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With each release and performance over the last ten years, saxophonist Makoto Kawashima has continued to stake his claim as one of today's most captivating improvisers. Zoe is Kawashima's first ever studio album and his second with Black Editions. Recorded at Tokyo's storied GOK Sound, the album is one of the most beautiful and stark renderings of his voice to date. Over two side long excursions Kawashima's music springs to existence with striking clarity and power, yet remains rooted in the more obscure, spiritual realm from which all of his work seems to originate. Rather than let the studio smooth out the performances, Zoe is direct and unvarnished, the only adornment added being the ghostly, faint pre-echo of the reel to reel. Kawashima's elevation of an idiosyncratic solo practice places him squarely within the lineage of iconoclastic Japanese saxophonists such as Kaoru Abe, Tamio Shiraishi, and Masayushi Urabe. At the outer bounds of improvised music, Kawashima's work reveals a fragile spirit, one that gives as much emphasis to silence and minute sounds, perhaps hesitations, as it does to ecstatic bursts of tone and texture. His music is undeniably intimate and vulnerable, eschewing the bravado and bluster that have often become tropes in the world of solo improvisation; Kawashima summons searing melodic lines and heavily textured passages and just as abruptly lets them collapse, vanishing into the ether. Perhaps more than anything, Kawashima is concerned with erasing the distinction between artist and instrument, the barriers between the internal self and the external world around us. "The alto is the only instrument that becomes part of my body. It's like a soul that fuses together with my spirit. When I hold the instrument ready to play, something external to me appears behind me." Kawashima weaves aspects of blues and spiritual music within harshly abstract passages and a harrowing vibrato that echoes Albert Ayler's spirit. His personal experience and approach affirm these connections; "I see spirits all the time. Shadows, phantoms. They appear at the border between your internal world and where the external world affects you. What I want to do is give a certain concrete reality to those things. The essential part of yourself that your internal eyes want to look away from. I try to make that concrete, to give it a melody and let it out." Deluxe LP housed in tip-on jacket with gloss film laminate photo mounted on cover and printed inner sleeve.
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2LP
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Black Editions presents Mass Hysterism in Another Situation remastered and cut to double 45RPM 12" vinyl. Mass Hysterism in Another Situation captures Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction Unit in its final incarnation, at an apex in its development; it also finds Takayanagi, one of Japan's great iconoclastic artists, at a moment of crucial artistic transformation. Recorded in August 1983 as part of his "Another Situation" concert series, the album features one of the last performances of Takayanagi's revolutionary and perhaps most famously violent piece, "Mass Projection." By this date, New Direction's line up had been distilled to a compact, searingly hot trio of Takayanagi joined on electric guitar by Akira Iijima and Hiroshi Yamazaki on drums/percussion. Over the course of 40 minutes, the group sustains an uninterrupted, highly charged attack propelled with unrelenting energy. The music is rife with noise and dissonance intruding from both sides; a vortex of sound and fury that begins to slip from even the expansive bounds of free jazz into something almost purely electronic. The trio would perform only four more times, completing the "Another Situation" series with its 24th edition in November 1984. Eleven months later Takayanagi would debut an entirely new modality, one he called "Action Direct." It completely transformed his approach to guitar and sound in general by embracing an entirely abstract, solo noise music projected through massive, complex sound systems of his own design. Mass Hysterism is perhaps the most powerful link in this part of Takayanagi's history -- a perfect realization and farewell to one of his greatest forms en route to territories even further afield and radical. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Housed in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with Pantone spot colors, spot ink pigment foil on gloss film laminate finish as well as printed inner sleeves. Featuring photographs by Tatsuo Minami and newly translated notes by Takayanagi scholar Yoshiyuki Kitazato. Deluxe double LP gatefold.
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2LP
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BE 016LP
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From the moment they emerged in the early days of the '80s Tokyo underground, High Rise set themselves apart as radical outliers, shattering the limits of rock and psychedelic music with a ferocity unmatched even in that heady era. The group's core duo of Asahito Nanjo on bass/vocals and Munehiro Narita on guitar had an explosive chemistry; they mutated, distorted, amplified the raw velocity, heaviness, and electricity of late '60s/early '70s rock into an entirely new, monstrous form. Running in similar circles, their approach paralleled that of Les Rallizes Dénudés, but with a more garage/proto-punk attack and the blistering intensity of a full-on amphetamine rush. While Mizutani's guitar is what took Rallizes's to another level, the same can be said for Narita's guitar work in High Rise- rightfully placing him in the pantheon of psychedelic guitarists and for some to call him "the undisputed king of the motorcycle fuzz guitar". The band inspired the launch of the legendary P.S.F. label, giving it its first two releases which along with its third release, the debut of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, signaled a new era in the world of Japanese underground music. High Rise's second album, 1986's II, was a triumph and fully lived up to the group's original Psychedelic Speed Freaks moniker, instantly raising the stakes for any band to follow. It carved out a new stream of rock music, rooted in an encyclopedic knowledge of the music's history and an almost metaphysical understanding of its raw elements and spirit. High Rise's third album, 1992's Dispersion, kept the group's in-the-red intensity while pushing into new directions. Less grounded in speed, Nanjo along with drummer Dr. Euro build powerful, dynamic riffs that swing with crushing levels of heaviness. Slower pieces rife with blues infused tension appear alongside dissonant no wave inflected passages and rumbling biker rave-ups. All of which provide Narita with the room to create one of rock guitars most compelling high wire spectacles. Throughout the album he creates dizzying torrents of notes with a precision, control and endless inventiveness that crackles with chaotic energy. Remixed and remastered from the original master tapes by Asahito Nanjo and released in a deluxe gatefold double LP edition housed in a die-cut slipcase printed entirely with spot colors and featuring spot UV gloss and soft touch finishes. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI.
