters of notes hand in space, enfolding and defining. This is great, adventurous alto work, not immediately comparable to anyone else -- and pretty distant from the work of other Japanese altoists like Tamio Shiraishi or the late Kaoru Abe. Looks like PSF may well have unearthed another great individual talent." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Zeiniku Na Asa (Fat in The Morning Light)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 082CD

"Eighth CD on PSF from the true master of unalloyed humanity and possessed song-spirit. Too many underground dilettantes are unable to deal with the idea of 'song' per se, pinning their faith in some nebulous idea of 'improvisation' as the only touchstone of musical worth. Thus the complete nonacceptance of Tomokawa outside of Japan. But, for real unlimited minds with open ears there's beauty that Tomokawa manages to wring from every possessed note and syllable. Life-on-the-line-every-time, emotionally transcendent playing doesn't get any better than this!"

Artist:	KONITZ, LEE
Title:	Unaccompanied Live In Yokohama
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 083CD

"Altoist Lee Konitz toured Japan in Oct/'96 and he touched bass with musicians such as Keiji Haino, koto virtuoso Kazue Sawai, Kazuhisa Uchihashi of Altered States, Seiichi Yamamoto of the Boredoms, etc. This is Konitz's first solo disc in 22 years (and it also features him in a duo with Takayanagi pupil Kazuo Imai, who has a startling solo CD on PSF: How Will We Change? -- PSF 70). The first five tracks here are a 45 minute solo medley, which displays Konitz's unique structural sense and refined tone. Konitz is far more ignored in underground circles than he should be -- the last living reminder of the Tristano groups of the forties, and along with Eric Dolphy an example of the heights that individualistic, non-standard (read: non-free) improvisation can aspire to."

Artist:	WILHELM, MIKE
Title:	Live in Tokyo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 085CD

"Ex-Charlatans, ex-Flaming Groovies, ex-Mainliners psych-folk guitarist and vocalist Mike Wilhelm has always been a big hero around PSF/Modern Music, so when we heard that he was coming over to Japan to play a couple of shows at the beginning of January this year we jumped at the chance to do a live record. Wilhelm has had a long and interesting career at the fringes of the American music scene, and his few solo records have been released on minor labels and have seen a lot less distribution and appreciation than they deserve. This is Mike's first live CD, and it showcases an intimate gig in front of an appreciative audience. Resonant guitar and simple vocals, echoing with a rare inner strength and drunken weariness."

Artist:	SATO, MICHIHIRO
Title:	On A Cold, Cold Night
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 086CD

"Michihiro Sato is a recognized master of the percussive, hugely exciting Tsugaru-jamisen style that originates in the deep north of Japan. The rough-hewn, freewheeling spirit of the Tsugaru style is perhaps comparable in iconography and individual expression to the Delta blues. Its history is full of blind shamisen-men, wandering forlornly from town to town through desolate winter snows, maybe not selling their souls to Satan but certainly playing till their fingers bleed. Either way, it's about a million and one miles away from the limp, effeminate plucking soundtrack you might be used to from nights at your local sushi emporium. In the West, Sato is best known for his collaborations with John Zorn (one of which, Ganryu Island, was recently reissued on Tzadik), and with the cream of the NY downtown scene on Rodan. In Japan, though, Sato's profile is higher as a master of the traditional repertoire of his instrument, and his improvisational experiments have a lower profile. On this totally solo disk (his previous releases have always featured accompanists). Sato manages to fuse his two obsessions: combining several pieces from the traditional canon with a lengthy improvisation. Sato coolly reigns in the pyrotechnic grandstanding that has won him a clutch of national trophies, substituting a sensitive control and sense of space. It's a breathtaking performance, fully the equal of the verve with which he revitalizes the traditional pieces. Of all the Japanese folk styles, tsugaru-jamisen is the most immediately approachable, and Sato is a contemporary master at the peak of his powers. This disk can only serve to underline his brain-melting prowess. The cover-painting by Baku Ueda is equally transporting." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	HALLELUJAHS
Title:	Niku O Kuraite Chikai O Tateyo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 087CD

"Hallelujahs were a band led by Shinji Shibayama, during the mid-eighties. This was their sole album, released in 1986 in an edition of 300 on Shibayama's fledgling ORG Records label. ORG went on to release some great records by Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Reiko Kudo and Love Beach (Shibayama's current dream-pop psych band). Musically, pop psych is about as close as I'm going to want to get to a description of what they do. There's something about this record that's hard to get a grip on. It seems to float on layers of melody rather than rhythm, and in places it has an incomparable start of autumn melancholic atmosphere. Subtle, but a grower if you give it enough time. Part of yet another invisible Japanese scene."--Alan Cummings. Shinji Shibayama (vocal, guitar, synthesizer, bass, piano etc.), Chie Mukai (kokyu), Idiot (guitar, vocal, drums, tape effects), Koji Soga (bass, bass sitar) etc.

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Sichisiki
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 088CD

Third PSF album (aka The Seventh Consciousness) from the trio of Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino & Toshi Ishitsuka. "This album, in contrast to the previous two, features Mikami only on vocals. The absence of his rhythm guitar totally alters the dynamic of the group, moving the focus to Haino's guitar and Ishitsuka's martial, textured drumming. Anguished vocals, eruptions of black fire from Haino, drifting deep-space echoscapes, stumbling blues. Vajra have a sound totally unlike any other group's -- and as a result they are an unsettling, weird listen. As essential as their previous two."

Artist:	CHE-SHIZU
Title:	Live 1996
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 089CD

"Third PSF release for the otherworldly lo-fi psych-pop group, led by Japanese underground pin-up/muse Chie Mukai. There's something unidentifiably unique and unsettlingly lyrical about Ch� Shizu's records, a quality hardly ever found in other groups that flirt with the edges of 'rock'. There's a fascinating atonality to the sound of her kokyu, a sound that exists in between the cracks of organized tones and rhythm. The group's approach is undoubtedly best served by live-recordings, and this collects 13 of the best from their '96 gigs, including a couple of traditional British ballads. Beautiful and haunting music." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA/MASAYOSHI URABE
Title:	The Dark Spot
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 090CD

"Masters of inner space rock meet long breathed king of eruptive silence. Kosokuya are one of Japan's most mysterious psychedelic rock groups with an obscure history dating back to the late 70s. A previous self-released LP in an edition of 400 copies set rumours flying, but very few actually ever got to hear it. That situation was remedied by a live CD on FE which showcased their mesmerizing brand of heavy, weirdly-timed psych rock. Since that release the band have had all kinds of personnel problems including the departure of long-suffering vocalist/bassist Mik and percussionist Takahashi... Masayohsi Urabe is the staggering young altoist who had his debut LP released on PSF last year (PSF 81). His music deconstructs all boundaries between sound silence with a magnificent hoarse tone -- uncategorizable individual music. This CD was recorded at one of the first gigs played late last year by Kosokuya's new line-up. Outstanding work, not necessarily reminiscent of anything other than itself. Great sensitive + heavy playing, lovely vocal action from Kaneko and Urbabe's unique atmospherics."

Artist:	MUSICA TRANSONIC
Title:	The World Of Musica Transonic
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 091CD

"Third PSF album. If you haven't heard Musica Transonic before, where have you been? They describe themselves as a 'Contemporary Improvised Psychedelic Group', and the music itself is the most hyper over-the-top rock mayhem imaginable. If anything, this set tops their amazing previous record in pure sonic collision, ludicrously over-amped guitar solos, spastic time-changes. In other works, the usual staggering sonic alchemy take to unforeseen heights of majestic stupidity."

Artist:	POLY BREATH PERCUSSION BAND
Title:	P.B.2 Live
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 092CD

"Recording of the debut gig by the Poly Breath Percussion Band (aka P.B.2) at the Tokyo Pit Inn in April 1997. Dynamic percussionist Shoji Hano has made a name for himself through several self-released albums, and his work with Peter Brotzmann. However the real revelation here is the 75-year old altoist, Keizo Inoue. Despite having played and taught on the Japanese jazz scene for over 50 years (his pupils include Akira Sakata) and having appeared at the Moers Festival, Inoue has remained a marginal figure in the history of free music. This disk reveals him to be a thoughtful and inventive free player on both alto and clarinet. Soundwise, P.B.2 suggest a more rhythmically complex Last Exit, with Tetsu Yamauchi's heavily-effects altered electric bass providing a lot of tonal interest. Inoue knows just when to step back to give the percussionists the space they need to take off into torrents and whirlpools of pulsating rhythmic heat. A rare antidote to the acres of tedium that are usually taken to represent Japanese jazz."

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.
Title:
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 093CD

"First release for the 'freak-out trip' group led by Makoto Kawabata, long-haired guitar monster of Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Toho Sara etc. notoriety. Kawabata has been around for a long time, but mostly involved with his own projects far from the Tokyo and Osaka limelight, and so far his only releases have been on cassettes sold at gigs. Some of the other members may be familiar too -- Koizumi is ex-Mainliner, Yasuda is ex-Toho Sara, Casino is from Mardi Gras Blue Heaven. Musically this record is going to moisten a few gussets around the globe. Deep-space synth-float signalling, cosmic voices, drugged trickery, and whirlpools of churning percussion topped with Kawabata`s trademark speed psycho guitar, all recorded with at speaker-destroying fuzz level. Track titles like 'Zen Feedbacker', 'Amphetamine A GoGo', 'Satori LSD', and the 20 minute 'Speed Guru' should tell the cognoscenti all they need to know. 'Recorded under the influence of the teachings of the Acid Mothers Temple, and of internalized psychedelic states.'"

Artist:	GAYLE, CHARLES
Title:	Solo in Japan
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 094CD

"Modern sax legend and presumed bearer of the hallowed flame of Black American free jazz made his first ever trip to Japan in July of this year. He played 9 or so mostly solo (although he did play with Keiji Haino, and Japanese free-drum stalwart Sabu Toyozumi) gigs around the country to much applause from the cognoscenti. He seemed slightly bewildered by the whole experience. This is a document of one of those solo gigs. Five tracks, fifty-eight minutes. Four of the tracks feature Gayle on alto, the final one on piano - his original instrument before he took up the sax. Long-time fans of Gayle's sax pyrotechnics are going to be slightly surprised by these recordings -- that raging, barely in-control, going-through-the-wall sound has been tempered down, to produce four meditative spirituals that still burn inwardly with a smouldering intensity. Gayle never had the cleanest of tones, but the low-volume intimacy of these recordings allows you appreciate ever slur, slap and grunt -- like having him playing in your living-room. An examplary solo sax (plus some nice blurry piano) album by one of the contemporary masters." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	YOSHIZAWA, MOTOHARU
Title:	Play Unlimited
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 095CD

"Yoshizawa is beyond doubt one of the most important, yet unknown, giants of Japanese free improvisation. He has been playing for forty years and was a leading figure in the Japanese free jazz scene of the late sixties and early seventies, both in his own (undocumented) trio, and in groups with such groundbreakers as Masayuki Takayanagi, Masahiko Togashi, and Kaoru Abe. He ranks shoulder to shoulder with Barre Phillips as the leading bass innovator/improvisor. Yoshizawa is perhaps best known in the West for his work on his effects-laden five string bass, which has dominated his previous releases on PSF (Gobbledygook, From the faraway nearby, Angels have passed, Uzu, and his guest spots with folk-singer Kazuki Tomokawa). However Yoshizawa started off on acoustic bass and his three solo LPs (The Cracked Mirror and the Fossil Bird has been re-released on PSF) on that instrument from the mid-70s stand as unsurpassed monuments to his genius. Twenty years on, this CD again features Yoshizawa on acoustic contrabass, recorded live at Shibuya Appia last year. The beauty, invention, strength and spirit on display are truly peerless. A stunning document from a player who should be as well known as Bailey, Parker et al." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Yume Wa Hibi Genki Ni Shinde Yuku
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 096CD

Title translates as Dreams Die Blithefully Day By Day. "Commemorating 25 years of unheralded existence for this unknown lyric poet/artist/betting tipster/folk-singer maniac. Tomokawa first emerged, with Kan Mikami, during Japan's underground folk boom of the early 70s, and has remained as a uniquely uncompromising obscure figure ever since. This is his ninth record for PSF, and features him in alternately introspective and insane screaming modes, with the accompaniment of longtime collaborator Masato Nagahata and legendary free bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa (whose previous collaborations with Tomokawa on the Hitori Bonodori and Maboroshi to asobu albums were some of the most exciting psychedelic acidfolk-avant collisions since Brigitte Fontaine met the Art Ensemble of Chicago). There remains little left to say about Tomokawa -- he possesses one of the most distinctively human voices and approaches anywhere. Maybe the fact that he sings equally convincingly in English on a couple of tracks on this record will finally gain him some long-deserved attention outside of Japan."

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Arashi Ame Arashi (Storms Rain Storms)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 097CD

"Eighth (!) PSF solo record for Japan's mythic, acerbic underground folk singer. The previous seven (not to mention his appearances with Vajra and the Haino/Yoshizawa/Mikami trio) have defined a perfectly-realized world entirely his own, in which pearls of surreal poetic wisdom delivered in Kan's immediately recognizable powdered-glass-in-chocolate baritone ram head on into a unique riff-rhythm guitar style. The guy is honestly a living national treasure -- an inspiring outsider-philosopher-poet, with a dark soul the size of Fuji. No one was particularly surprised when he name-checked enka legend Akira Kobayashi, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Glenn Gould in a recent interview. Kan's work is non-referential emotional and intellectual genius of the highest order. If you haven't got it by now there's no particular reason to think that you're going to get it with this one. Your loss." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MUSICA TRANSONIC W/ KEIJI HAINO
Title:
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 098CD

"Long-awaited fourth release on PSF for the loudest, most over-the-top, in-the-red group in the world, Musica Transonic. This unlikely outing sees them teaming up with Keiji Haino for a series of epic, bruising collisions. Frankly I'd had my doubts when I heard about this project -- in spite of both artists renowned love of volume and guitar pyrotechnics, Musica are all primary colours, pro-wrestling and over-amped stoic silliness (not to mention, heavy post-production), whereas Haino is most definitely black, serious and for-the-moment. But somehow they have managed to pull off a record that finds much common ground where myriad new possibilities lie open for incendiary investigation. Especially dig the tracks with Haino trading licks with Kawabata. You will too. Believe me." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HIGH RISE
Title:	Desperado
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 099CD

"Long awaited sixth album for PSF (following the epics II, Dispersion, Live, and Disallow) by this time-honored post-motor-city rave up clan, featuring Nanjo Asahito on bass/vox, Munehiro Narita on 'motor-cycle-guitar'? and Shoji Hano on drums. Phrases like 'in the red' or 'amped-up' don't even begin to relate present levels of near-fatal voltage abuse. Contains some off-kilter exploratory cuts that don't veer to far from paths cut by sister ensemble Musica Transonic, which I suppose could be determined as a 'new direction'. Still, a ridiculous display of caffeine/sugar energy converted into audible wavelengths by Tokyo's premiere baff-rock scuzz-manics." --Hrvatski.