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2LP
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"On September 6th, 1993, I felt a stranger's presence flow through me. 'The end of material civilization is near. Man will soon transcend the physical realm. But when this day comes, many souls will be lost forever,' she announced and then swiftly disappeared. She has since visited me occasionally, and with her help I've witnessed stars align to form a cross, and a golden country filled with waves of tremendous rapture. She says I have a divine duty to impart through my music a sense of the waves of delight I have experienced, even if I can only reach one other person." --Shizuka, 7/23/94
Reissue, originally released in 1994. Few artists have left behind a legacy as enigmatic and captivating as Shizuka Miura. Amidst the Tokyo underground, she was a spectral figure, creating ghostly, childlike dolls and writing haunting, other-worldly songs. She formed Shizuka in 1992 with Maki Miura, known for his staggering guitar work in legendary groups Fushitsusha and Les Rallizes Dénudés. Their music bloomed with a fragile, yet explosive mystical power; an atmospheric alchemy of psychedelic rock, folk and noise with Shizuka's ethereal vocals invoking loneliness, yearning and dark providence. Since her passing in 2010, the group has steadily gathered a cult following. Black Editions presents their sole studio album, 1994's Heavenly Persona, a monumental, transcendent work originally issued by P.S.F. Japan on CD in 1994; Now newly remastered and in its first ever vinyl edition on double-LP with a laser etched fourth side. Presented in a deluxe tip-on tri-fold jacket with ink pigment foil stamping, gloss film laminate finish and printed inner sleeves and mounted booklet. It includes her extensive, heart wrenching final interview, translated for the first time to English alongside high-resolution archival images.
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LP
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BE 019LP
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Reissue, originally released in 1993. White Heaven's second album, Strange Bedfellow, is one of the great unsung albums of the '90s Japanese underground. Released two years after their striking debut, Out (BE 005LP), the album reveals the group shifting to a more dynamic and finely honed sound. You Ishihara's songwriting and arrangements take center stage, leading the group to transmute classic west coast psychedelia and garage into a thrillingly direct collection of songs that span from fuzz drenched, driving rockers to smoldering numbers that fade into the night... Only ever available in an edition of 700 LPs released in 1993 by PSF Japan, Black Editions present Strange Bedfellow, newly remastered in this deluxe edition. Heavy tip-on jacket with ink pigment foil stamping, metallic spot colors, contrasting gloss film laminate and matte satin finishes. Includes new full color folding insert. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Recorded at Inter Music Studio, Tokyo October 1992. Remastered at Peace Music Studio, 2020 by Soichiro Nakamura.
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LP
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2023 restock. Reissue, originally released in 1986. A dreamlike dispatch from mid-80s Japan, the first and only Hallelujahs album is an entrancing and gentle work of psychedelic pop brilliance. In a series of informal studio sessions between 1985 and 1986, Shinji Shibayama (Nagisa Ni Te) gathered a group of friends, emerging luminaries from the burgeoning Kansai underground rock scene including Naoki Zushi (Hijokaidan, Spiral Stairs / 螺旋階段), Ken Ichi "Idiot" Takayama (Idiot O'Clock), and Chie Mukai (Ché-SHIZU) to form what would become known as Hallelujahs. The result was a music of deep feeling and wonderment created through simple song craft and imbued with a sort of guileless magic. Their sole album presented a set of unvarnished songs, filled with vulnerable, intimate moments, caught on reel to reel, most often in single takes never to be repeated. The album was self-released in 1986 in a micro-edition of 300 copies. It was the first record by Shibayama's now revered ORG Records which would go on to introduce the world to the likes of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Reiko Kudo as well as his own group, Nagisa Ni Te. With affinities to the sounds of the Rough Trade and Flying Nun labels, the Paisley Underground and Galaxie 500, the Hallelujahs' Eat Meat, Swear an Oath is an utterly unique masterpiece that remains a touchstone for generations of like spirited artists in Japan and around the world. Black Editions is proud to present this all-time classic in a deluxe vinyl edition, remastered from the original tapes and presented in a heavy tip-on jacket with textured paper, mounted high quality print, foil stamped finishes and spot colors. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI.
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Since their first album in 1995, Japan's Nagisa Ni Te has created an enchanting and deeply personal sound world woven from elements of folk, psychedelia, and rock along with wistful melodies and gentle arrangements. Centered on Shinji Shibayama (Hallelujahs) and Masako Takeda's partnership, the group has created intimate, emotionally resonant music that floats and breathes with an ease that can only come from a sort of telepathic chemistry. Released in Japan on the group's 25th anniversary, New Ocean is a clear eyed, expansive collection of songs evoking love and loss, hazy sunshine and looming darkness, human yearning amidst nature's grandeur. Deluxe 45 RPM double-LP, gatefold edition featuring heavy tip-on jackets with embossing, gloss UV and strike through matte coating. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI.
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Sold out, no repress planned. "It's common for these musicians to be labelled muscular (and other testosterone-laden terms), but it is perhaps more fitting to register them with the female archetype Kali, who enacts destruction in order to make way for new life. As we embark on a new century amidst socio-political upheaval, the Brötzmann/Haino duo feels like an artistic expression of the moment we are living in and experiencing every day." --Philip Greenlief, "Ode to Destruction", ART FORUM, August 2018 on Peter Brötzmann/Keiji Haino Duo at the Chapel, San Francisco
Two complete performances recorded in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the summer of 2018. The intellect given birth to here (existence) is too young presents the artists traversing a sprawling range of sound and modalities to achieve a stunning alchemy that can't be replicated. Both Brötzmann and Haino have spent their lives creating music that defies easy categorizations -- phrases such as "free jazz/improvisation," "rock," or "avant garde" seem to only scratch at the surface. What can be said is their works have a nearly unmatched intensity and restless spirit -- always uncompromising and only fully understood in their own unique terms. When performing together, the two push each other to entirely new and beautifully alien territories. Keiji Haino's Purple Trap imprint and Black Editions are proud to present the defining work of their decades-long collaboration. Presented in a deluxe four-LP boxed set edition of 800 including full-size, full-color art prints by both artists.
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Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950s and '60s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature, and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical elements of American and European free jazz, infusing them with the raw feedback and dissonance of electronic and avant-garde music. With his various New Direction groups, Takayanagi broke free of traditional structures and developed a new theory of music that embraced an aggressive and unrelenting style of playing that has remained almost completely unparalleled in its ferocity. Of all the albums to be released during Takayanagi's lifetime, 1975's Eclipse was perhaps the most enigmatic and sought after. Released in an edition of only 100, it almost immediately disappeared and became a holy grail for Japanese connoisseurs of adventurous music, and rightly so. It's first side contained a two-part realization of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" modality -- a searching interplay between instruments -- slowly emerging from a sparse open field and building with the tension of a looming thunder storm. The second side contains an epic performance of a "Mass Projection", a high energy, densely layered barrage of sound that in its 25 minutes, never once slackens its intensity. It would be another 31 years before this key album in Takayangi's oeuvre would finally have a (slightly) wider audience through a CD release by Japan's P.S.F. Records.
Black Editions present a deluxe vinyl edition of this masterwork, revealingly remastered from the original tapes by Elysian Masters. The album is packaged in a heavy double tip-on gatefold jacket that pays tribute to the original handmade packaging and features a previously unseen studio photograph of Takayanagi by Tatsuo Minami. Recorded in Tokyo, March 14, 1975. Engineer: Mikio Aoki. Cover, photographs and design by Kazuharu Fujitani. Gatefold photograph by Tatsuo Minami. Insert Notes by Yasunori Saito. Produced by Satoru Obara, Yoshiaki Kamei, Nihon Gendai Jazz Ongaku Kenkyukai. Originally released in an edition of 100 by ISKRA Records, Japan in 1975. Remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters, and produced by Peter Kolovos. Deluxe heavy tip-on gatefold LP with matte black paper, second tipped-on metallic gold wrap and insert.
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BE 013-057LP
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In August 1969, Masayuki Takayanagi formed his first New Direction group and embarked on an unparalleled musical journey that over the final 22 years of his life would define him as an uncompromising artist who would forge a visionary new musical language. Comprised of himself on acoustic and electric guitar and joined by Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and Yoshisaburo "Sabu" Toyozumi on drums, Takayanagi's group created a new unconstrained form of music; It expanded on the most radical, fiery elements of American and European free jazz, while refracting them through an avant-garde prism. Harmonic and melodic development were rejected in favor of feedback and complete spontaneity. With New Direction, Takayanagi had achieved a "decisive break" from the past and created his own revolutionary musical language -- a ferocious, often violent sound that paradoxically took both musical movement and stillness to their extremes. Takayanagi's New Direction soon recorded one of the landmark albums of free jazz and the avant-garde, Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (1970). It was Takayanagi's first album as a group leader and nothing short of groundbreaking. As profound as its release was, it was not until 25 years later that a wider audience would finally able to hear Takayanagi's vision with the group in its most explosive and unmitigated realization; Japan's P.S.F. records released two CDs, Call in Question (1994) and Live Independence (1995) which featured unearthed, previously unheard 1970 recordings made by the group at the legendary Shibuya Tokyo venue, Station '70. The recordings were revelatory; They presented nascent, jarring versions of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" and "Mass Projection" modalities in uncut, unvarnished long form. Joined on some tracks by renowned saxophonist Mototeru Takagi, the performances are intensely physical and visceral. Yoshizawa, Toyozumi as well as Takagi would, in their own right, go on to join Takayanagi as iconic players in the world of Japanese free jazz and avant-garde. It is these performances, in a crucial moment of societal and cultural upheaval, that would help lay the groundwork for the rich world of free improvisation, free jazz and, to a large degree, underground music in Japan for decades to come.