Artist:	STARS, THE
Title:	Today
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	PSF 1001CD

"The long awaited return to PSF sound by former White Heaven frontman, You Ishihara. White Heaven were of course one of the label's signature groups, and their blend of West Coast acid-cool and NY drug punkishness soon attracted attention from psych connoisseurs outside of Japan. Since the Heaven (as no one ever called them) imploded in late 1997, Ishihara has managed to keep his hand deep down in the psych cookie jar. A solo album, Passivite for Creativeman was a fine, low-key piece of out-of-time work: introspective folk-punk moves. He's also produced a clutch of Tokyo bands, including the suddenly (and unbelievably) hip Yura Yura Teikoku. His own music has found a recent outlet with new project, The Stars. The group reunites Ishihara with White Heaven compadres Ken Ishihara (drums) and acid-flash guitar genius Michio Kurihara. This is their debut release, and comprises three tracks. Twenty-five minutes (and priced accordingly) of non-cliched, contemporary psychedelia of the highest standard. There is an enticing rough-cut garage feel to the tracks, and Ishihara's patented English drawl is pitched at just the right level of down-ness to alternately caress and trouble your addled synapses. Kurihara's guitar spreads and gleams just where you want it to, and the rhythm section keep it frenetically moving. It's a fine debut that promises much." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Sravaka
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 100CD

"Fourth album by the power-improv trio of frightening instinctional authority. It seems entirely appropriate that the one hundredth release on PSF should be by Vajra. Appropriate, of course, because the group contains two of the most legendary talents that the label has introduced to an unsuspecting world -- Kan Mikami and Keiji Haino (who between them have appeared on almost a third of PSF's releases). But also appropriate because there is no group on the label that better sums up the PSF aesthetic -- breathtaking sounds of mystery that somehow never fail to move on a deeply human level. Experimentation and 'progress' but possessed of a wide knowledge and love of all music and a soul (if that that were not too much of a cliche). This fourth album see Vajra scaling yet higher peaks of collective individuality. I can only pray that both they and PSF continue to enlighten the world as to the meaning of committed and genuine music for as long as (a few) ears remain open." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Best Of
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	3CD
Price:	$54.00
Catalog #:	PSF 101/3CD

"PSF's first triple CD, celebrating 25 years (his recorded debut was in 1974 on Toshiba-EMI) of musical activity by legendary 'sensitive' folk-singer Kazuki Tomokawa. In spite of his criminal lack of name-value in the West, in a strange way it's entirely appropriate that PSF's first triple CD should be by Tomokawa. Painter, poet, singer, manual labourer, gambler, actor, legendary drinker (and more recently, invaluable bicycle-race tipster) -- Tomokawa is cut from a truly human, outsider cloth they don't make anymore. The first CD is a compilation mostly focussing on the eight previous Tomokawa releases on PSF, but also including some tracks from earlier in his career. The second disk features unreleased excerpts from three live performances in 1976, `85, and '89. Quality on these is fairly rough in places, but as historical documents of blasted outsider-folk you are not going to see their like again. The final disk is 13 new tracks of heavily-accented symbolism, all recorded solo in Tomokawa's patented raw murmur/scream with guitar thrash-abuse. The only true inheritor of the Buckley mantle..." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	MARGINAL CONSORT
Title:	Collective Improvisation
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 104CD

"Gorgeous extended drone-n-clatter collective improvisation recorded live on 10/18/97 at Asahi Square in Tokyo. Excerpted from a four-hour performance. Marginal Consort was the name chose for the reformed version of the East Bionic Symphony, yet another 'legendary' lost Japanese improvisation collective. The original group was a class project formed by students of the minimal violinist and multi-media guru Tkahisa Kosugi (of Taj Mahal Travellers fame). They released one rare record of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink ambient fug at the time (in 1976). This version of the group features a lot of names that may be familiar to PSF obsessives -- Kazuo Imai has had a great solo record on the label, and was a pupil of both Kosugi and freeform guitar-god Masayuki Takayanagi. Masami Tada is a sound-sculptor of some note who has many solo documents 'available'. Yasushi Ozawa is of course better known as the bassist with Fushitsusha. Chie Mukai is the leader of dream-psych group Che-Shizu and a solo performer in her own right." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	INABA, SHUJI
Title:	Land Of Prayer
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 105CD

"Deep and cracked, raw Outsider Folk from the deepest depths of rural Japan. First PSF release by a name that will be unknown to most of you. Shuji Inaba has had one previous self-released CD (Innen Kaho) on his own Planktone label two or three years ago. That record was notable for its out-of-nowhere trembling, almost theatrical intensity of emotional virulence. Inaba lives in rural Shimane on the Japan Sea coast of western Japan, and has apparently been playing for the last ten or so years. That, it seems, as much as anyone knows about him. Sonically Inaba is very much out of the Kan Mikami (indeed Inaba's vocals are close enough in places to deceive the casual observer) school of one-man-against-the-universe, guttural outsider folk. Dripping with melancholy, his lyric concerns would seem to be of the environmentalism/ghetto mother/Hiroshima issue-driven ilk, though with a finer than most eye for the telling image. What sets this release apart is a consummate PSF sense of music fully-inhabited, of individuality and emotional purity. That it comes from an unknown voice from the boondocks is testament that the genius-impulse that gave rise to Mikami and Tomokawa still flares in secret. Great skewed folk percussion on a couple of tracks too." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	ISHIZUKA, TOSHIAKI
Title:	In The Night
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 107CD

"Second solo album (the first was self-released a few years back) from the dynamic Vajra drummer. The more diligent PSF linernote cataloguers amongst will doubtless also have noticed Ishizuka's long involvement with folk-poet Kazuki Tomokawa's group, an involvement that dates back to the seventies. Back then Ishizuka was best known in Japan as part of the legendary ur-punk group Zuno Keisatsu. He is also the leader of the elegant cinematic (funnily enough) Cinorama, a frequent collaborator with Kan Mikami, and all-round irrepressible drum-slinger for hire. In the West, Ishizuka is probably best known for the martial powerhouse thunderstorms he calls down with PSF supergroup Vajra, but, as this album shows, there's a lot more to him than plain old sweat and muscles. Complexly layered gong tones, bottomless toms, and a multi-varied rhythmic sense that is all his own. The whole thing is shot through with a most appealing sense of fiercely still concentration. This is one of the deepest and, dare we say it, most spiritually resonant percussion records you're going to hear this year." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	MUSICA TRANSONIC
Title:	Swing Strong Mod
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 108CD

The trio of : Asahito Nanjo (bass), Makoto Kawabata (guitar) & Tatsuya Yoshida (drums). "Latest two blasts from the hyper-productive Asahito Nanjo camp. Fifth album overall from the speed-fuck volume terrorists, following up their last PSF release (PSF 098) which saw Keiji Haino cranking up his amp alongside the band. For this release, Nanjo has been strongarmed into tuning down his usual all-in-the-red speaker-destruction mix -- and as a result, the full range of amazing punk interplay and crazed rhythmic invention is a hell of a lot easier to appreciate. Kawabata's soloing is a real standout this time around, hitting an eye-glazing fractured jazz style at times. No one's going to mistake him for Pat Metheny though. . ." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOHO SARA
Title:	Mei Jou Tan Sho
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 109CD

"The second album from one of Nanjo's most mysterious units, who attempt an unearthly fusion of ethnic droning and rock methodology, electric and acoustic vibrations. Edgy and unsettling heretical donescapes that unconsciously silence the impulsive reconnaissance of pre-determined formats. It is thought that the members this time around are the duo of Nanjo and Makoto Kawabata (of Musica Transonic, Acid Mothers Temple et al)." -- Alan Cummings. Kawabata (Dholak, Hojok, Zurna, Algoza, Y�r�k, Kemenje, Mey, Sarangi, violin, viola, Blockfl�te, harmonium, ching), Nanjo (cello, bassrecorder, China gong, Hansho, bass, Eastern String, electronics, Sitar, Saz) & Mido Mineko (organ).

Artist:	ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O.
Title:	Troubadours From Another Heavenly World
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 123CD

"Third PSF album from the Nagoya-based (but always heavenly-bound) Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., led by Japan's current king of the long-hairs and mystic rock-guitar guru Makoto Kawabata (also of Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Toho Sara). Their previous releases were delirious communal Gong/Hawkwind patchouli collisions, colorful as a Life with the Hippie Jetsons cartoon, but with an acid punch that proved their music was beyond any idea of pastiche or irony. A couple of extensive American and European tours have gained the Acid Mothers an unbeatable cachet on the contempo-trip scene. Kawabata's international reputation has been cemented with solo and group releases on his own ATM label, SIWA, Eclipse, Swordfish, Detector, Elsie & Jack, Last Visible Dog, etc. For their latest flight though, the Acid Mothers have stepped back off the delirium pedal, and bumped up the luminous folk-mysticism faders. To be sure, the space synths, guitar supernovas, and stoned cosmic mumble are still present. It's just that now they're deployed to entirely different effect -- this is no longer the soundtrack to your first highschool acid 'n' beer party, it's more like a solitary roadtrip seeking enlightenment, a hermit's cell halfway up Magic Mountain, the cosmic butterfly gently enfolding its pan-dimensional wings over your bruised psyche. It's a slowly hypnotic, deeply meditational platter of god-honest real-time wonder." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	HIGH RISE
Title:	Psychobomb - US Tour 2000
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 124CD

"First live High Rise album on PSF since the still astounding peak of Live (PSFD-48). Seven tracks, fifty-two minutes. If there's anyone that doesn't already know, High Rise were where it all started. A group that boiled down improv, the hardest psych, the fastest punk into an injectable shot of accelerated adrenaline. The group were source of the first psychic rumbles to reach the West, indicating that something quite remarkable was happening in the Tokyo underground. Without High Rise there would have been no PSF (the acronym stands for Psychedelic Speed Freaks -- the group's early moniker and the title of their debut album), no Musica Transonic, no Mainliner... This latest release features the group live in New York and Seattle on their most recent US tour, before an adoring audience of speedfreak boneheads (maybe you'll even hear yourself hollering 'louder' or 'faster'). Surprisingly, the trademark Nanjo production aesthetic has been toned down a notch, leaving the splattered acid genius and tonal control (!) of Narita's solos the most evident they've ever been. Nanjo and ex-White Heaven drummer Koji Shimura are as poundingly heavy a rhythm section as you could wish for. But it's the guitar where it is at: there's still nothing quite like Narita kicking open the throttle and tearing into a manic solo, leaving shit-eating grins to eat dust in his wake..." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	MAINLINER
Title:	Imaginative Plain
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 125CD

"Fourth 'real' album (after two on Charnel Music, and the anomalous Psychedelic Polyhedron on Fractal, and discounting a ton of self-released cassettes and CD-Rs on the existentially dubious La Musica label) from Tokyo underground freaks Mainliner. The group's leader, legendary Tokyo speed freak Asahito Nanjo is best known as the bass-playing, shades-wearing polymath behind High Rise and Musica Transonic. Stylistically, this is just where you would want it to be -- exactly half-way between the acceleration-obsessed garage psych of High Rise, and the more spastic time shifts of Musica Transonic. There is a seriously sticky gloopiness to the Mainliner psych-as-group-mind universe, which even the hydrochloric guitar of Acid Mother Kawabata only momentarily manages to extricate itself from. The rest is cemented down by the straight pounding of new member Koji Shimura (ex-White Heaven) on drums, and Nanjo's usual sterling bass work. The five tracks of super-heavy, super-dense rock-psych improv are all liberally smothered in the trademark Nanjo pile-driving needles-in-the-red production aesthetic. In terms of rock, this is the most truly satisfying album that this group has made since Mellow Out. Heavier than anything else you're likely to listen to this week." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KANEKO, JUTOK
Title:	Endless Ruins
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 126CD

"Jutok Kaneko is not a name that will ring too many bells among lightweight cognoscenti of the Japanese psychedelic underground, but too those with sharper ears and deeper wallets the news that Tokyo's OTHER black-clad guitar master has finally made a solo album is true cause for rejoicing. Kaneko is known, if at all, as leader of Kosokuya, one of the most idiosyncratic and least appreciated rock groups in Tokyo. The group have been in existence since the late seventies, pounding out a unique take on the space-rock idiom that sucked crushing chords and spiralling solos into the heart of blank, bleak emptiness. Not as career-minded as certain other scenesters, the group only released three albums over those 22 years (Ray Night 1991-1992 Live on Forced Exposure, and The Dark Spot collaboration with Masayoshi Urabe on PSF [PSFD-90] are still available). Although Kaneko frequently guests at improv gigs in Tokyo, non-Kosokuya recorded appearances have been equally rare, encompassing only a duo album with Rinji Fukuoka on Pataphysique and a very limited live improv video with Chie Mukai and others. Hence the excitement at this solo release. Naked and mostly alone, Kaneko hurtles into a deep, dark hole of his own devising, his immensely distinctive vocals howling out his pain as his guitar shoots out pulsating tendrils of beautiful black light. Stylistically not that distant from Kosokuya's deployment of heavy space, it's at once a depressingly nightmarish and exhilarating sound, utterly unique. On two tracks he ploughs a deeper furrow with the help of Takuya Nishimura (Che-SHIZU) on bass, and Koji Shimura (ex White Heaven, Mainliner) on drums. One for those select moments when you dream that Jandek had jammed with Quicksilver." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	NARITA & SHOJI HANO, MUNEHIRO
Title:	Kyoaku no Intentions
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 127CD

"Kyoaku no Intention (which translates as Worst Intention) were a legendary no-wave psych group led by wunder-guitarist Munehiro Narita at the beginning of the eighties. Usually consisting just of Narita and drummer Hiroshi Yokoyama, they blended tighter-than-tight Neu drumming with lengthy and harsh guitar soloing. Documentation was minimal, and the group seem to have split up in late 1982. However, Narita revived the concept during the 1998 High Rise tour of the US and Europe. He and lucky drumseat occupant at the time, Shoji Hano, would sometimes kick of the shows with intense instrumental duo blasts that not just reanimated the long rotten corpse of Kyoaku no Intention, but got it up and dancing too. The three extended studio pieces here see Narita smearing his heavily-effected guitar much wider than he ever could in High Rise. Hano constructs the perfect solid wall for just such a smearing in his usual resourceful and intensely, sweatily physical fashion. Together, Narita and Hano have zero qualms about incorporating a seriously ROCK vocabulary -- distortion, fuzz, emphatic string bends, lightning fast runs, pummelling forward motion -- into a full free improv context. In a field with few reference points between Gary Smith and Snyder & Thompson's Daily Dance, this one stands proud and tall. And at appropriate volume, it'll clear your sinuses better than Vicks."

Artist:	KNEAD
Title:	1st
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 128CD

"Keiji Haino (guitar, vocals), Tatsuya Yoshida (drums, vocals), Hisashi Sakaki (bass). Knead is a new unit which brings together two of the most unmistakable voices in the Japanese underground, juddering prog-thrash duo Ruins, and master of all darkness he surveys Keiji Haino. Haino and Ruins drum-master Yoshida have bumped heads on several occasions before -- several years ago in Haino's collaboration with Musica Transonic, more recently on a duo record released on Hong Kong label Sonic Factory, and a couple of months back the two toured China together. Recorded live at Manda-La2 last December, this is a full-on, hang-on-for-dear-life rock rumble, with added moments of very special spectral tremble. Haino's guitar full-spectrum roar pushes the Yoshida and Sakaki rhythm-section away from their usual stop-start vocal led patterns into more instinctive territory. Less an uneven tussle between two weedy prog guys and a guitar monster than six-legged quest for instant-by-instant rock nirvana." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Mandala Cat Last
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 129CD

"Fifth studio album from the heavyweight PSF super-group of Keiji Haino, Kan Mikami, and Toshiaki Ishitsuka. Veterans all, the group members have a combined playing career of virtually a century. The group has been in a state of suspended animation for the past four years, but this album will hopefully kick off a new phase of activity for them. What makes Vajra unique is its bizarre energy dynamic. Entirely improvised, the three players seem to shoot off in utterly opposing directions: Mikami's rhythm guitar and vocals providing a pulse universal to no one but himself, Ishitsuka beating martial time signatures like three military bands on the one parade ground, and Haino scuttling around slicing and dicing beautiful abyssal depths out from beneath everyone else's feet. Somehow (proof that space is curved?), three individuals arrive at the same place at roughly the same time. Highlights include the third track, which comes as close to their massive live sound as anything the group has yet recorded. And the set's inevitable eyebrow raising moment? The a cappella nursery rhyme version of Mikami's 'Koppu wa kowareru daro' (off Live in the First Year of Heisei vol.2). Another uncompromisingly great one then? You bet." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	KAWANI, HIROSHI
Title:	Flashback
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 130CD

"Hiroshi Kawani is a little known figure in the West, but he has been crucially central to the Tokyo avant-garde scene since the fifties as performer, commentator, theorist, organiser, and agitator. He was part of the sixties experimental art nexus that included Takehisa Kosugi and Yasunao Tone as well as radical artists like Natsuyuki Nakanishi and Genpei Akasegawa (in the greatest cause c�l�bre of the 60s Japanese art world, the latter was prosecuted by the Japanese state for creating one-sided simulacra of bank notes). Later, as an editor at publishers Gendai Shichosha Kawani was responsible for bringing out Japanese translations of work by Artaud, Bataille, Derrida and others -- works that galvanised a new generation of radicals. Kawani has been active as a solo voice performer since the early 80s, and though now in a wheelchair he still performs regularly. The private home recordings presented here have been unearthed by alto terrorist Masayoshi Urabe from a mountain of cassettes of unknown provenance, and would seem to date from around 1983. There's the unmistakable feel of low-level mania throughout, as Kawani moans, jabbers and obsesses wordlessly into a microphone over an patterned tapestry of feedback and amped everyday objects (rubber bands, cans, bottles, knives, steel pipes, shoes, chopsticks etc). This touches on all kinds of synapse-warping art bases from Robert Ashley to the Nurse With Wound in a gloriously messy, unacademic (and yes, psychedelic) way." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	DOO-DOOETTES/KEIJI HAINO
Title:	Free Rock
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 131CD

"Long-awaited archival collaboration from 1982." The Doo-Dooettes, mainstays of the LAFMS, were: Dennis Duck (drums), Fredrik Nilsen (bass), Tom Recchion (home-made instruments: mock cello & strungaphone), with Rick Potts (guitar) and Haino (guitar). Keiji Haino was visiting LA shortly after the release of his first solo album on Pinakotheca Records and this impromptu session was recorded on August 3, 1982. The first ever release of this one thirty-five minute piece (titled by Recchion: "Blueprint For The Shimmering Quivers Of The Deep Purple Ultraviolet Tuning Fork"), recently discovered in the cassette collection of Dennis Duck, unheard for 18 years. Liner notes & cover artwork by Tom Recchion.