Black Editions present the entirety of the recordings presented on both P.S.F. albums as well as a previously unreleased side-long "Mass Projection" in a deluxe, remastered 3LP box set. The set features the stark photography of the late Yuji Itsumi and presents the original liner notes by key Japanese music critics and historians Yoshiyuki Kitazato and Toshihiko Shimizu newly translated into English as well as in the original Japanese. Mastering by JJ Golden, Golden Mastering 2020. Graphic design by Rob Carmichael, SEEN, with typographic assistance from Takuya Kitamura. Triple-LP box set with heavy chip board, textured uncoated paper wrap, black pigment foil stamping, three heavy inserts and Japanese language insert.
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Based in Tokyo, Keiko Higuchi is a vocalist and instrumentalist internationally renowned both for her solo performances and extensive collaborations in the world of underground improvisation, jazz, and the avant-garde. On Vertical Language, Higuchi has created an evocative and hauntingly beautiful album that unfurls in equal parts light and darkness, form, and emptiness. On solo voice and piano as well as in duets with bassist Louis Inage, Higuchi performs a collection of songs and improvisations that take unexpected paths; her voice and piano starkly, soulfully emerge. They gradually take form as sparse notes resonate and build into intense layers of sound. The music is unvarnished and deeply personal -- it embraces traditional Japanese and spiritual music as well as even jazz and bossa nova, but never completely turns itself over to their familiar forms. More than simply an album title, Vertical Language refers to the distinctive musical approach that Higuchi has developed over the past twenty years. Her music is centered on the breath and pulse -- rather than set "horizontal" musical rhythms or structures. It illuminates the connection between the artist's body and sound. In her music, piano chords and voice sound out in an instant and expand, floating off in new directions. The music embraces silence and negative space or the Japanese concept of "Ma", as well as the small "imperfections" that any moment or sound might contain. Each moment in her music is as much imbued with what came before as what will come next -- each note expands in space and can never be seen from just one perspective. In her music, Higuchi is constantly taking us to a place that neither she or we can quite yet see. CD version comes in Tip-on, Mini-LP style jacket with printed inner sleeve.
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Full title: My lord Music, I most humbly beg your indulgence in the hope that you will do me the honour of permitting this seed called Keiji Haino to be planted within you. For over 25 years, Keiji Haino has used the hurdy gurdy to channel dark dimensions -- creating music that bridges the centuries between distant medieval eras and a future awash in densely layered sounds that grind and float in an otherworldly atmosphere. My lord Music... is a suite of nine pieces that reveals the startlingly distinctive and wide range of Haino's approach to the instrument. The music is at once dissonant and hypnotic, rich with unfurling drones that dynamically ebb and flow -- Haino's musical sensibility and physicality, always present and unmistakable. Keiji Haino - Hurdy Gurdy. Recorded April 7, 2019 at Zebulon, Los Angeles, California. Recorded and mixed by Toshi Kasai. Mastering by Elysian Masters. Photographs by Kazuyuki Funaki. Design by Takuya Kitamura. Translation by Alan Cummings. Performance produced by Black Editions and Blum & Poe Gallery as part of Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s curated by Mika Yoshitake.
My lord Music... is the first release in Haino's newly relaunched Purple Trap imprint, produced in collaboration with Black Editions and personally supervised by the artist himself. Purple Trap will present the full breadth of Keiji Haino's works through both archival recordings and newly recorded pieces, all made available in small one-time physical editions as well as on digital platforms. Double vinyl housed in pure black paper gatefold with metallic silver printing and black paper inner sleeves. More limited than God intended when he invented the word "limited", unfortunately...
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LP version. Heavy tip-on jacket with matte pigment stamping and insert. Based in Tokyo, Keiko Higuchi is a vocalist and instrumentalist internationally renowned both for her solo performances and extensive collaborations in the world of underground improvisation, jazz, and the avant-garde. On Vertical Language, Higuchi has created an evocative and hauntingly beautiful album that unfurls in equal parts light and darkness, form, and emptiness. On solo voice and piano as well as in duets with bassist Louis Inage, Higuchi performs a collection of songs and improvisations that take unexpected paths; her voice and piano starkly, soulfully emerge. They gradually take form as sparse notes resonate and build into intense layers of sound. The music is unvarnished and deeply personal -- it embraces traditional Japanese and spiritual music as well as even jazz and bossa nova, but never completely turns itself over to their familiar forms. More than simply an album title, Vertical Language refers to the distinctive musical approach that Higuchi has developed over the past twenty years. Her music is centered on the breath and pulse -- rather than set "horizontal" musical rhythms or structures. It illuminates the connection between the artist's body and sound. In her music, piano chords and voice sound out in an instant and expand, floating off in new directions. The music embraces silence and negative space or the Japanese concept of "Ma", as well as the small "imperfections" that any moment or sound might contain. Each moment in her music is as much imbued with what came before as what will come next -- each note expands in space and can never be seen from just one perspective. In her music, Higuchi is constantly taking us to a place that neither she or we can quite yet see.
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2022 restock; Black Editions present the first ever vinyl edition of Kan Mikami's I'm the Only One Around. For 50 years, Kan Mikami has stood as a master of the Japanese blues and outsider folk. His unmistakable, powerfully evocative voice and surrealistic poetry reveal a gritty, transgressive life on the margins shot through with evocations of sex and violence, religion and romance. Released in 1991, I'm the Only One Around was Mikami's first album with Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. label and heralded an artistic renaissance. It marked the beginning of an incredibly productive and wildly creative era for Mikami that extends to the present day. This opening salvo presents the essential core of Mikami's music; with nothing but his voice and a stripped-down electric guitar the album is a powerful, effortlessly emotional statement filled with moments of both brutal passion and gentle revelation. It is unrestrained, direct, brutally honest. It embodies Mikami's philosophy: "If you're going to make music, stake your life on it -- it's worth it. Making music is an intensely human act." In the newly translated notes to the album, Hiroyuki Itsuki, one of Japan's most renowned writers perhaps put it best: "What erupts here is all the fury and grief of Jōmon Man (the prehistoric people of the Japanese archipelago), lobbed into the middle of a 1990s city. Kan Mikami is unchanging, yet definitely in motion. He advances not forwards, but backwards. Not a retreat, rather he consciously progresses backwards. At the final destination for his full-steam astern poésie lies a massive, gaping black hole, exuding a dazzling, black light. This is the image evoked by the world of Kan Mikami that you can hear on this album." Mikami would go on to release 15 solo albums with P.S.F. as well as numerous collaborative efforts with other giants of the Japanese underground including Motoharu Yoshizawa, Masayoshi Urabe, and Keiji Haino, with whom, along with Toshiaki Ishizuka he formed the group Vajra. Features lyrics translated by Drew Stroud and newly translated notes by Alan Cummings. Remastered and cut to vinyl at Elysian Masters Los Angeles, pressed by RTI, packaged in heavy Stoughton tip-on jackets with insert featuring textured paper, gold foil stamping and metallic inks.
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Sold out, no repress currently... Black Editions present a reissue of Musica Transonic's self-titled release, originally released in 1995. Musica Transonic was comprised of three of the most crucial artists to emerge from the 1990s Japanese underground: Nanjo Asahito of High Rise, Makoto Kawabata of Acid Mothers Temple and Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins. The group's music was a supercharged combination of complex rhythms, blistering guitar attacks, and enormously deep bass momentum. Pushing the rock power trio to its miasmic, overdriven limits, Musica Transonic's sound retains the ability to shock even now, 25 years later. Remastered, Musica Transonic's self-titled debut is now available for the first time on LP and includes previously unheard material. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Gatefold, heavy tip-on jackets; includes download.
"In 1986, Tokyo's PSF Records released the second album by High Rise, simply titled II, and it immediately became one of those legendary albums that hipsters worldwide whispered about, because hardly anyone had it to listen to . . . High Rise wasn't nearly enough to occupy the busiest guy in Tokyo's underground, though, and by the mid-90s Nanjo had enough bands going that nobody could really keep track anymore. PSF's legendary high-quality standards recognized a couple of them, however, with releases in 1995, including the enigmatic Musica Transonic. This was an unhinged band that on first hearing seemed to check many of the same boxes as High Rise, including the trademark redlined sonics. But those who cranked it up and really listened realized it was actually a very different beast, a sort of musical manticore assembled from a variety of monstrous parts . . . Guitarist Makoto Kawabata would achieve renown the following year as the leader of Acid Mothers Temple, also appearing as the guitarist in Mainliner, another High Rise-adjacent project with Nanjo. While by 1995 he and Nanjo had been playing together in other projects for several years, on this album Kawabata brought a chaotic, free-flowing guitar aptitude that painted a stranger spectrum than the laser-focused rock of High Rise. In concert with the brilliant drummer Tatsuya Yoshida -- well-known in the scene from his long-running duo Ruins -- the results are entirely unpredictable, and joyously so. After focusing for some time on repetition, Nanjo struck off down a new road with Musica Transonic. The better-known High Rise is a straight-ahead blast, minimalist in its approach as they drive right at your gut. With Musica Transonic, the combination of Yoshida's complex rhythms and Kawabata's ability to find unexpected angles for his guitar attack recalibrated the rock trio, with magnificent results that retain their ability to shock even now, 25 years later..." --Mason Jones, San Francisco, CA, 2020
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Black Editions present a reissue of Toho Sara's self-titled album, originally released in 1995. A mystifying work of Japanese avant-garde shamanism, Toho Sara's 1995 debut introduced a radical new sound from Asahito Nanjo (High Rise), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple), and Hisashi Yasuda -- playing an array of ancient instruments including tabla, piri, harmonium, biwa, shakujo, and hansho the group evokes an otherworldly ritual music, meditative and haunting. Originally released on CD by P.S.F. Japan, newly expanded, remastered and available for the first time ever on vinyl. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Gatefold, tip-on jacket; Includes insert and download.