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	1st
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 132CD

"Reissue of one of the absolute, no-doubt-about-it, stone classics of the Tokyo underground, with one bonus unreleased track. The first album by Kosokuya was originally released on the group's own Ray Night imprint in 1991. The original edition was of just 200, with very few copies making it out of Japan and as a result has long fetched huge sums amongst collectors. Kosokuya's unique brand of space-rock has been a fixture on the Tokyo underground rock scene since 1978, and both Narita and Nanjo (who would go on to form High Rise) were one-time members. By the time this album was recorded, though, the group had stabilized into the classic trio line-up of Kaneko, Mikk, and Takahashi -- the same line-up that appeared on the tracks on Tokyo Flashback, and on the Forced Exposure album. The infinite, echoing spaces contained in this music still sound unbelievably great. Kosokuya specialized in loud, very extended pieces with the capacity to utterly destroy your sense of time. Takahashi's heavy drumming and Mikk's bass lay down a defiantly non-linear foundation, layering just-out-of-time accents that perfectly fracture the cold darkness that envelops the group. Kaneko, armed with nothing more than a single Marshall amp and a beat-up old fuzz pedal, twists and weaves immense feedback fields and eloquent clusters of single notes in and around Mikk's anguished voice. This is a heavy, heavy record, fully on a par with the early Fushitsusha classics or the second High Rise album." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	EXIAS-J
Title:	2002.11.17 Live at Aire-Gin, Yokohama
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 133CD

"Formed around the nucleus of full-on guitarist and theorist Hideaki Kondo in 1999, Exias-J (shorthand for Experimental Improvisers Association of Japan) have succeeding in building up their own self-contained scene over the past three years. Working as a kind of collective, with members from a wide variety of musical backgrounds (classical, jazz, experimental film, acoustic design, philosophy) showing up on different electric and acoustic projects, their Bishop Records imprint has to date released nine CDs worth of impressively focussed (and on occasion, unashamedly noisy) free improvisation. The collective have taken it upon themselves to 'deconstruct and reconstruct Japanese music', freeing it both from the cult of imitation of Western avant-garde patterns and the idea that Japanese music must somehow be ethereal and beautiful. What this means in practice is that their love of free jazz, free improv, minimalism, musique concrete, electronic music et al gets sucked into an industrial-strength blender, amped up to eleven, and splattered all over the rear wall. For this, their first release on PSF, the collective call up their electric brigade and put in a set of performances whose volume+density+full-on flail equation approaches pretty damn close to Takayanagi New Direction-esque levels of pleasure. Even when they turn it down for explorations of AMM-space, there's a purely physical heft to their music that is as enticing as any to have emerged in the past decade."

Artist:	URABE, MASAYOSHI
Title:	Ware Wa Seidai No Kyojyo Zo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 147CD

Masayoshi Urabe: (alto saxophone, metal joints, chains, harmonica, electric guitar). Latest masterpiece of purely rock 'n' roll flesh-breathing, recorded live and relentless in Japan and Belgium, by this generation's most radical alto terrorist." -- Alan Cummings. "My joints ache so much that I walk weird. Improvisation?? Improvisation??!? I've never seen it, heard it, or played it. You say that you're uncomfortable. I felt so good that I stopped laughing. I love silence because I am so brutal, but because I breathe there can be no silence. I call it Rock 'n' Roll. Because I breathe -- because I have a mouth. Duo 1988, Ju/A Brute, Urklang, Soingyokusaiseyo -- Improvisation can eat shit, that's what I've always said. Musicians are the scum of the earth, and hell's a lie, that's what I've always said. Do you know a word that means both look at me and leave me alone? I'm so fuckin' glad that I've got no reasons, no dreams, nothing to believe in. I'm so fuckin' glad that I have no interest in the occult, in salvation, in playing my part, in meanings. I'm so fuckin' glad I met you and left you. I'm so fuckin' glad that I'm not you. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you're not beautiful. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you mean nothing to me."-- Masayoshi Urabe, from his linernotes.

Artist:	DARE DEVIL BAND
Title:	Inomusha
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 148CD

Shoji Hano (drums); Atsushi Tsuyama (electric bass, vocals); Kawabata Makoto (electric guitar, etc.). "The Dare Devil Band moniker first showed up in the early nineties on a duo album by German sax titan Peter Brotzmann and master drummer Shoji Hano. Hano obviously has a soft spot for the name, as he has resurrected it for this new project -- a hardcore improvised rock trio, consisting of Hano with Makoto Kawabata and Atsushi Tsuyama from acid-freak commune Acid Mothers Temple. Hano made his name as an intensely physical free drummer who draws upon a multitude of esoteric physical practices to energize his playing. He's recorded with Peter Brotzmann, Derek Bailey, Werner Ludi, William Parker, Keiji Haino and a host of other leading free improvisers as well as proving his rock credentials on two albums with the legendary High Rise. Inomusha was recorded live earlier this year in Osaka and Kyoto, with the trio locking down into some seriously wired and sprawling rock craziness. Comes in a gorgeous mini-LP style gatefold jacket with English liner notes by Hano."

Artist:	JOKERS
Title:	Jokers
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 149CD

Hiroshi Nar: (vocals, guitar, organ, chorus); Yohkai Takahashi: (bass, chorus); Toshi Ishizuka: (drums, percussion, chorus). "Accelerated senility, inspired lunacy, and grotesque rock-pranks from a trio of Japanese underground veterans who should really know 'better'. If meaningful Pete Frame musical histories are what you're after, then this trio has it in spades. Ritalin-huffing vocalist and smeary-fingered guitarist Hiroshi Na was a member of both acid-goth mystery group Les Rallizes Denudes and seminal anarcho-folk-punkers Zuno Keisatsu during their heaviest periods in the seventies. Hairy, speaker-shaking bassist Yokai Takahashi was in a bunch of no-wave carcrash groups like Bunretsu before serving a lengthy stint in Rallizes during the eighties and nineties. More recently he's been a central plank in Gyaatees, which throws mentally-challenged priests together with hoary rock improvisers to chaotic ends. Wildman drummer Toshi Ishizuka was a founder member of Zuno Keisatsu and Vajra, a constant presence behind folk legends Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, as well as leading his own group Cinorama. But instead of a full-frontal assault, the Jokers have decided to tunnel under the gates of perception with an arsenal of rhythmic pratfalls, riffing slapstick and spluttering vocal raspberries. Theirs is an indescribably freaky but endearingly unaffected universe, where village idiot vocalizations happily rub up against stop-start rhythmic Morse code and some very wild and fuzzy guitar soloing. Against all the odds, this convinces, entertains and thrills. Adult rock from a group who never grew up." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KYOAKU NO INTENTION
Title:	Astral Projection
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 150CD

Munehiro Narita: (guitar); Shoji Hano: (drums). "Back at the dawn of the eighties, several years before the inception of High Rise, foot-down speed-freakin' guitarist Munehiro Narita had another unit which he called Kyoaku No Intention (Worst Intentions). Usually comprising just himself on electric guitar and a drummer, they cranked out some of the hardest hitting no-wave rock-improv of the time, analogous to very little apart from perhaps a more Neu-shackled version of the Doug Snyder/Bob Thompson 'Daily Dance' duo. Documentation was, unfortunately, minimal. That was until a couple of years ago when, with High Rise in one of their periods of dormancy, Narita decided to revive the name for some solo and collaborative shows around Tokyo. One of those gigs was with drummer Shoji Hano, and the combination of his resonant power and free-jazz inflected propulsion with the stinging, icicle-edge attack of Narita's guitar proved to be so explosive that the duo has now become a regular unit. On their second album for PSF, Narita and Hano are caught live in Tokyo a mere three months ago. Hano is always inventive around the kit, but he knows that crazed flail is just as valid in certain contexts as textural subtlety. Narita too was never one for treating the guitar as an ambient paintbrush, and his soloing here is as splattered and nerve-shreddingly exciting as ever. This is a brutal, consistently thrilling, cold fusion sound that makes little allowance for weak constitutions. Oh yeah." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KAWABATA & JEAN-FRANCOIS PAUVROS, MAKOTO
Title:	Venus
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 151CD

"Second duo outing (following Extreme-Onction on Fractal) for a sympathetically resonating pair of cross-culturally twinned Franco-Japanese souls. Makoto Kawabata is of course the hair-flailing, chain-smoking motorpsycho guitarist who first appeared on the radar in Musica Transonic and Mainliner, but is of late known to space-rock junkies the world over through the endlessly touring, cosmic freak-power bandwagon that is Acid Mothers Temple. Jean-Francois Pauvros is still a far lesser known name to those outside France, but he has a solid-gold history in European free-rock shenanigans stretching all the way back to the late seventies, when he played alongside Jac Berrocal in Catalogue. Recent years have seen many collaborations with dancers, poets, and Japanese musicians such as Makoto Sato, Setsuko Chiba, and Keiji Haino. Caught together two years ago in Paris, it is clear that Kawabata and Pauvros breathe very much the same air. An air dense with tobacco smoke, red wine fumes, and the alluring perfume of beautiful women. Bowed guitars, communal psychedelic geography, heavily quivering clouds of harmonics, deep drones, and that unmistakable miasma of unwashed rock spirit in telepathically free motion..." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	Live Gyakuryu Kokuu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 152CD

"The fatigue or Mick's voice became the lullaby to me. And when I woke up I was released from the permanent waves of the depression. I can testify from this experience that Mick's vocal has the effect against depression. And if you can add Ritalin and Betanamin, you feel no scare! -- from Tetsu Fujii's linernotes. Absolutely stunning dark matter psychedelics from one of the Tokyo scene's most elusive groups. Kousokuya have existed as a group since 1979, although leader Jutok Kaneko's activities in bizarre performance unit Kokugaiso go back even further into the mid-seventies. But in spite of the group's twenty-five year history, they have somehow managed to release just three full albums -- a self-released debut since reissued as PSFD-132, a live album on Forced Exposure, and The Dark Spot [PSFD-90] with Masayoshi Urabe. These newly uncovered live recordings date back to 1991, the year that the group's debut album was released. Two long tracks of grinding, soaring blackhole sonics that chart the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one save Fushitsusha. Don't pass up this chance to catch a barely acknowledged group-mind at an almost-never glimpsed peak of staggering beauty and dynamic force." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	VA
Title:	JMSA Presents Wave from Free Music
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 153CD

Previously unreleased live recordings during Sep. 2003 - Feb. 2004. Features: Keiji Haino (hurdy-gurdy); Kazuo Imai (guitar); Junichiro Okuchi (piano); Michihiro Sato (tsugaru syamisen); Yoshihide Otomo (turn-table); Masayoshi Urabe (alto sax). "Compilation containing six lengthy solo tracks by some of the most fascinating improvising musicians currently active in Japan. The CD documents a series of lecture-concerts, exploring the meanings, methods and implications of free music, which took place between September 2003 and February 2004 at Mesar Haus in Tokyo. Approaches vary between the endlessly fascinating, grey kaleidoscopic fields of Haino's hurdy-gurdy, the art-brut physical terrorism of Masayoshi Urabe, the traditional improvisatory, plucking style of Sato's tsugaru-jamisen, and the anti-fundamentalist feedback dialectics of Otomo's turntable work. All bore channels through time-space continua and consensus reality like no one's business." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	EXIAS-J
Title:	Balance of Chaos
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 154CD

"Thrilling document of seriously wired Japanese improv collective, raising electric ghosts and phantom sonorities live in New York. Exias-J (short for Experimental Improviser's Association of Japan) have been around since 2000, and this is their second release on PSF. The group express a dedication to bringing the sounds of classic Euro free improv into collision with free jazz, minimalism, electronic music, scalp-raising rock improv and a dozen other musical discourses. Balance of Chaos captures the collective, in a number of shifting trio and quintet permutations, live on their first tour of the US in the autumn of 2003. The stated aims of the collective's 'electric conception' is to disrupt traditional instrumental hierarchies through the application of electro-acoustics. However, that pat explanation gives little sense of the kinetic physicality, knife-edge tensions, and complex structural density embodied in these thrilling performances (though the whooping and hollering audiences were clearly feeling it). If you have any bottomless holes in your musical history that need filling, these boys and their diachronic spades will more than do the job." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	IMAI, KAZUO
Title:	Far and Wee
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 155CD

Kazuo Imai: Acoustic guitar, chair. "Kazuo Imai has developed into one of the most strikingly individual and immediately identifiable guitar improvisers in Japan, equally adept on electric or acoustic, and even on viola de gamba and unusual ethnic instruments. These two releases on PSF seem destined to finally cement Imai's reputation as an improviser of international stature. Imai's training as an improviser and guitarist saw him studying with both Masayuki Takayanagi (famously, Imai was the one and only student to ever graduate under Takayanagi's tutelage), and Takehisa Kosugi. As a performer he's played with Takayanagi's New Direction, Taj Mahal Travellers, East Bionic Symphonia, Marginal Consort, as well as with European and US luminaries such as Arthur Doyle, Lee Konitz, Barre Phillips and Han Bennink. Far and Wee, only Imai's second solo release (following How Will We Change?, PSFD-70), sees him setting aside the electric strurm und drang in favour of the limitations of a nylon-strung acoustic guitar. In Imai's hands though, the instrument is opened up in an utterly thrilling fashion, as he agilely traverses clumped string thickets, high tension slide motion and yawning acoustic caverns with a jaw-dropping array of extended techniques. There's a density of conception and creativity on display here that is simply jaw-dropping." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	CHINO/KAZUO IMAI, SHUICHI
Title:	001111
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 156CD

Shuichi Chino: piano; Kazuo Imai: guitar. "Pianist Shuichi Chino's lengthy career is more convoluted, with early stints in groups like Wha-ha-ha and the Downtown Boogie Woogie Band, followed by theatre and soundtrack work, and a towering heap of sessions with improvisers like Butch Morris, and Kazuhisa Uchihashi. 001111 is a reissue of a minimally distributed private CD-R, documenting Chino and Imai's acoustic duo meeting at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, on 11 November 2001. Together they explore the subtleties of group-mind free shiver, pluck and rustle, hitting a foggy zone where Django nods out with John Tilbury." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HIRANO, GO
Title:	Corridor of Daylights
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 157CD