"In 1995, Tokyo's legendary label P.S.F. Records released two very different albums, connected by the shadowy personality behind them: Nanjo Asahito, well known by music fanatics acquainted with his band High Rise. The pair of 1995 releases, though, were quite different from the brain-scrambling, fuzz-driven, motor-psycho sounds of High Rise. One, by the mysterious Musica Transonic, refracted that distorted rock through a prism that broke it into abstract, free-form shapes. We're here, though, with regard to the other album, the self-titled debut by 東方沙羅, Toho Sara . . . From the first of the simply numbered songs (no titles here) it's clear that Nanjo, Kawabata Makoto, and Yasuda Hisashi have something special in mind: the delicate percussion and woodwinds are quickly joined by a much more ominous drone, and they combine brightness with murk throughout the album . . . Nanjo and Kawabata had played together for some time before this album, including a band called Johari, which brought together ethnic and contemporary music. They formed Toho Sara to revisit the idea, focusing on Asian spirituality while experimenting with acoustic instruments. Yasuda joined them after playing in Nanjo's avant-garde outfit Group Musica, and later played in the early Acid Mothers Temple with Kawabata. Toho Sara translates to Eastern Most, which follows the idea behind the group. Fascinated by shamanism, Nanjo wanted to create an avant-garde musical embodiment of ideas like kagura, ancient ritual theater, and bring it to album and stage . . .The fourth track, the album's eleven-minute centerpiece, bursts open in a chaotic clatter that barely disperses as mysterious scrapings and bowings come and go, a bewitching accretion of brain-scrambling sounds. It's a dramatic, eerie, and anarchic passage that would undeniably suit a summoning ritual for Moorcock's chaos-god Arioch. Some of the tracks are calmer, even peaceful if you don't mind a bit of ambient dread seeping into your peacetime. Slow drumbeats and gentle gongs are layered with not-quite-atonal woodwinds, intermittent clacks of wooden percussion accent some variety of buzzing woodwind, and droning harmonium underlies clarinet-like slow melodies..." --Mason Jones, San Francisco, CA, 2020
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Limited restock. Black Editions present a reissue of Kazuo Imai's far and wee, originally released in 2004. Kazuo Imai is one of the few artists to traverse both Japan's early avant-garde and free jazz movements. Though he began performing in the 1970s, his 2004 P.S.F. album far and wee was only the second under his name. In a series of thrilling acoustic guitar improvisations -- Imai's playing crackles with dynamic tension and physicality as well as a subtlety and nuance that reveals him as one of the instrument's true masters and innovators. In 2004, Kazuo Imai (Marginal Consort, East Bionic Symphonia) recorded a series of nylon-string classical guitar improvisations at the request of P.S.F. founder Hideo Ikeezumi. far and wee, the resulting album, vibrates with the inherent duality of nylon: the strings stretch and snap back like rubber tautened and released, and paint the softest of caresses in silky washes. Imai was a student of two of the foundational artists of the Japanese avant-garde: Masayuki Takayanagi, the pioneering free-improvising guitarist and Takehisa Kosugi, the visionary Fluxus composer also known for his work with Group Ongaku and the Taj Mahal Travelers. A sense of inquisitiveness about how far he can push himself and every part of the guitar pervades these performances as Imai makes everything from the pegs to the bridge to the strap pin explode with resonate. For over 20 years, Imai has been a driving force behind Marginal Consort a collective of Japanese avant-garde musicians devoted to collective improvisation, known for their incredibly layered and varied annual performances that last for three continuous hours. Using a blend of homemade and traditional instruments, electronics, and sculptural and natural forms, they create auditory experiences of exceptionally unique color and vibration. The same dedication to vitality and variety is found in Imai's guitar music, and it is via the guitar that his vast studies in philosophy and music come together in extreme focus, allowing him to tease and extend the history of the instrument while interrogating the limits of its edge. far and wee continues the tradition of the Soloworks concerts that Imai has been giving for several decades, and allows the listener to breathe in the unique space of Imai's thought processes. He attacks the instrument: the nylon strings explode against the guitar. And he caresses it, soothing each centimeter of string with delicate force and concentration. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Heavy tip-on jackets; includes download.
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Repressed. White Heaven's debut album Out is one of the greatest psychedelic rock albums ever recorded. First released in 1991 by Tokyo's P.S.F. Records and pressed in an edition of 500 copies the original LP has become a holy grail in underground circles, with only a scant few copies ever making it outside of Japan. Built on the chemistry between You Ishihara's lysergic lyricism and the blistering leads of one of Japan's undisputed guitar gods Michio Kurihara, Out is an absolute classic. It is one of the few albums to successfully join a deep love of classic rock n' roll with the rapturous energy of punk and openness of the avant-garde. Each song creates its own world, raising dynamic structures that defy categorization. Meticulously re-mastered by the artists this new edition is the album in its clearest, most powerful form. Cut at the legendary Bernie Grundman studios and pressed at RTI it is now available on vinyl for the first time in almost 30 years. Black Editions presents Out in its definitive edition. Deluxe LP edition, Heavy tip-on jacket and tri-panel insert printed on black paper with metallic gold ink. Vinyl mastering by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman, high quality pressing at RTI.
"What happens if you want to make a sound like Eric Clapton on 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps,' or Ritchie Blackmore on Made in Japan -- two early influences Kurihara mentions in particular -- but you've never been in a recording studio before? What happens if you want to sing like Marc Bolan or Robert Plant -- or even Lou Reed and Tom Verlaine -- but you've never been on a stage before? Listen to what happened on Out: a wide knowledge and love of classic rock sounds fused to a freedom of expression based not only on punk, but on avant-garde experimentalism. It isn't that these young players had chops like that at the time. But neither did they need them to hit heightened moments of what I can only describe as rock rapture." --Damon Krukowski
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2020 repress. Black Editions present the first ever vinyl edition of Go Hirano's third album, Corridor of Daylights, originally released in 2004. Corridor of Daylights is a quiet work of dreamlike brilliance. A home field recording where fragile piano melodies float alongside wind-chimes and wistful melodicas -- insects hum in the distance and a breeze gently rustles as summer day eases toward evening. Originally released in Japan by P.S.F. Records in 2004, Corridor of Daylights is a beautiful, soulful dispatch from early aughts Tokyo. Black Editions present Corridor of Daylights, newly mastered for its first ever vinyl edition. Includes bonus track. Comes in a deluxe edition featuring pearlescent paper, metallic inks, and foil stamped letters as well as two inserts including a newly translated illustrated story booklet; Includes download.
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Restocked. Black Editions presents the deluxe, first-ever vinyl edition of Acid Mothers Temple's classic self-titled first album. Over the last 25 years no group has been more prolific or dedicated to pushing psychedelic rock to its limits than Japan's Acid Mothers Temple. Their maximalist technicolor vision was first revealed on this, their now legendary self-titled 1997 debut released by P.S.F. Records. Led by Makoto Kawabata, the album contains some of the group's most cosmic, hypnotic and over-the-top material; it kick-started and set the tone for a journey that has included countless releases and performances around the world -- a freaked-out trip that continues to this day. Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. is one of the essential albums of the world's psychedelic underground. Deluxe Edition housed in ten-color heavy tip-on gatefold jackets, featuring soft touch and spot gloss finishes and full color interior pockets. Includes full-color, spot glossed inner sleeves and a 24"x24", full-color poster. Remastered and pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.
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Psychedelic Speed Freaks is a new power trio led by Munehiro Narita, founding member of Japan's legendary High Rise and easily one of the wildest, most original guitarists in rock history. Blazing in total hyper-saturated glory, Psychedelic Speed Freaks centers on the raw, unrelenting attack of Narita's "motorcycle fuzztone guitar" and a rhythm section driven by a pair of untamed LA acid punks. Recorded deep in-the-red and punched into overdrive, Psychedelic Speed Freaks is a full-throttle adrenaline shot into the 21st Century. Deluxe Edition housed in heavy tip-on jacket featuring silver foil printing and embossed paper. Includes metallic printed insert. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.
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Makoto Kawashima was born in Saitama, a prefecture of the Greater Tokyo Area, in 1981. He picked up the alto sax in 2008, and started playing solo in 2010. He is the founder of the Homosacer (Sacredhuman) label. Homo Sacer was originally released in 2015. It was Kawashima's second solo release and his first full-length album. It was also the final release by P.S.F. Records. The album was recorded live during a heavy rainstorm at the gallery and café Yamanekoken in Iruma, Saitama. Facing up towards the ceiling, his sound arcing up to meet the raindrops beyond the roof. Kawashima played with a reed he had been given by the mother of the late Japanese saxophone giant Kaoru Abe. Housed in a heavy tip-on jacket featuring metallic printing and gloss film-laminate finish. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI; Digital download included.