Go Hirano (piano, pianica, glockenspiel, accordion, windchimes, thumb piano, percussion, voice, etc). "It's been a long time coming, but Go Hirano's stunning new album has finally been released. Hirano is known as a sometime White Heaven collaborator, renowned expert on Canadian psychedelia and acid folk, and ultra-sensitive sound artist. His previous two albums on PSF have wound lo-fi wisps of fragile piano melody and bell chime around nagging, sometimes subtly unsettling field recording techniques. Corridor of Daylights resurrects the absolutely exquisite instrumental palette of his second, Reflection of Dreams (PSF 071). It is a dreamy walk along insubstantial, lysergic paths where all-too breakable souls breathe shallowly and insects hum in sympathetic resonance. An almost flawless album of touching late-night psychedelics." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	ABE, KAORU
Title:	Winter 1972
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 158CD

Kaoru Abe: alto saxophone. "The long-awaited official reissue of the rarest of all recordings by mercurial, live fast and die young alto hero Kaoru Abe. Originally released sometime in 1973 or 1974 on the Sound Works label out of Osaka, this was a bootleg LP of Abe in full-flowing solo action. The records came in a plain white sleeve, the label makes no mention of Abe's name, and they came with a very high price tag for the time. Needless to say, this has since become a laughably rare record, unseen by even the most dedicated of Abe collectors. Rarity aside, this is an utterly thrilling missive from Abe's most uncompromising and satisfying period. As yet untrammelled by self-abuse, his utterly distinctive voice on alto rings swift, clear and true, scattering diamond shards of light in its wake. Stunningly concentrated and sure-footed -- it needs to be heard." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 5
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 159CD

"Fresh from the darkest depths of the Tokyo psychedelic underground, another crop of ten of the city's wildest sounds. The fifth volume in the modern psychedelic world's most reliable compilation of out-of-nowhere urban mind liberation. As ever, Tokyo Flashback brings you some old faces alongside the hottest young gunslingers from the wrong side of the Tokyo tracks. Old favourites this time include White Heaven with a vintage track of live acid cool isolationism, Kyoaku no Intention burning down the barn with themselves inside, and Overhang Party ruminating on contemporary world affairs. Most surprising showing is the first track to be released of Keiji Haino's experimental DJ-ing sessions -- full-on and unmistakable Haino, with little fader action and no scratches. New names to juggle with are the dense and crushing tortured muzz of Aural Fit, hallucinatory analogue noise from the mysterious Kabemimi, dark and melancholic gloom from Suisho no Fune, and the beautiful and fractured late-night textures of Hisato Higuchi. 200% head-spinning action." -- Alan Cummings. Artists: Aural Fit, White Heaven, Kyoaku no Intention, Kabemimi, Suisho no fune, DJ Keiji Haino, Hisato Higuchi, Tsurunoko, Overhang Party, Marble Sheep.

Artist:	VA
Title:	PSF & Alchemy 20th Anniversary Live
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 160CD

"In 2004, Tokyo's PSF and Osaka's Alchemy labels, twin pillars of the Japanese noise, punk, psychedelic, whatever underground celebrated two decades of against-all-odds paradigm deformation, world domination, and unrepentant synapse mangling. To commemorate the occasion, two joint concerts were held at The Doors and Super Deluxe in Tokyo, bringing together luminaries from both labels in a celebration of freedom spirit and independent thinking. Some of the most exciting music from these concerts arose out of audacious and inspired one-off collaborations. Thus, thoughtful free guitarist Kazuo Imai joins pro-wrestling noisicians Incapacitants in the volume tag-team to end them all; Kan Mikami and Jojo Hiroshige get together to compare buzz-cuts and one-man against the universe philosophical approaches; and Junko (of Hijokaidan) researches upper register oxygen levels with alto terrorist Masayoshi Urabe; and trembling late night atmospherics are deep-mined to sensual and sensitive effect by Go Hirano and Maher & Majikick stalwart Takashi Ueno. A true testament to the multi-faceted beauty and creative power of the Japanese underground." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	NARITA, MUNEHIRO
Title:	Narita
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 161CD

"First solo album by High Rise and Kyoaku no Intention six-string speed meister Munehiro Narita. Featuring a guest appearance by Takashi Ueno of Mahel Shalal Hash Baz, Tenniscoats, and a couple of dozen Majikick-related units fame. With High Rise currently on extended vacation, Narita has been burning up stages across Tokyo in his aggressive, free-jazz inflected improv rock unit Kyoaku no Intentions, and more recently in naked solo style. The time is definitely right, after over twenty years in Tokyo's premier lysergic garage psych outfits, for Narita to unleash a solo album. Serious students of Narita's guitar style will have noticed that for all its surface rock grime and ton-up speed thrills, it has always been a structurally complex thing drawing upon free jazz and free improv methodologies as much as greaser grunt. Even so, for those expecting a conflagration of demon-speed riffs and slash 'n' burn avant-garde dynamics, Narita will come as something of a surprise. He has deconstructed the most thrilling elements of rock guitar's pyrotechnics -- wah-wahed smears, slowed down slides, sensual string bends -- and retooled them into service of a far more subtle improvised psychedelia. Tonally it sounds like nothing else, rocked out and avanted up, meditative and impassioned cool all at once, Derrida with a Marshall stack." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	SANHEDOLIN
Title:	Manjoicchi wa muko
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 162CD

"Sanhedolin are a ludicrously amped-up and heavy new power trio, featuring Keiji Haino, Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) and Mitsuru Nasuno (Ruins). Haino brings aggressive anguish and all-consuming black fire, Yoshida and Nasuno supply a sack-full of convulsive time-shifting and complex kinetic acceleration. Haino and Yoshida have been working together on and off for the past three or four years in a number of duo and trio contexts, including a tour of China and Taiwan. They have built up the kind of instinctual response and rapport that only comes with extended playing. A previous trio formation including Hisashi Sasaki (ex Ruins) seems to have bitten the dust, and in its place we have the newly named Sanhedolin. Speed-deranged progressive metal of spectacular and ridiculous heights." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HASEGAWA-SHIZUO
Title:	Gene Packs
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 163CD

"Debut album by a new improvisation group consisting of Hirotomo Hasegawa and Shizuo Uchida. Both have a leather-bound folder full of underground back-story -- Hasegawa was the lead singer of seminal early eighties Japanese punk/hardcore group Aburadako (Greasy Octopus), while Uchida was a long-term member of Haino's Nijiumu medieval dream-drone unit. The group's instrumentation is highly unorthodox, placing Uchida's mysterious bass textures against the wet skirl of Hasegawa's hichiriki, an ancient double-reed wind instrument whose haunting upper register tones are an unmistakable feature of gagaku court music. Hasegawa brings a bucketful of phlegm to his approach to the instrument, out-honking Zorn's duckcall work by a marshy mile. Uchida also contributes some striking ichigen (single-string) koto. Deliriously psychedelic, fully immersive drone and oriental wind works in the grand tradition of Taj Mahal Travellers, Nijiumu, Marginal Consort and too few others." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ
Title:	Kunitachi Kibun ('84 & '85)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 164CD

"Maher Shalal Hash Baz stand at the pinnacle of Tori Kudo's eccentric and beguiling musical weltanschauung, a stew of soaring melodic genius, na�ve wisdom and the eternal amateur freshness of left-footing your own brain. Emperors of error, indeed. Their very special talent has been recognized by a slew of underground labels across the world and garnered them famous friends and fans aplenty including The Pastels. But until now, the very earliest roots of the band have remained shrouded in misty tendrils of mystery. Kunitachi Kibun delves deep into the band's beginnings, presenting two previously unreleased gigs, including their first show from December 1984 when they played in a legendary triple header with High Rise and Kosokuya at the Kid Airaku Hall in Tokyo. The second show from six months later includes an appearance by the late alto saxophonist Masami Shinoda. Both soar with idiot-savant genius, Tori's truly distinctive guitar and vocals creating their own idiot-savant networks of logic with the rest of the group. A stupendous glimpse into a simpler world of communal transcendence and music making." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	ISHIZUKA, TOSHIAKI
Title:	Drum Drama
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 165CD

"New solo work from the Japanese underground's drummer of choice. Six years on from 1999's masterful Red Night, Toshiaki 'Toshi' Ishizuka is back with a new set of deep, shimmering nightscapes for percussion. Toshi has been a pivotal figure in the Japanese underground since the late '60s, when he founded Japan's first radical, politically-engaged punk group Zuno Keisatsu. Since then he has been the sticksman of choice for howling folk-poets Kazuki Tomokawa, Yasuki Fukushima and Kan Mikami, as well as making up one corner of the Vajra trio with Mikami and Keiji Haino, and leading his own group Cinorama. More recently he has been active in the Sanjah trio with Mikami and altoist Masayoshi Urabe. Drum Drama is Toshi's third album of solo percussion. The first, Kaze no Yami, was released in a miniscule edition in 1991. Since a full reissue is for various reasons impossible, Toshi has included two mesmerizing pieces from Kaze no Yami here, alongside three new pieces. Toshi has a unique approach that blends overtly textural work (rubbing cymbals, rolling metallic balls, bowed gongs) with mountain-deep kick-drum bombs and flashes of staccato martial snares. The results are deeply evocative nocturnal landscapes of immense percussive variety, subtle, lyrical, cinematic and even soulful. Another major statement from an unsung thinker." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	First Live 1979
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 166CD

"Miraculously unearthed live tape from one of the earliest incarnations of Tokyo heavy psychedelic legends Kousokuya. For a group with a 25-year history on the Tokyo underground scene, Kousokuya have left very little imprint of their activities. Once heard, though, their sound is unmistakable -- a grinding, soaring sonic blackhole that charts the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one else this side of Fushitsusha. This tape, recorded at legendary '70s Tokyo underground venue Minor, captures Kousokuya at a formative stage in their existence -- Mick's blank, disembodied howl is present and correct, as is the choppy brilliance of Kaneko's guitar playing. But the real surprise is synth player Hiroshi Yokoyama, who lasted just a few gigs with the group. He contributes great clots of synth-blurt to the mix, wailing and derailing, the soul of this group's genetic instability. Another piece of the jigsaw..." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	D!O!D!O!D!
Title:	Ghost Temple
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 167CD

"Fantastic album of pure guitar and drums brutality (and the first non-Japanese release for PSF in several years) from the greatest noise musician in China, Li Jianhong. Long resident in Hangzhou, Li has released several records on his own 2pi label, including solo noise work for TV monitors and an album by his avant-rock unit, Second Skin. He also curates the annual 2pi noise festival in Hangzhou. He played at the Nuit Blanche festival in Paris in 2004, and this will be his second non-Chinese release. It is kind of amazing to think that China has already managed to produce a musician as au fait as Li Jianhong obviously is with the whole free noise aesthetic. D!O!D!O!D! is a full-on duo with drummer Huang Jin that mines the rich seams previously explored by Munehiro Narita's Kyoaku no Intention and Rudolph Grey's Blue Humans. Endlessly thrilling free psych-noise guitar blurt that bundles up enough flailing electric energy to illuminate half of Shanghai." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	KONDO, HIDEAKI
Title:	Structure
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 168CD

"Hideaki Kondo (10-string gut guitar, gut guitar); Michio Karimata (flute); Jun Kondo (contrabass); Osamu Nomura (percussion). First solo album by Hideaki Kondo, leader of Japanese leading improvisation collective, Exias-J. Kondo is known for the theoretical rigor that lies behind his technical mastery of the guitar, and for the multiplicity of his methodologies, encompassing free jazz, avant-garde, rock and folk forms. As in the playing of the late Masayuki Takayanagi, there is an originality and clarity of thought, a combination of historical understanding and contemporary intentionality in Kondo�s approach to guitar improvisation that is simply stunning. This first solo album presents Kondo largely on ten-string gut guitar, moving with an uncanny grace and concentration from stone melodic beauty to densely structured improv violence. Fabulous support work from Exias-J regular Kondo, and sometime Keiji Haino collaborator, Michio Karimata."

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 6
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 169CD

"The long awaited return of PSF's legendary, scene-defining compilation. For two years since the release of Tokyo Flashback 5 in 1995, we have been scouring the deepest dives in the darkest alleyways of the Tokyo underground in search of the newest mutated manifestations of the lysergic paradigm. The quest has not been an easy one, but now after dozens of gigs and hundreds of hours listening to demo CDRs, we have finally reached its conclusion. Tokyo Flashback 6 presents the fruits of that search, a treasure trove of the unheard. Twelve new groups poised on the cusp of greatness, driven by a fervent belief in the transformational potential of sound and the dimension-altering power of cranked amps, delay pedals and a third-eye opened to the cosmos. The groups included span a wide definition of the psychedelic, from the no-wave intensity of Onna (led by underground manga artist, Keizo Miyanishi), to the acid-punk splatter of Ainotamenishis, the art-school insanity of Kinky Pigeon, and the loner canyon-magic of Genshi. -- Alan Cummings. Featured groups: Ahobune, Hananoyoni, Onna, Yamashirube, Sarod, Retort Mandala, Ainotamenishis, Kinky Pigeon, Yakochu, Ogikubo Connection, Masami Kawaguchi, Genshi.

Artist:	VA
Title:	Asian Flashback: Underground Music From Asia
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 170CD

Asian underground compilation with 13 groups. Featuring Li Jianhong, Narita Munehiro, Hano Shoji, Mustangs, Kiyasu Orchestra, Mafeisan, 10, Xiao He, D!O!D!O!D!, Sato Yukie, Yoshiteru Koga Jizo, Kim Young Jin, Li Daiguo, Amature Amplifier, Soonie. "First PSF compilation to focus on the linkages between the established underground scene in Japan and nascent ones in China and Korea. Politics and history had long prevented exchanges between the three countries, but in recent years increasing trade and cultural linkages have revealed exciting new synergies. Covers the breadth of new East Asian underground forms ? white-out noise, face-peeling free improvisation, lysergic rock, limpid acid folk, electronic tone float, coruscating punk, free jazz and avant-art moves. Features relatively established names like China's king of noise guitar Li-Jianhong and motor-psych free-rock emperor Munehiro Narita, alongside a ton of utter unknown names." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	GENDAI SOKKYO
Title:	Gendai Sokkyo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 171CD

Tokyo free jazz/improvisation project. Featuring: Masahiro Deguchi, Hiroyuki Usai (ex. Fushitsusha), Hirokumi Uemo, Masaaki Motoyama. "Another piece of ineffable mystery from the deepest bowels of the Tokyo underground. Led by flautist and guitarist Masahiro Deguchi, Gendai Sokkyo (the name means 'Contemporary Improvisation') are a group with no discernable history, who seem to have sprung from nothing to fully-formed life. As the name suggests, the group showcase an improvisatory fusion of methodology and sound palette, drawing upon free jazz/free improvisation, avant rock moves and the textures of contemporary classical. An explosion of weird dynamics, suggestive in its inclusiveness and entirely psychedelic in its approach." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	AHOUSEN
Title:	Ahousen
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 172CD

"Tokyo underground group! Avant-psychedelic." Debut release from the quartet of: Katsu (guitar), Suu (sax, voice), Akira (bass) & Tail (drums). "Lunatic avant-free-rock, honed in guerrilla street performance. Debut album from one of the most exciting discoveries from the recent Tokyo Flashback 6 compilation. There's an entrancing sense of moon-kissed lunatic wildness about Ahousen (the group's name means Ship of Fools). Their avant-rock meets free jazz meets enka melancholic sound is entirely their own, a crazed communion with dead voices, honed to blistering perfection in guerrilla performance on the night-time streets of Shinjuku. For those of a genealogical bent, the group has some history. Guitarist Katsu played with original Tokyo Rockers legends Lizard in the seventies. Drummer Tail has played with Suishou no Fune." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	ONNA
Title:	Katawa
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 173CD

"The musical alter ego of obsessive pointillist underground cartoonist and illustrator Keizo Miyanishi, Onna have been in varying liminal stages of musical existence/non-existence since the early '80s. Their bleak and nihilistic no-wave downer sound riveted the Tokyo scene of the time -- an early line-up featured a pre-White Heaven Michio Kurihara. But after a couple of years and just one single, the group faded back into silence, becoming the stuff of rumor and faded memories. It was kind of shocking then to have a reformed Onna suddenly doing the rounds of Tokyo clubs a year or so back. After a couple of CDRs and an acclaimed appearance on Tokyo Flashback 6, Katawa is their first album in well over a decade. Detuned and fractured psychedelic blues filled with a bucketful of abject fear and personal loathing -- topped off with some of the most strikingly original vocal mannerisms in the Japanese underground. A fantastic return." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	URABE, MASAYOSHI
Title:	The Flag of Midsummer
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 174CD

"Alto saxophone, harmonica, chains, metal, accordion, bells, toy flute -- Masayoshi Urabe. Metal junk, cello, etc. -- Kiyoharu Kuwayama (track 2 only). A new solo album by Masayoshi Urabe is always a cause for rejoicing. This is his first since the frankly frightening Ware Wai Seidei No Kyojyo Zo on PSF in 2003. Urabe rarely plays live now, but this live album catches him in action in a converted saki brewery on the shores of Lake Biwa, near Kyoto. The damp heat of midsummer in this part of Japan seems to have worked its magic on Urabe, and this is an altogether gentler performance than normal. Over one long solo track, he bends his breath and body to the air in his saxophone, his tones blending with the sound of the insects outside the venue. A shorter second track captures him in a rare outing on accordion, toy flute and harmonica together with Kiyoharu Kuwayama. Another radical, effortlessly convincing album from the master of contemporary rock n' roll breathing." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	DOO SOO, KIM
Title:	10 Days Butterfly
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 175CD

"Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea's acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs -- political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion. Despite having been active since the mid-'80s and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits. On 10 Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous, still melodicism, Kim's vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin, piano, organ and harmonica. A reflective and unearthly beautiful masterpiece." - Alan Cummings

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Live
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 176CD

Guitar, vocals: Keiji Haino; guitar, vocals: Kan Mikami; percussion: Toshiaki Ishizuka. "First live album by the Japanese rock power trio to end all power trios -- Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino and Toshiaki Ishizuka!! This presents the group at a thrilling peak of their rock deconstruction-reconstruction praxis, one of those all too rare manifestations of the musical sublime. Mikami is in top blues testifying form, his voice a thing of cracked beauty and weathered power. Haino and Ishizuka infuse the songs with telepathic engagement -- constant layered motion, percussive blast-bombs and eruptions of black lava. Simply a ferocious record. Limited edition of 1000 in mini-LP style paper-sleeve." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	SHIRAISHI & MICO, TAMIO
Title:	Live Duo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 177CD

Alto saxophone -- Tamio Shiraishi; Alto saxophone, piano molanica, etc. -- MICO. "A rare live album from one of the major names in the Japanese free noise underground, Tamio Shiraishi. Shiraishi was one of the major movers in the free noise/underground rock/DIY improv Minor scene of the late '70s and early '80s that gave birth to so many of the major names in the Japanese underground. He was a pivotal member of a large number of groups associated with the scene, including Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha. But Shiraishi has rarely recorded and thus enjoys far less name recognition outside of Japan. He has lived in New York City for the past decade or so, collaborating with the likes of Sean Meehan and the No-Neck Blues Band. This compilation of live recordings captures Shiraishi live in Europe, the U.S. and Japan between 2001 and 2007, together with NNCK member, MICO. Forceful, intense, chaotic improvisations for saxophone, vocals, percussion, piano etc. Shiraishi's trademark ultra high-pitched dog-whistle sax and guttural vocals are showcased to full and outstanding effect." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	SHIZUKA
Title:	Live/Traditional Aesthetics
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 178CD

"Shizuka were THE great lost-in-action group of the Tokyo underground psych scene during the early to mid-'90s. Led by doll-maker Shizuka, and with ex-Fushitsusha alumni Maki Miura and Jun Kosugi on hand, they created some of the most fragile and intense acid-rock of their time, but remained largely undocumented and under appreciated. The gig documented on this CD, recorded at Bears in Osaka in 1995, was long whispered of amongst the cognoscenti. It catches them at a near-divinely inspired peak of fucked-up narcotic bliss. Shizuka's uncanny vocals and tremulous sense of timing washing like brown sugar over fluid nebulae of guitar and drum nirvana, peaking and churning in perfect, weightless filigrees of light, cosmic cold and invisible motion. Miura's guitar playing is just jaw-dropping. Booklet includes lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	AURAL FIT
Title:	Aural Fit II
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 179CD

"The reincarnation of the in-the-red psych aesthetics of early High Rise. One of the biggest underground psych/noise rock discoveries was Tokyo-based Aural Fit. A heavy, bludgeoning cudgel of a band, all distorted grime and redlined aggression, their 2004 self-released first album burst over the scene like a big bag of heavy spanners. They followed up with a track on Tokyo Flashback 5, but then line-up changes seemed to sideline their juddering, thundering rock juggernaut. Leader Mondo Bohachi has gone about reassembling the group from the ground up, and these are the first recorded results. If anything, it's even scarier, noisier and more rock than last time. 'Loud' and 'psychedelic' are still the watchwords, needles in the red all the way, and all the Stooges, Blue Cheer, TG, etc., references you might require are present and correct. Loud, vicious and dumb -- it doesn't really get much murkier or animal-mind-melding than this. Turn it up. Four tracks, 38 minutes. Mini-LP style card sleeve with obi and insert." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	IRO
Title:	Tamafuri
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 180CD

"An ultra mysterious blast from the deepest underground! Iro were (and still are) a little-known shamanic improvisation unit, consisting of Kawasaki-based husband and wife Shizuko and Toshio Orimo. Formed in 1981, they released a number of cassette-only albums during the '80s. Deeply suspicious of the merest whiff of commercialism, they never took the opportunities for greater fame -- in spite of some substantial media coverage in Japan at the time. The duo still perform today, in a more ethnic, esoteric ritual mode. Tamafuri was originally released on cassette on their own Shaman Label in 1985. It's a fantastically charged blend of ultra-propulsive ethnic drone, free jazz drumming with harsh noise textures and intense, almost possessed vocal incantations from Shizuko. As Takeo Udagawa puts it, 'their high-energy improvisations feel intensely dangerous, like a nuclear reactor-core going into meltdown, throwing out waves of radiation and intense heat.' A must for any true believer in the power of wailing blurt -- from Keiji Haino, to LAFMS, to Takayanagi. Comes with great contextual liner notes (in Japanese and English) by fringe music researcher Takeo Udagawa. And, yes, Shizuko and Toshio are indeed the parents of young shakuhachi sensation, Sabu Orimo." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	FURUSAWA & KAN MIKAMI, RYOJIRO
Title:	Buriki/Tin
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 181CD

"A sparse and stripped-back yet fully-impassioned meditation on time, history and freedom. Surreal folk meets free jazz. Two tracks, including a 24-minute, one-take masterpiece. Ryojiro Furusawa is one of Japan's most respected jazz drummers, having played from the late '60s with everyone from Yosuke Yamashita and Sadao Watanabe to Yuji Imamura, Maki Asakawa and Shang Shang Typhoon. He's also been a long-time collaborator with Kan Mikami, appearing on Kan's Bang! album in 1974. Kan Mikami is Japan's wisest and wildest folk-poet, a surreal master of the non-sequitur blues, a worldclass howler of truth and passion. This is the duo's third album, following Shokugyo (1987) and Dereki (2007). Gatefold high-gloss papersleeve, including lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOUKASEIBUNSHI
Title:	Meta-Inorganicmatter Meta-Newlon
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 182CD

"Volume 2 in the ongoing Japanese Avant-Garde Cassette Reissue Series. The 80s and early 90s saw a great deal of fascinating material released on cassette in the Tokyo underground. While some of the more noise-orientated stuff enjoyed a modicum of international distribution, the avant-garde material generally did not. This series, whose first release was Iro / Tamafuri (PSFD-180), aims to rescue the best of this music from historical oblivion. Toukaseibunshi (Permeable Molecule) was an ultra-mysterious solo unit created by Hironari Iwata. Iwata was a footnote figure in the world of Japanese avant-garde/noise from the mid to late eighties. As well as Toukaseibunshi, he also recorded under the name Haiginsha, ran the Angakok cassette label and wrote for various magazines. There's an unshowy stoicism to Iwata's investigation of drone, clank and crackling sustain, a deep seriousness of purpose that beguiles as much as it confounds. Six tracks, fifty-eight minutes. Gatefold papersleeve." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	SCHISTOSOMA JAPONICA
Title:	Kankei UFO From Zanryu-Shinen
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 183CD

"Volume 3 in the ongoing Japanese Avant-Garde Cassette Reissue Series. The '80s and early '90s saw a great deal of fascinating and exciting material released on cassette in the Tokyo underground. While some of the more noise-oriented stuff enjoyed a modicum of international distribution, the avant-garde material generally did not. This series, whose first release was Iro / Tamafuri (PSFD-180), aims to rescue the best of this material from historical oblivion. Schitosoma Japonica (AKA Nihon Juketsu Kyuchu) were a cracked avant-garde, recording-only offshoot of the freeform rock band Amanita. Formed around 1990, the group lived a communal existence in Saitama, on the northern borders of Tokyo, experimenting with music, magic and psychological experiments. 'Our basic performance style was completely freeform, utilizing prepared instruments and rejecting regular rhythms and melodic development. Our abiding themes were communication with the afterlife/cosmos and the manifestation of paranormal accidents. We would jam endlessly until our performance space was filled with the 'signs of blood and feverish becomings'. For us, performance was a kind of ritual.' The group released a clutch of barely distributed cassettes in tiny editions. This CD compiles the best of them, sifting through the detritus of a technological society to float between noise, drone and ritualized avant-garde gestures. Eight tracks, fifty-four minutes. Liner notes in English and Japanese." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KUDO, REIKO & TORI
Title:	From Now On
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 184CD

"Document of a recent (November 2008), intimate live show by Reiko Kudo and her husband Tori (of Maher Shalal Hash Baz fame). Long two of the most original figures in the Japanese underground, Reiko sings of the subtlest of everyday epiphanies, of those instants of momentary joy, pain and delight that flash by like ghosts glimpsed from the corner of the eye. Their simplicity and mystery is entirely disarming and deeply personal. She sings from a position of unforced naturalness, where both melody and vocalization are reduced to the thinnest of transparent, gossamer layers of art draped over reality. Simply astonishing. Tori and Reiko have been pivotal figures in the Tokyo underground since the late 1970s, when they were in a organ-drone and trumpet-blat group called Noise. Over the last dozen years Reiko has released a series of five solo albums under her own name. Seven tracks, forty-seven minutes. Booklet includes lyrics in English and Japanese." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	ASO, AI
Title:	Aida
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 185CD

"Document of a live show by the most gorgeously acid folk-esque of Japan's female singer-songwriters. A piece of dazed, limpid dream-beauty, with a tremulous, wavering intensity all its own. Since recording her first demo cassette in 1997, Ai Aso has released two full studio albums. She has connections with the cream of the Tokyo psychedelic underground -- You Ishihara (of White Heaven and The Stars) produced her albums; Michio Kurihara, Wata (of Boris), and Chiyo Kamekawa (of The Stars and Yura Yura Teikoku) have played on them. Includes a guest appearance by Go Hirano on piano. Six tracks, thirty-six minutes. Booklet includes lyrics and liner-notes in English and Japanese." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	SONODA, SATOSHI
Title:	Early Works Of Satoshi Sonoda 1977-1978
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 186CD

..Memories Of Yasushi Ozawa. "Conceived of as a tribute to the late Fushitsusha bassist Yasushi Ozawa, who passed away in February 2008, this CD presents a fascinating and rare glimpse of the nascent Tokyo underground scene, circa 1977/1978. Another piece of the puzzle! Compiled by Satoshi Sonoda, who led a student club at Meiji University dedicated to the performance and appreciation of free and out musics of many stripes, the CD documents the fascination with musical collisions of free jazz, rigorous twentieth century composition, art-inspired free improv moves, as well as the fried gargle of acid punk. Capturing small scale shows in after-hours university classrooms and tiny clubs, this is a music that is just intensely evocative of its specific time and place. Includes appearances by Yasushi Ozawa, Satoshi Sonoda, Chie Mukai, Masami Tada, and members of Gaseneta. Seven tracks, 75 minutes. Includes extensive, detailed liner-notes about the people, places and happenings of late seventies Tokyo by Satoshi Sonoda in both Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	JIANHONG, LI
Title:	Classic Of The Mountains And Seas
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 187CD

"First solo album on PSF (after the Ghost Temple duo and a couple of tracks on the Asian Flashback compilation) for China's hottest, loudest and most psychedelic avant-noise guitarist, Li Jianhong. Born in Fenghua in 1975, Li Jianhong has been blowing ears open with his own unique brand of higher-mind noise for five years now. This solo disk sees him simultaneously channeling Keiji Haino and Masayuki Takayanagi, as he dissolves himself into an avant-guitar mandala comprised of full-bore drone, sustained runs of psychedelic soloing, and phantom echo. An essential blast of young China. Seventy minutes." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	NEW MIMINOKOTO
Title:	All About Mimi
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 188CD

"Another first release on PSF for Miminokoto, a Tokyo-based garage psychedelic rock trio who have previously released a string of acclaimed albums on the Alchemy, Gyuune, Siwa and Last Visible Dog labels. This is the group's first album since Junzo Suzuki (20 Guilders, Astral Travelling Unity, ex Overhang Party) took over on vocals and guitar. The key to this group has always been their deep sense of song -- a densely emotive core around which the songs surge, billow and break. That core is retained here with an even harder psychedelic edge to the guitar. Includes two covers of songs by the late Jutok Kaneko of Kousokuya. Forty minutes, seven tracks." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 7
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 189CD

"An essential document of the psychedelic improvisation scene that exists in the deepest catacombs of the Tokyo underground! Includes unparalleled live performances by six of the scene's freshest groups. Recorded live at the legendary Koenji Show Boat venue in Tokyo on May 31, 2009!
       1. Le Son De L'os - 'Still Water' : An improvising unit formed by Yuko Hasegawa from Onna-Kodomo, Masahiro Deguchi from Gendai Sokkyo, and Shizuo Uchida from Hasegawa-Shizuo. The group began playing together several years ago, concentrating on outdoor performances. Deguchi's flute and guitar swim freely creating circles of ma, while Uchida's bass and subtly profound voice and acoustic guitar knit together sounds that exist solely at their instant of creation.
       2. Bon no Kubo - 'Untitled' : Formed in 2007. An improvising trio consisting of guitar, contrabass and percussion. The group aims at the sublime, whispered in a uniquely Japanese sensibility. Drums, Percussion: Naoto Yamagishi; Contrabass: Shintarou Takasugi; Guitar: Masahiko Ota
       3. Derakushi - 'Red Shoes 303' : Formed in 2008 at Suzuki's instigation. The project aims to express everything that bubbles up during performance or is generated as its by-product, without hesitation or exception. The group had one track on Real Japanese Underground 2008 compilation on the Lost Rivers Project label.
       4. Sabu Orimo Unit - 'Inochi' : Natural-Bore Shakuhachi: Sabu Orimo; Harmonica, Drums: Tomohiko Namiki
       5. Touyounomajyo - 'White Light Spear' : Formed in January 2008 and active in live houses around Koenji. They have released several live recordings.Guitar, Vocals: Keisuke Kajiwara; Bass: Mitsu; Drums: A.
       6. Hasegawa-Shizuo - 'Gray Ray' : Improvising duo of Hirotomo Hasegawa and Shizuo Uchida. Their genre-less music blends ma (space) and drone, while internalizing noise, ethnic music and contemporary composition. Their performances are made up entirely of sounds produced in the live moment and space. To date they have released three albums, on PSF, Tiliqua Records and haang niap Records. Hichiriki, Voice, etc.; Hirotomo Hasegawa Bass, Voice, etc.; Shizuo Uchida."