"Homo sacer -- sacred human. Kawashima's sax is ripe with the spirit of Japanese free jazz, dwelling as it does between the violent and the beautiful. Kaoru Abe, Masayoshi Urabe, Takayuki Hashimoto, Harutaka Mochizuki... all of these altoists live in an area of personal expression rare in the world, one that feels like the body itself is being whittled away at. It feels like we have a new genius to add to that list." --Hideako Kondo, from the Japanese liner notes
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Black Editions present the first ever vinyl release of Ché-SHIZU's signature album A Journey, originally issued in 1994 by Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. Records. Ché-SHIZU is one of the most original and mystifying groups to ever emerge from the Tokyo underground. Founded by master improviser Chie Mukai in 1981 the group has been guided by her singular vision for nearly 40 years. Throughout its history Ché-SHIZU has challenged traditional notions of song structure and improvisation. Mukai's signature instrument, the Chinese er-hu, is an ancient two stringed bowed instrument rarely found outside of traditional music. Even within the wildly diverse roster of artists on P.S.F. Records, Ché-SHIZU is a playful and confounding outlier. Early on Mukai became active within the avant-garde movement flowering in Tokyo during the mid-1970s. She studied with renowned Fluxus composer and violinist Takehisa Kosugi, recalling, "that encounter was so huge for me, much more than any one technique. Even in terms of the er-hu, I only started playing it because Kosugi gave it to me." In 1975 she joined his East Bionic Symphonia, a large improvising ensemble featuring students from Tokyo's Bigakko art school. From there she contributed to improvising avant-garde groups including an early version of Marginal Consort and later the Vedda Music Workshop. Her work with Ché-SHIZU however is where her vision most clearly emerged. Ché-SHIZU released its first album I Can't Promise in 1984 on Zero Records, in time the album would become a revered classic. It would be another ten years before another full-length would be released. During that time the group performed extensively with various rotating line ups. In the summer of 1994, Mukai led the group to Studio J in Tokyo to record an album for the P.S.F. label. Released later that year, the album was titled A Journey. Fittingly, it is a sprawling excursion through ethereal dreamscapes, the group confident in its own resplendent joy. Over the album, the group creates a spontaneous, loose form of chamber pop that weaves folk and a light psychedelia into something entirely unique. Pop songs like "Juso Station" intersect with instrumentals such as the title track to create a varied yet coherent improvisational language. Remastered; deluxe double-LP edition cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin and pressed at Pallas Germany. Includes new expansive artwork and lyric translations, housed in a spot gloss heavy gatefold jacket; Includes high resolution digital download.
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2023 repress! Pitchfork Best New Reissue: 8.4: Black Editions present a reissue of High Rise's II, originally released in 1986. High Rise exploded onto Tokyo's underground music scene with the roar and reckless abandon of a motorcycle accelerating headlong into a dead man's curve. Born from the explosive chemistry of bassist/vocalist Asahito Nanjo and frenetic guitarist Munehiro Narita, the band blazed a wild new stream of psychedelic guitar music. Their second album is a defining document of the band and unquestionably one of the greatest albums to emerge from 20th century underground Japan and beyond. With Nanjo's distorted thunder bass and Narita's wildly narrative lead guitar playing, II is a non-stop tour de force of improvised rock music. Combining elements of garage rock, punk, and no wave, the band pushed all levels fully in-the-red and transcended the limits of rock and psychedelia to create a raw, unique expansion of the music. Black Editions present High Rise's II, newly mixed and mastered by Asahito Nanjo in what the band states is the definitive version of their most quintessential recording. This new edition restores the original vinyl version's textured black and silver artwork. Housed in heavy Stoughton tip-on jacket. Pressed onto high quality vinyl by RTI.
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2023 repress forthcoming... Black Editions present the first ever vinyl edition of Tokyo Flashback, the legendary 1991 compilation that defined the Tokyo psychedelic movement and first brought it to the outside world. Tokyo Flashback is one of the most iconic compilations in the history of underground music. Originally released by Japan's P.S.F. Records, Tokyo Flashback defined the breathtakingly unique and previously obscured musical movement that had been developing in Japan since the late 1970s. The compilation features some of the earliest released recordings by Keiji Haino, High Rise, Masaki Batoh's Ghost, White Heaven, Fushitsusha, Kousokuya, and Marble Sheep. It captures the excitement and energy of a Tokyo awash in Technicolor and deep blacks; the music echoing krautrock, psychedelic freak-outs, garage, and no wave. At the same time it reveals astonishing, totally idiosyncratic expansions of rock music. In time, Tokyo Flashback expanded to a synonymous nine volume series that, over the following two decades, unveiled Japan's ever evolving soundscapes to the rest of the world. Tokyo Flashback is a defining statement of late 20th century Japanese psychedelic music and an essential primer to the world of P.S.F. All tracks are exclusive, this edition features the first time translation of the original liner notes. Black Editions' deluxe edition is entirely re-mastered and marks the first release of Tokyo Flashback outside of Japan and it's first ever vinyl issue. Also features Verzerk. Newly created artwork and design expanding on the original by Rob Carmichael at SEEN Sudio; Housed in custom printed deluxe Stoughton gatefold jacket and slipcase, including full color printed inner sleeves and inserts with soft touch and spot UV gloss finishes; Remastered and cut by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound; Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI.
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