Artist:	PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST
Title:	Haru No Omoi
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 190CD

Haru No Omoi is the third full length release from Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, the project of My Cat Is An Alien's Maurizio and Roberto Opalio featuring Ramona Ponzini (Black Magic Disco, Praxinoscope) on vocals. The MCIAA duo provide expertly restrained accompaniment with guitar, keyboard, and percussion of the spacious gong/cymbal/bell variety to create a minimalist realm for Ponzini's Japanese singing and spoken word that is all together captivating. This is an album of sparse, hypnotic folk and subtle drone, but it inhabits a galaxy containing a warmth and richness in detail quite unlike anything else the Opalios have laid their hands on. Track two, 'Sakura No Hana No Oto Ga Kikoeru,' is a variation (or maybe the same exact version?) of the same song featured on the band's stunning 2005 self-titled debut release on Time-Lag. Housed in a heavy mini-gatefold sleeve. "Every track recorded in a different mystic location of the Western Alps, Piedmont, Italy between winter 2004, early fall 2006 and January 2009."

Artist:	URABE/TOSHIAKI ISHIZUKA, MASAYOSHI
Title:	Natsu No Sebone
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 194CD

"Alto saxophone, bells - Masayoshi Urabe; percussion - Toshiaki Ishizuka. Thrilling, blood-shaking, soul-scraping and defiantly non-sexless improv set from two Japanese titans. Recorded live at the Apia club in Tokyo in December last year, this set showcases Urabe's uniquely physical approach to improvisation -- ferociously concentrated, contorted, sweating and eruptive with physical power. His lines seem to boil up from his flesh, with gurgles, gasps and rasping breath defining sparse, sonic regions in which silence itself seems to breath. Ishizuka is the perfect foil, providing subtle shade and balance around Urabe's transformative sculpting of space. One track, 58 minutes. Comes with a booklet of evocative black and white photographs of the event by Tatsuo Suzuki. The title translates as 'The Backbone of Summer.'"

Artist:	SHIRAISHI, TAMIO
Title:	Chikatetsu - Sax Solo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 195CD

"Alto saxophone - Tamio Shiraishi. A set of unique site-specific live recordings from one of the true legends of the Tokyo underground, taped at a number of different subway stations in Queens, NYC. Tamio Shiraishi is one of the legends of the Japanese underground. For over thirty years he has continued to pursue an utterly unique eruptive style of performance interventions into consensus reality, ranging from visceral, guttural vocal explosions, intense synth blatter in an early Fushitsusha lineup, to his trademark dog whistle sonics on alto saxophone. In recent years he has been resident in New York, where he has performed with Sean Meehan, Alan Licht and sundry No-Necks. Site-specific field recordings, particularly in urban spaces, have been a long-term interest in Shiraishi's work, and while he lived in Tokyo he could often been seen late at night playing with the wind on a pedestrian bridge in Shinjuku. These recent recordings from 2008 and 2009 capture Shiraishi in the NYC subway, exhaling long thin wires of aural razor-light through the tunnels, breathing in bleak, beautiful harmony with the clanks and squeals of the occasional passing subway train. Mind-blowing. Five tracks, 33 minutes."

Artist:	LE SON DE L'OS
Title:	Grass Pillow
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 196CD

"First album from mysterious free-floating acoustic improvisation trio Le Son De L'os who had a stunning track on the Tokyo Flashback 7 compilation. The group have apparently been together for several years, exploring performance in a variety of outdoor spaces. They consist of Yuko Hasegawa, Shizuo Uchida (Hasegawa-Shizuo, Kito Mizukumi Rouber), and Masahiro Deguchi (Gendai Sokkyo). Hasegawa and Uchida previously played together in Onna-Kodomo - one of the great, lost late-night Tokyo drone improv groups of the nineties. There's a similar sense of subtly shaded space and poised atmosphere here, as Hasegawa threads wordless threnodies around the breathy lines of flute, and the strangely accented spaces created by Uchida's bass. Simultaneously fragile, melancholically beautiful and unsettling. File with your Taj Mahal Travellers, Nijiumu and Toho Sara records. Five tracks, 48 minutes. Gatefold papersleeve with obi." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	MIKAMI/HE YON/ISHITSUKA/SATOH
Title:	Fu-kon
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8001CD

"Historically, the relations between Japan and its closest neighbors have not been among the smoothest in the international arena. For a long time there was a blanket ban on Japanese culture of any sort being sold in Korea, and cultural exchanges were by necessity greatly limited. There have been notable underground exceptions, such as university performances by theatrical renegade Kara Juro (who also brought back Korean musicians and actors to play at this performances in Tokyo). Now there is another to add to that list. Female Korean percussionist and vocalist Shin He Yon met up with THE leading voice of emotionally-saturated Japanese outsider art-folk Kan Mikami at a festival in Iwaki in 1997. With similar oral shamanic cultural backgrounds the two immediately hit it off, played together, and they were easily coaxed into the studio to lay down some tracks of transcendent cultural detente. Kan gets to sing his soul out in Korean (not that you're going to be able to tell the difference), Shin croons with a beautiful cracked edge to her voice and then drums up a storm, and countercultural icons Ishitsuka (drummer of Japan's first underground rock band Zuno Keisatus, longtime Kazuki Tomokawa collaborator, Vajra stalwart), and Satoh (Shamisen maverick with Zorn-connections) get to sketchin the backgrounds. There's a hard-to-articulate perfect sense of acid-folk looseness to this record. Rarely has Kan's voice been given such a sympathetically warm setting. Shin is the ideal counterpoint, both on vocals and heavy percussion." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Sora No Sakana (Sky Fish)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8003CD

"1999 album from Tomokawa -- Japan's other greatest underground folk singer, not to mention accomplished poet and painter, inveterate on-stage drunk, and now successful bicycle-race tipster. Eight new tracks of deeply zoned, uniquely identifiable, pure folk-soul communication, that range from melodies of limpid beauty, to sudden plunges into viciously hammered guitar, that voice rising, now screaming, and cracking into violent fragments as the other instruments following into a flailing and cathartic rhythmic purge. On Sora No Sakana, Tomokawa returns to some familiar obsessions -- the possibilities of the nursery rhyme form, musical settings for the poems of Japan's tragic symbolist poet Chuya Nakahara (in the '70s Tomokawa recorded an entire album of Nakahara's poems), and deceptively opaque natural imagery. At the centre of each song is Tomokawa's acoustic guitar and unmistakable voice, augmented with an unusually resourceful and sympathetic group of longterm collaborators (including Toshi Ishitsuka from Vajra). A unique individualist talent worthy of more support." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Akai Polyan (Red Polyanthus)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8005CD

"Eleventh PSF album from the Japanese underground's most handsome folk-truthteller and all-round renaissance man. Nine new songs, including two more musical settings for the symbolist poems of Japan's Rimbaud: Chuya Nakahara. Tomokawa has inhabited an utterly unique world very much of his own making for over twenty-five years now. A world where the most limpid of minor melodies and symbolism-inspired natural imagery can happily rub shoulders with EXTREMELY peaked torrents of pained screams over the densest of acoustic noise-scapes. What welds it all together is Tomokawa's self-evident to desire to take himself and his audience through the wall with every performance. Forget any image of the sensitive folkie, Tomokawa's music is as violent and cathartic as anything in the underground rock or free jazz canon. For anyone at all still concerned with the possibilities of words, voice, and acoustic communication, Tomokawa is an unparalleled contemporary touchstone. There is more truth and beauty in any one of his songs than in most singer-songwriter's entire repertoires. Believe it." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	AIHIYO
Title:	Live
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8006CD

"Second album from Haino's 'covers' unit, who specialize in pulling apart hoary old Japanese MOR classics and rebuilding them into single-minded masterpieces of grunting/floating garage-psychedelia. The group's debut album appeared a couple of years back on the Japanese major label Tokuma, and was doubtless missed out upon by billions still bemused by that label's mischievous foreign 'distribution' policies. Since their inception though, Aihiyo have played out around Japan roughly once a month, and this release is a document of some of those marathon, thrilling shows. Possibly the last document too, as Takahashi has since left the drum seat in favor of smoking his pipe in a rural setting, and bassist Kawaguchi (of Tokyo's finest garage-Fushitshusha hybrid Broomdusters) is talking about taking a sabbatical. Anyway, this new release features nine long tracks, including covers of a Spiders tune, the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby', and lots more you won't know. Most staggering of all is the cover of the Stones' 'Satisfaction', which neatly transforms Jagger's baby-in-a-Perspex-box mixture of rage and boredom into truly on-the-edge jumpy paranoia, encapsulating the song's mental entirety without replicating the riff, rhythm, faux-Americanisms or any other elements of its external whatsit. As a textbook example of how to do a cover it's right up there with, what? Fushitsusha's 'Marianne'? Jandek's 'Rite of Spring'? Not much else, for sure." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	MIKAMI/ISHIZUKA, TOSHI
Title:	Shinshi-no-Yuuutsu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8007CD

"Another March, another spring, another studio record by Japan's folk philosopher-king Kan Mikami. If you were wondering how he was planning to top last year's monolithic 13 CD boxset, here's the simplest of answers. A duo record with long-time comrade in arms (and the Tokyoscene's most self-effacing drummer), Toshi Ishizuka. Ishizuka is best known as the ball of percussive energy that powered Vajra, but he has an underground history as long as your arm, stretching right back to Japan's original seventies rock-punkers Zuno Keisatsu. As well as being Kazuki Tomokawa's drummer of choice for the past 30 years, Ishizuka has led Cinorama, released a couple of solo drum disks (including last year's wonderful PSF release In The Night [PSFD-107]), and held down a career as a session drummer. For as many years as anyone cares to remember he's also played in a regular monthly duo with Mikami (first Sunday of each month, Aketa's Place in Tokyo's Nishi-Ogikubo). That duo has seen some previous low-key documentation on a couple of compilations, including the Opprobrium benefit Waiting To Be Old, but this is their first full album release. On the six new tracks on Shinshi No Yuuutsu (which can be translated as A Gentleman's Depression), Mikami is in as fine a fettle as ever. Gruff, hoarse and strangled, choking out a multi-voiced pearled stream of wisdom, his guitar rippling and jerking through those convulsive A-minor patterns akin to little else on god's earth. Ishizuka is the perfect partner to Mikami's unique phrasing, all in the eternal now as straight forward momentum is fractured into a schizophrenic tumble in twenty dimensional directions at once. His playing has a rock heaviness, but broken through with delicate improv shadings and an occasional and unexpected processed whoosh. It's a naked and innocent record, as yielding as granite and as hard as new-born baby..." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Erise no Me
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8008CD

"Tomokawa's twelfth leader album on PSF (the title translates as The Eyes of Elise), and hence his nineteenth in a career that dates back to the mid-seventies. Tomokawa stands, together with Kan Mikami, as one of the most unique singer-poets thrown up by Japan's folk boom of the late sixties and early seventies. Each new album from him represents not simpleminded 'progression' but a privileged glimpse into a sound continuum as forcefully individual and special as any other name you might want to drop in this field (duh -- Buckley, Drake, Hurley, Jandek even). In Tomokawa's universe, melodies of limpid and mellifluous grace rub shoulders with rhythmically violently and convulsive purges of soul bile. Tomokawa's voice is one of the most special in the Japanese underground: ragged, strained and deeply accented, far removed from conventional standards of singerly intonation, but undoubtedly a sound of deeply human beauty. The group provide the ideal un-square settings for Tomokawa's complex symbolist songs, at all times attaining a perfect marriage of acoustic density and forward lope. As an added bonus, long time admirer Keiji Haino adds some trademark abyssal guitar on two tracks." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HANO & DEREK BAILEY, SHOJI
Title:	Fish
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8009CD

"Latest in a very long line of guitar and drums duo releases from Bailey, encompassing sessions with Han Bennink, Jamie Muir, Andrea Centazzo, John Stevens, Cyro Baptista, Tony Oxley, Susie Ibarra, Eddie Prevost, and probably several more that have slipped my mind. This is his first record with Japanese powerhouse drummer Shoji Hano, recorded at Moat Studios in London in June 2000. Hano is best known outside of Japan for his brief tenure as drummer in speedfreak rock band High Rise. But he has had an even lengthier career as an improv drummer, with his own roster of groups (including the Polybreath Percussion Band, as documented on PSFD-92) and with the likes of Peter Brotzmann and William Parker. This session with Bailey was the realisation of a long-held dream for Hano, and he was fully psyched up for the date. Bailey's playing is squarely in his recent style, centering around dry note clutches and some gorgeously controlled feedback swells. Hano's drumming here sacrifices his exemplary rock motion in favour of a more pulse orientated approach. He brings a weighty presence to his work on toms especially, the result of years of rigorous training in locating the spiritual through the physical. The results are pleasingly heavy, with a density of detail that repays high-volume playback. Four tracks, two of them just under the twenty minute mark, the other two hovering around five or six minutes. Each one named after a species of fish. Very fetching picture of a monkfish on the cover, too." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	FUSHITSUSHA
Title:	Origin's Hesitation
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8010CD

"Expectations exploded, intentions fleetingly revealed, faith justified. A new album from Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha is always going to be a major event. And to make the release of Origin's Hesitation even more significant, it is the first new album from the group in almost two years, the first studio recordings by the new duo line-up, and the first Fushitsusha album on PSF since 1994's stunning Pathetique. The popular perception of Fushitsusha has usually been as a rock band, albeit one that pushed the definition of that term further than anyone had ever done before. While the group's approach has always been (and remains) rock to the core, the outside manifestation of those intentions have gradually moved further and further away from the rock framework. Shockingly, on this release, Haino takes the process to its natural conclusion and has decided to eschew the guitar entirely. In its place, nothing but the eerily empty hiss of overdriven amplification. Here Haino sings, plays drums, and conjures with spectres. Consequently, the sound palette is starker, and Haino's intentions plainer than they have ever been before. The no overdubs policy remains, though both Haino and bassist Ozawa work with realtime loops. The unique dynamic hallmarks of the group are preserved, the focus on individual sounds and their interaction underlined. Attack, duration, beginnings and endings all merge into one heartrending, emotionally eternal present. This is a hugely important, hauntingly insistent, spectral blast of a record. Quite simply and beyond any doubts, one of the releases of the year." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Lesbos
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8012CD

"For the past twelve years, the coming of spring has also heralded a new Kan Mikami album. Lesbos, his 11th solo album for the label, is yet another step into that same everflowing river of truth that Mikami has been bathing in for over thirty years. The format is unchanging -- rough and abstractly percussive electric guitar accompaniment, a voice capable of a delicate caress, a wistful cajoling, or flesh-stripping ferocity, and songs of arcane wisdom as personal and poetically impenetrable as anything Jandek has ever laid down. This time out the topics include the mystery of Michael Jordan, the rain in Rome, and cans of pineapple chunks. Just like Heraclitus's river, Mikami's world defines it eternity through constant flux. Isn't it about time you stepped up and got your feet wet?" -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Kenshin e ichigeki
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8013CD

"Screaming folk-poet Tomokawa's twentieth album in a career that stretches back to the seventies. And there's still no sign of him mellowing with age -- he still spits lyrical bile and emotional venom like no one else on this earth. His forceful long-term group provides loose and translucent settings for Tomokawa's beautiful madness, and the return of Ayumi Matsui on soaring violin is a very welcome development. This latest album was inspired by and is dedicated to the memory of Kenshin Sumitaku, a young free-meter haiku poet who died from leukaemia at the age of twenty-five. Yet another genuine, humanly touching, inspiring masterpiece from one of the unsung contemporary masters." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Mazu Wa Iro O Nakuso Ka
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8014CD

(Translation: First Let's Remove the Color). "Gorgeous new bag of home-recorded mystery from Haino. Apparently recorded alone, late at night and at minimal volume, these latest recordings tremble with the same deep-welled emotional sensitivity and sense of veiled threat that animated classics like Watashi Dake?, Affection and Era of Sad Wings. With the trademark roar of his guitar held in check by necessity, Haino instead builds up a base of gently fractured looped riffs, over which he unfurls snaking, jagged ribbons of blue notes, layers of choral chant and whispered warnings. The atmosphere is replete with suggestions of medieval music, delta blues, and jazz - but glimpsed through a constantly shifting, dark and alien fog. The effect is entirely beautiful, managing to be impossibly touching, deeply meditative, and truly scary all at once. This is one that will suck the air out of the corners of your room late at night." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	1979
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8015CD

"Twelfth solo album from Kan Mikami in as many years -- and, seemingly, the last in this monumental series. Mikami is Japan's undisputed, one and only voice of urban folk surrealism. 1979 presents few surprises for the converted -- tightly gripped clusters of electric A-minor riffing, weird phrasing, and those unmistakable honey-over-broken-glass vocals. Even better than usual are Mikami's bizarre and incisive ruminations on the state of modern Japan (megaliths in the garden, a Gibson guitar hang from the rafters of a rural shrine, the return of Elvis, sake-guzzling crabs and the resurrection of the dead). As a poet-analyst of middle-aged male frustrations and everyday epiphanies in the toilet, Mikami has no equal (well, maybe Richard Meltzer). Comes with full English translations of the lyrics and linernotes." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	FUSHITSUSHA
Title:	1978: Eien no ho ga saki ni te o dashita no sa
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8016CD

"From 1978, the earliest group recordings by Fushitsusha yet to be released. A vital document for understanding the Japanese underground and the truest, most exciting rock group of the contemporary era. Now here's something unexpected and utterly fascinating. The earliest years of Fushitsusha have long been shrouded in mystery, palely illumined by only the dimmest of rumours and half-facts. As a live entity the group seems to have begun sometime in 1978 (also the year that Friction, Japan's first punk group formed), initially in a couple of strange duo line-ups, one of which included Tamio Shiraishi on synth. But soon after that it took on the familiar rock trio form, with Jun Hamano (of the legendary acid-splatter group Gaseneta) on bass, and a shady character called Takashima on drums. This version of the group lasted for about a year before falling apart, and documentation was pretty much non-existent. Until now. On the usual all-black textured paper gatefold, the only distinguishing mark is a small silver '1978'. Unchanging timelessness is one of Fushitsusha's most salient characteristics, and this release reveals that the group's radical dissection of rock rhythm, fracturing of attack and summoning of vibration was born entirely fully-formed. That the group has retained an identical level of intensity, experimentation and commitment for twenty-five years is a truly a testament to something. Either way, this is one more piece of a puzzle too vast to be grasped in its entirety by anyone other than Haino. And further proof, as if any was needed, that Fushitsusha are the most exciting rock group of the contemporary era. For those that pay attention to such things, the title means something approximately like 'It was eternity that reached out its hand first'?"

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Hikari Yami Uchitokeaishi Kono Hibiki
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8017CD

"First album of solo guitar by Keiji Haino in quite some time, but very much a departure from the mountain-levelling, continent-sundering, weather-system huge electric guitar releases of years past. Hikari yami... is played just on acoustic, gut-strung guitar, entirely forsaking the effects and extreme amplification characteristic of his electric work. Over three lengthy improvised pieces, recorded in clothes-rustling close-up, Haino explores the full dynamic range of the instrument, working abyss deep into his eternal preoccupations of duration, decay, sustain and resonance. Vast spectrums of reference, from Bailey and Fahey to flamenco, oud music and bluegrass are invoked in single notes and brief phrases, only to be dismissed with confident authority. Another masterful piece of work from Haino, as replete with mystery and the sadness of existence as ever. The title roughly translates as 'Light darkness melting into one this vibration'. Haino advises the listener to play as loud as possible -- surely a first on an album of acoustic guitar." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HAINO & MICHIHIRO SATO, KEIJI
Title:	Tayutayuto Tadayoitamae Kono Furue
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8018CD

"Fascinating and incendiary string-meshing duel between two contemporary masters of musical metaphysics. Michihiro Sato is a master of the tsugaru-jamisen, a traditional plucked and strummed stringed instrument. But forget anything you may have heard about the delicate restraint of Japanese traditional music. Sato plays in the rough, ultra-speedy, explosively percussive style associated with the bleak, rural and snowbound far north of Japan. Originally associated with blind minstrels, the instrument underwent a huge revival in the sixties and seventies, becoming a counter-cultural symbol of brutal hardship, rural authenticity, and indigenous creativity. In the hands of a virtuoso like Sato (a two-time winner of the national championship), the shamisen is an instrument that can generate emotional involvement and pulses of sheer, untrammelled excitement. Sato is also unique in his field for his willingness to experiment and play with other improvisers -- previous collaborators have included John Zorn, Fred Frith, Bill Frisell, Butch Morris, Christian Marclay, Sean Meehan and Kan Mikami. Sato's first studio meeting with Keiji Haino sees a rare melding of open minds and taut strings. Common languages are invented, experimented with and discarded at will. Haino revisits the evocative nylon-strung guitar style he first explored on Hikair yami uchitokeaish kono hibiki (PSFD-8017), laying down fields and forests of string texture, while Sato burns blazing trails of narrow-beam intensity straight through the middle of your skull." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Itsuka Tooku O Miteita
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8019CD

"Compilation of new and previously released tracks from Kazuki Tomokawa, Japan's god of emotionally transcendent song. Tomokawa's convulsive and passionate songs have recently graced films by two of Japan's most notorious directors, legendary underground director Koji Wakamatsu (whose career dates back to the early sixties) and Takashi Miike, the current enfant terrible of weird and ultra-violent genre flicks. Tomokawa's appearance playing himself in Miike's time-travelling samurai vengeance movie IZO in particular has stunned festival audiences -- the violent, cathartic and irrational beauty of his songs chimes perfectly with the film's mood. Twelve tracks in total, including 'Pistol' the amazing title-track from IZO, previously only available as part of the PSF 13 CD boxset (PSFD-134 / 146). Also includes three entirely new tracks, and three radical re-recordings." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Uchu ni karami tsuiteiru waga itami
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8020CD

Keiji Haino (digital theremin, air synth, air FX, etc). Another step into previously unexplored territory for Haino -- his first ever all-electronic album. Uchu ni karami tsuiteiru waga itami (the title means roughly 'Tangled up in the universe, my pain') sees Haino using a bewildering range of electronic instruments. However, these are not the vintage synthesizers and analogue modules so beloved of some other Japanese electronic units. Rather Haino has chosen instruments whose user interface is close to magical: theremin-like devices such as the air-synth and air-FX, both of which are controlled by hand movements in three dimensions. Recent live shows have seen him hovering and jerking wildly over these devices, like some demented conjuror trying to levitate a table. The results are as purely Haino as everything else he lays his hands to. Sub-atomic particles and dark matter collide endlessly in the black and coiling chaos space of some just-appeared proto-galaxy." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Global Ancient Atmosphere
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8021CD

Keiji Haino (drums). "Rhythm, duration and silence lie at the foundation of all of Haino's music. After a clutch of documents of his hair-raising solo performances for both acoustic and electric percussion, this latest album presents Haino's first recorded outing behind a regular drumkit. Haino has long desired to release a solo drum album, and he has been playing a regular kit occasionally live for several decades now. Global Ancient Atmosphere (the alternative Japanese title means 'These signs, a sealed beginning') contains nine tracks that showcase an austere yet thrilling investigation of attack and decay on nothing less than the molecular level. As inimitable, and as life-affirming as ever." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Live 2005 Banana Hall Osaka
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8022CD

"Kazuki Tomokawa's gigs are now a lot less frequent than they used to be, and his August 2005 Osaka date was his first in Kansai for quite some time. But accompanied by his long-time trio of Toshi Ishizuka on percussion and Masato Nagahata on piano, this was, in Tomokawa's own estimation, the best gig that this trio has ever played. It was far too good a performance to be left to fading memories, and Tomokawa himself talked PSF into releasing it. Sixteen tracks of his patented soul-folk, emotionally charged and devastating as all hell." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	SANJAH
Title:	Musen/Izu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8023CD

Kan Mikami: vocals, guitar; Masayoshi Urabe alto, harmonica, bass blockfloten, accordion, piccolo, chains; Toshi Ishizuka drums, percussion. "Ultra-heavy first album by new PSF super group, Sanja, consisting of gravel 'n' glass-voiced crooner Kan Mikami, the scene's heaviest tub thumper Toshi Ishizuka, and alto terrorist and veritable rock 'n' roll breather Masayoshi Urabe. The three first played together at a concert to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of PSF Records last year, and the intensity of the heat they generated has already become the stuff of Tokyo underground legend. The trio were quickly hustled into a studio to record their first album and the results are now available for the listening pleasure of all of you who couldn't make the gig. There's a purity of improvised one-mind destruction on display here that is humbling to witness. All three are recently playing at unprecedented heights -- Mikami's vocals and Urabe's alto carve great mercury swathes through the moist air, while Ishizuka deep-shifts tectonic plates beneath their feet. Veteran Mikami watchers are in for a treat of their own, as the master revisits 'Karasu' from his debut album for the first time in 35 years." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Yaranaiga Dekinaikotoni Natteyuku
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8024CD

"Following Keiji Haino's recent experiments with acoustic guitar, solo Theremin and electronics, and percussion, this is his first guitar and vocal album in a couple of years. Emotionally devastating, gorgeously intense free-floating atmospherics that hark back to the folk-ed out genius of Affection, with a caustic blending of the layered, late-night guitar extrapolations of First Let's Remove the Colour. As masterfully singular as ever." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Barking Practice///White Lines
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8026CD

"Two new heavy-hitting blasts from Japan's indefatigable master of the psychedelic, surrealist blues. After a recent European tour and an hour-long special on Japanese television, the wonderfully titled Barking Practice /// White Lines finds Kan Mikami back in the studio in one-take guitar and vocal mode. There's a depth of song spirit on display here that beggars belief -- the guitar bites in all the right place, and Mikami's voice is tuned to a new pitch of hard-won soulfulness, in turns bristle-harsh, lush, fractured, deep as all hell. Staggering work. Includes English lyrics and some fabulously atmospheric photos by Paolo Patrizi."

Artist:	KAN, MIKAMI
Title:	Juw
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8027CD

"Latest in PSF's popular long-running series of solo releases by Kan Mikami. It's another coruscating slab of truly individualist Dada-folk-blues, obliquely twisted songcraft that refuses to pander to the banal realities of contemporary society. For those that choose to partake in its bounty, there's richness aplenty here -- the utter devastation and the unbearable ecstasy of the quotidian, transmitted just through six strings and the sandpaper rasp of Kan's vocal chords."

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Blue Water, Red Water
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8028CD

"Latest album of devastating emotional transcendence from the Japanese underground's most lyrical singer-songwriter. Full of classic, richly textured songs of love, loss and stunned acquiescence to the wonders of the world. Alongside Tomokawa's regular collaborators, Toshiaki Ishizuka and Masato Nagahata, the expanded group also includes Compostela-veteran Takero Sekijima on tuba and recorder, and improv-legend Hiromichi Sakamoto on cello. Includes Tomokawa's ending theme song for director Rokuro Mochizuki's Johnen - Jo no Ai, a re-telling of the Abe Sada story. Booklet includes lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	HAINO, KEIJI
Title:	Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8029CD

The return of the "21st Century Hard-y-Guide-y Man"! "With its crank handle mechanism and drone strings out-numbering melody strings, the hurdy-gurdy is the Ur-industrial instrument par excellence, a connection Keiji Haino makes abundantly clear on the opening track of Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto, the third album he has made under the tortuously punning banner of the 21st Century Hard-y Guide-y Man. The terrifying density and textures of his bone-shearing noise immediately bring to mind the arresting closing sequence of Halber Mensch, Japanese director Sogo Ishii's document of Berlin group Einstuerzende Neubauten's mid-1980s visit to Japan, when he filmed them in all their destructive glory at a busy intersection bringing the city to a standstill with their armoury of scraped metal and heavy machinery. The major difference is Haino achieves his pandemonium totally alone on an electrically amplified medieval instrument, and the chaos he invokes is of a wholly other kind to that of the displaced Berliners. Rather than creating chaos, he accepts it, even as he taps it for the tremendous energies needed to generate the overarching schemes that shape and contain his monumental works. Haino is not the only person using the hurdy-gurdy as something more than folksy color. There's Stevie Wishart working at the interface of contemporary composition and improvisation; and hurdy-gurdy player Cliff Stapleton featured strongly in the late output of Coil (the UK outfit of John Balance and Peter Christopherson, not to be confused with the Japanese unit of the same name with whom Haino has performed blues sets live). And though the hurdy-gurdy is but one of the hundreds of instruments he has gathered during his frequent working trips around the world, next to guitar, voice, percussion and electronics, it's the one on which Haino continues to evolve a distinctive body of work that is at once of a piece with and different from the main thrust of his music. Not that any one style holds true, mind, in a discography that is approaching 200 entries. As with his other instruments, Haino has developed methods of playing the hurdy-gurdy that both exploit and defy its particular character. Asked what compelled him to acquire one on a trip to France in the mid-1990s, he replied by mimicking the turning of a handle, saying it was the only instrument he knew of that you played that way, as opposed to striking, blowing, bowing or plucking it. His long-held interest in medieval European troubadour music might well have been another contributing factor. However, the hurdy-gurdy is more than the purely mechanical cranked instrument such as the barrel organ which it is sometimes confused with. The handle turns a rosined wooden wheel that bows a melody string, whose pitches are determined by pressing the tangents, or keys, with the other hand. The instrument usually contains two more sympathetic drone strings. How the player jerks or cranks the handle creates the fluttering beats and rhythms characteristic to its traditional use as a folk instrument at carnival or festival dances. Knowing as much is only so helpful to understanding the way Haino plays it. He hadn't had the instrument long when he released his first hurdy-gurdy album, Twenty-first Century Hard-y- Guide-y Man, on PSF in 1995. It was followed in 1998 by Even Now, Still I Think, released by the Japanese major label Tokuma as part of an extraordinary deal that saw the release of eight Haino/Fushitsusha projects in two stages (and if you think signing to a major in any way compromised the artist, you only have to check the number of CD length tracks of unrelieved intensity produced during the deal). First impressions from both is that Haino's instrument of choice is immaterial, that Haino plays Haino regardless, and on these two occasions the hurdy-gurdy just happened to be the tool selected to do so. To be sure, they both set out an extreme position from which they rarely retreat, with Haino sounding like he's pushing the instrument to the very limits of endurance. This is especially the case on the barely wavering 72-minute assault of the Tokuma disc. But as with much of Haino's music, it rewards the listener's perseverance through its most extenuated passages, which often come right at the front of his work, with moments of otherworldly, overwhelming beauty amid the swarming overtone activity generated at this volume. Before returning to his 21st Century Hard-y Guide-y Man persona on Koitsukara Usetaitameno Hakarigoto here, Haino dedicated a hurdy-gurdy disc apiece to the two double sets, Abandon all words at a stroke, so that prayer can come spilling out (released in 2001 by the Canadian label Alien8) and Reveal'd to none as yet -- an expedience to utterly vanish consciousness while still alive (recorded live at Tokyo Super Deluxe in 2005 and jointly released in December that year by the U.S. labels Archive/Important). Through them, all it's possible to discern id an increasing awareness and appreciation of the hurdy-gurdy's character. It's very much evident in this disc's opening track, alluded to earlier, in the way the turning crank handle sinks its drone deeper to the core, even as it sends up the baleful clouds of overtone dust that hover above the churning chaos. Tracks two and three make play with the bowing mechanism of the hurdy-gurdy wheel, its sorely tested violin tone transformed into an electric buzzsaw over rasping tones that simultaneously betray and exploit the hurdy-gurdy's fundamentally primitive construct. The third track, incidentally, is the album's magnificent centerpiece, evolving from a manic hoedown into a frenzied dance warding off the onset of melancholia represented by a buzzing secondary drone. Elsewhere the sounds Haino draws from the instrument range from delicate music box prettiness to something altogether darker, conjuring an image of a creaking ghost ship whose fate it was to be sealed at the point of breaking up in a storm for all eternity." --Biba Kopf

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	-1 (Minus 1)
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8030CD

"With the coming of spring, another year brings another bulletin from the mind of post-war Japan's greatest blues singing surrealist poet, Kan Mikami. Part of the pleasure of Mikami's annual solo releases on PSF is plotting the changes in his rough-cut voice and guitar style. This time around the blues and enka feel of the last two or three albums has been pruned back to a more restrained psychedelic core. The voice too seems deliberately held in check, the melismatic flourishes excised in favour of a plain and meditative directness. The lyrics are as scabrous and bewildering as ever, focusing again and again on images of his native place in the north of Japan, but also devising a great triptych of spread legs, Bush and the wall of a Dada toilet. Another classic, then. Six tracks, twenty-nine minutes. Lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	A Bumpkin's Empty Bravado
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8031CD

"Celebrating 35 years of vagabond soul by one of Japan's most distinctive and original folk voices. A Bumpkin's Empty Bravado (Japanese title: Inakamono no karagenki) is Tomokawa's first completely solo album in fifteen years and a triumphant return to full-voiced form after his recent illness. Stripped of his usual backing band, there's a crystalline hardness evident in the best of Tomokawa's songs here -- a hard, blazing core in which mellifluous lyricism and eruptions of highly individual madness are fused. Lyrically there's a new focus on Akita, the northern prefecture of his birth, as well as on the linkages between visual and musical art. Nine tracks; thirty-five minutes. Booklet includes liner-notes and lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	DOO SOO, KIM
Title:	Evening River
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$23.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8032CD

"Long awaited second release on PSF by dream-weaving Korean folk singer, Kim Doo Soo. The album features beautifully restrained new recordings of Kim Doo Soo's most classic songs -- a highly personal selection, made by Kim himself. The discovery of Kim Doo Soo outside Korea, through the Damon & Naomi compiled International Sad Hits and then on his first new album in five years, Ten Days Butterfly (PSFD-175), was one of the more gratifying moments of the last decade. Here was an entirely unknown voice and a poetic sensibility that is tender, richly melodic, agonizingly soulful, and undeniably human. These re-recordings of some of Kim's most striking songs from his previous five albums focus on the hypnotic patterns of his acoustic guitar and voice, with some subtle tonal shading from percussion, brass, synth, accordion and cello. The result is a lulling, deeply flowing whole, ripe with the subtle and seductive currents of the evening river of the title. Includes a bonus three track CD. Fourteen tracks in total. Gatefold papersleeve. Booklet includes lyrics in Korean, Japanese and English."

Artist:	MIKAMI, KAN
Title:	Yakichi
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 8034CD

"Seven tracks of twisted enka blues, from the immortal Kan Mikami, Japan's king of the surrealist aside and situationist duckwalk. These latest seven missives from Mikami's febrile imagination sketch out a concern with the passing of time, with the inexorable processes of aging, and the losses and gains of Japan's modernity. Present and correct are the master's unique sense of expanding and contracting rhythm, his trademark jaggedly beautiful riffing, and that glorious, honeyed howl of a voice. Making a special guest appearance this time round is Korean folk singer Kim Doo Soo, contributing spectral blues harp on one track. Seven tracks, 32 minutes. Booklet includes lyrics in English and Japanese." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	ITSUMI, YUJI
Title:	Free Will
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	BOOK/CD
Price:	$60.00
Catalog #:	PSFB 001

Softcover book with bonus CD, 140 pages, edition of 500 (mostly full page b&w photography; text is in Japanese only). "For the past ten years, Tokyo-based photographer Yuji Itsumi has taken a series of remarkably evocative B&W photos of many underground musicians for the PSF magazine G-Modern. Itsumi's intensely intimate photos capture the musicians off-stage in their everyday lives, but still manage to capture a sure sense of their music. This book compiles Itsumi's work for G-Modern, along with short interviews (in Japanese only) with each of the twenty-nine musicians featured. Those pictured include giants of the Japanese underground like Keiji Haino, Yoshihide Otomo, Motoharu Yoshizawa, Chie Mukai, Kan Mikami, and Masayoshi Urabe, alongside international doyens of free-playing such as Derek Bailey, Arthur Doyle, Charles Gayle, Han Bennink, and Peter Brotzmann. The book comes with a nine-track, hour long CD containing previously unreleased tracks by Derek Bailey, Keiji Haino, Yoshihide Otomo, Kazuo Imai, Motoharu Yoshizawa, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Hiroshi Kawani, Chie Mukai, and Kan Mikami with Masayoshi Urabe." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	TOMOKAWA/PISTOL, KAZUKI
Title:	Shibuya Apia Live 2003
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 001

"First ever DVD release on PSF. Eighteen tracks of screaming philosopher-poet Kazuki Tomokawa, recorded at the Apia folk club in Tokyo. Tomokawa has been playing at Apia for over thirty years, and his shows there are legendary for their honesty and human-mystery. This DVD compiles the highlights from four recent gigs, including stunning new tracks used in recent films by cult directors Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q) and Koji Wakamatsu (Violated Angels, Sex Jack, Endless Waltz). Tomokawa's impassioned acid folk stands as one of the greatest shining black stars in the post-war Japanese underground firmament. Whether suffused with bittersweet joy and lyrical insight, or rank with bitterness and self-directed bile, Tomokawa animates each and every song with an incomparable sense of life that has to be heard to be believed. A truly beautiful thing." -- Alan Cummings. Color, 4:3, NTSC Regions 1 & 2 [for the US, Japan and a bunch of other places like Greenland].

Artist:	EXIAS-J
Title:	Live Document 2003-2005
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 003

"'Free improvisation may have provided the original touch-paper for Exias-J's inception as a group, but by the time of the performances documented on this DVD we had gradually begun to move beyond it as a category. For instance, we began to incorporate deliberate internal structures in the form of compositional techniques such as minimalism, twelve-tone or atonalism, and we started to interrogate musical forms such as the sonata or ostinato. Or else in performance, we adopted approaches such as reliance upon a restricted number of modes, variations on a particular theme, extended instrumental technique, and forms of expression based on (non-harmonically structured) sound images themselves. In order to construct these phenomenological relationships, multiple techniques have been employed here, however, they appear to be completely subordinated to receptive function of the viewer and the creative function of the musicians. I believe that this is something of which we can be justifiably proud. Since music relies upon these phenomenological relationships as its medium, I never like to make light of the methods by which modes and phenomena can be generalized, however, I have no desire to turn a method into a goal.' --Kondo Hideaki. Third release on PSF by Exias-J (Experimental Improvisor's Association of Japan), Japan's most conceptually-determined improvising collective and their first DVD. Containing three performances from Tokyo and New York, this is a challenging clash of methodologies and sonorities, hugely exciting in its electric power and formal heft. 142 minutes, region free, NTSC format, 4:3."

Artist:	MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ WITH MASAMI SHINODA
Title:	Koshi Kudake No Inu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 004

"Enticing archival document of an early (1987) show by wide-eyed mystics Maher Shalal Hash Baz at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo. The visuals provide a rare and valuable opportunity to pick apart the working methods of one of the Japanese underground's most truly original and agile thinkers, Tori Kudo. In Maher Shalal Hash Baz, he took the heterophonic voicings, the deliberately fluctuating rhythmic mis-steps and the non-unison unison so characteristic of Japanese traditional music and re-applied them to idiot savant mini-hymns arranged for electric guitar, euphonium, ocarina and organ. It's a music that exists in a unique world of its own, alternately donning and shedding the armor of rock and jazz. Another major draw is the presence of the late Masami Shinoda on alto sax. Shinoda was an important, though largely unsung, figure in the history of the Tokyo underground during the '80s and '90s, showing up in all manner of groups from punk iconoclasts Jagatara and Pungo, to his own experiments with chindon marching advertising bands. He spent a few years in Maher in the '80s and this DVD captures the innocent joy and rapturous invention he brought to their music. 24 tracks, 75 minutes." Color, NTSC Region Free (says Region 2 on the package, but that is a typo, it plays Region Free), Stereo, 08.09.21.

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	Live At Shinjuku Jam, 2006
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 1001

"The sudden death of Jutok Kaneko in January 2007 robbed the Tokyo underground scene of one of its most startlingly original and emotionally devastating psychedelic free-thinkers. Kousokuya was the cold-space rock group that he led, on and off, since the late 1970s. This DVD documents two of the group's final concerts, in May and October 2006 at Shinjuku JAM in Tokyo. The group's unique sound was founded on the dark, staggered spaces set up by the jarring rhythms set up by bassist Mick and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (ex-Fushitsusha) over which Kaneko drapes some jaw-dropping guitar -- bleak, brutal power-riffing one minute, shading into deep-space feedback filigrees and baroque fuzz forms the next. Unbearably psychedelic, deeply affecting and a fitting memorial to one of the great rock groups of the last 30 years." 120 mins.; Color; NTSC region-free; Stereo Dolby Digital; 08:11:21.

Artist:	HIGH RISE
Title:	Psychedelic Speed Freaks Live 1986
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 1002

"First DVD by the kings of speed garage psychedelia, High Rise! Recorded live in Osaka in 1986, around the time of their second album by the all-time classic line-up of Nanjo (bass, vocals), Narita (guitar) and Ujiie (drums). Suitably grainy and colour-saturated visuals capture the group laying down their staggering brand of intense garage-psych with Narita's guitar ripping weird, devastating solo holes in the songs, and Ujiie and Nanjo laying down that exhilarating sense of reckless acceleration. Still some of the most effective rock qua rock ever recorded. Just unbelievable. Six tracks, 25 minutes." -- Alan Cummings. Stereo, 4:3, NTSC region-free DVD.

Artist:	HAINO/MAKOTO KAWABATA/TATSUYA YOSHIDA, KEIJI
Title:	Ichi To Ichi To Ichi Ga Kasanatte Shimaumade
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 1003

Live At Mission's, December 19th 2008. "Second release by a new super-group featuring Keiji Haino, Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins). Recorded live in Tokyo in December 2008. An hour's worth of sharply photographed alternately dense, brutal, coruscating and beautiful interplay from three of the hardest hitters in the Japanese underground, with the interplay between Haino's scalding, molten darkness and Kawabata's crunch and ripple particularly invigorating. For those confused by the title, the trio's previous release on Magaibutsu was entitled Ichi to ichi ga kasanatte shimaumade ('Until one and one come to overlap'). This one is Ichi to ichi to ichi ga kasanatte shimaumade ('Until one and one and one come to overlap'). Just so you know. Fifty-nine minutes. Region-free NTSC DVD." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	SHIZUKA
Title:	Owari No Nai Yume
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 1004

"Visual tribute to Shizuka, one of the most distinctive psychedelic voices in the Tokyo underground, who tragically passed away on January 31st (2010). This DVD captures the last ever performance by her group, recorded live at ShowBoat in Tokyo on December 30, 2008. As ever, the focus is upon Shizuka's delicate, uncanny vocals and tremulous sense of timing which meld with the overwhelmingly emotive white-hot nebulae of ex-Fushitsusha axeman Maki Miura's guitar. Together the narcotic voice and the guitar peak and churn in perfectly weightless filigreed forms of light, darkness, cosmic cold and invisible motion. At their best, the Shizuka group were one of the distinctively original voices in the Japanese psych scene. Ten tracks, 74 minutes. NTSC region-free DVD. Limited edition of 500." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	DOO SOO, KIM
Title:	10 Days Butterfly
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$62.00
Catalog #:	PSFK 001/2LP

Small repressing of this instantly sold-out double LP version from 2007, still a very limited edition. Deluxe full-color gatefold with embossed printing, lyric booklet inserted, etc. First PSF vinyl release in 5+ years and an impressive artifact. "Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea's acid-folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs -- political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion. Despite having been active since the mid-'80s and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits. On 10 Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous, still melodicism, Kim's vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin, piano, organ and harmonica. A reflective and unearthly beautiful masterpiece." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE/AZUL
Title:	Split
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	LP
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	PSFSA 001LP

Stunning PSF vinyl-only release with Japanese obi-strip. Ben Chasny's prolific Six Organs Of Admittance wields a haunted, amorphous atmosphere of prickly acoustics and occasionally jarring electric guitar on side A's sidelong 'Furnace.' The flipside is a more structured affair, with the five songs by Usui Hiroyuki's Azul consisting of richly orchestrated psych folk, filled with violins, tabla, tambura and subdued vocals. Limited to 800 copies. Last copies.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Muzan no bi [Beauty without mercy]
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	TOMOKAW 001CD

Six previously released titles by Kazuki Tomokawa have been reissued in special art editions ("Picture Jacket Collection"), strictly limited to 500 copies each. Each will come in a gatefold card jacket, with new specially commissioned illustrations by Tomokawa on the cover and gatefold. All titles have been previously available from PSF in regular jewel box editions apart from Chuya Nakahara Poems, which was a bonus disk previously only available as part of the Tomokawa boxset." Muzan no bi was the second Tomokawa CD to be released via PSF, originally issued in 1995 as PSF 033CD. A reissue of a 1985 masterpiece. More of his aggressive and inspired Japanese folk.

Artist:	TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI
Title:	Shibuya APIA Document
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	TOMOKAW 005CD

Fifth volume in the PSF Picture Jacket Collection of Tomokawa reissues. Originally released as PSF 065CD. Tomokawa's seventh release for PSF consists of live performances recorded in 1993-95 at Shibuya Apia. He plays acoustic guitar and sings throughout, with only minor backing on piano or accordion. The power of musical performance demonstrated here is typically staggering; Tomokawa's guitar playing is purely invigorating and intense (as physical as acoustic playing can get), and his voice is a towering outlet; an emotional songform beyond all international limits.

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page

Artist:	HAINO/MIKAMI/YOSHIZAWA
Title:	Live In The First Year of Heisei Vol I
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 005CD

Artist:	WHITE HEAVEN
Title:	Out
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 011CD

Artist:	KADOTANI, MICHIO
Title:	Rotten Telepathies
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 014CD

Artist:	GASENETA
Title:	Sooner Or Later
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 017CD

Artist:	LOST AARAAFF
Title:
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 018CD

Artist:	BORBETOMAGUS
Title:	Live At Inroads
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 019CD

Artist:	YOSHIZAWA/TAKEHISA KOSUGI/HARUNA MIYAKE, MOTO
Title:	Angels Have Passed
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 022CD

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 2
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 024CD

Artist:	NIJIUMU
Title:	Era of Sad Wings
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 031CD

Artist:	BERTOIA, HARRY
Title:	Unfolding
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 032CD

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 3
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 034CD

Artist:	TAKAYANAGI/NEW DIRECTION, MASAYUKI
Title:	Call In Question
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 041CD

Artist:	DISLOCATION
Title:	Peak to Peak
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 042CD

Artist:	HAINO/PHILLIPS/TOYOZUMI
Title:	Two Strings Will Do It
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 045CD

Artist:	YOSHIZAWA/MOTOTERU TAKAGI, MOTO
Title:	Deep Sea/Abyss Duo 1969
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 047CD

Artist:	MIKAMI/KAZUKI TOMOKAWA, KAN
Title:	Goen
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 049CD

Artist:	ABE TRIO, KAORU
Title:	Shinjuku
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 056CD

Artist:	VA
Title:	Tokyo Flashback 4
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 069CD

Artist:	KUDO, TORI
Title:	Piano Solo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 191CD

Artist:	DERAKUSHI
Title:	1st
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 192CD

Artist:	BON NO KUBO
Title:	Bon No Kubo
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 193CD

Artist:	PSF
Title:	Logo T-Shirt L
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	MENS LARGE T-SHIRT
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	PSF LOGO-L

Artist:	PSF
Title:	Logo T-Shirt XL
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	MENS XL T-SHIRT
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	PSF LOGO-XL