A new band from Yoshida Tatsuya, leader of Ruins, & featuring guitarist Kido Natsuki [Bondage Fruit]. ''...a burning instrumental trio mixing the raw power of rock music, the wild edge of improvisation and the complex stop on a dime compositional struc...

"WRWTFWW Records announces the official reissue of Daisaku Kume's original soundtrack for the highly acclaimed 1989 Japanese crime/drama movie Violent Cop. Available for the first time outside of Japan, the album comes in a limited edition of 500 copies worldwide with a 45rpm cut providing full audio pleasure and an iconic record sleeve featuring the movie director and star: the one and only "Beat" Takeshi Kitano! Violent Cop marks Kitano's directorial debut -- a gritty neo-noir in which he stars as...

Famous, often great, sometimes lackluster, 1971 psych/freak Jap-rock classic with Chito Kawachi (drums), Hiro Yanagida (keyboards), Kimio Mizutani (guitar), Kosuke Ichihara (saxophone, flute), Masaoki Terakawa (bass), Naomi Kawahara (percussion), Takao...Justly famous, often great, sometimes lacklaster, 1971 psych/freak Jap-rock classic with Chito Kawachi (drums), Hiro Yanagida (keyboards), Kimio Mizutani (guitar), Kosuke Ichihara (saxophone, flute), Masaoki Terakawa (bass), Naomi Kawahara (percussion)...

Luna Park Ensemble were a part of the same school of wonderful, twisted art-pop-experimental bands that all seemingly emerged from nowhere in the early/mid 80s from Tokyo, along with Wha-Ha-Ha, Syzygys and After Dinner. Luna Park Ensemble were absolutely as good as these bands, the only difference being that Wha-Ha-Ha, Syzygys and After Dinner had records released outside of Japan, and Luna Park Ensemble did not, leading to them being much less known here.
This collects all of the material that was...

"The second and all-time best Mako album, originally issued by Japanese Polydor in 1975. Packaged in mini-lp jacket sleeve. Although MPM went on to record 20+ more records after this one, he would never exceed the spatial exuberance of Super Record....

"This is a solo album by the leader and the guitar player of an unique and distinctively sounding Japanese band "Acid Mothers Temple". Makoto Kawabata offers us his personal vision of THE DRONE, which is a buzzing of slow and hypnotic forms. It is of...

"Duo collaboration between the Japanese female accordionist à qui avec Gabriel, who previously released a solo album on John Zorn's Tzadik label, and Acid Mothers Temple guitarist and guitar-drone soundscape artist Kawabata Makoto. Kawabata's guitar...

"Basement Echo is the historical meeting point of two generations of the Japanese underground. Kawabata Makoto, leader of The Acid Mothers Temple, and Michishita Shinsuke, leader of LSD March, are together here for the first time in a guitar duo...

''Melt Banana is the defining band of New Japanese Hardcore...their songs combine compositional complexity and improvisational noise with the power of a locomotive going full blast through a brick wall. Recorded during their tour of the States in 1998,...

"This is the 4th release in the 13 CD series. Karasu is April's release. Much like the flagship release in this 13 month/13 cd series Masami Akita, herein known as Merzbow, returns to his drumset to accompany his complex analogue noise. His prowess as...

“Merzbow is back with a marvelous concept double album. Hatobana is a complex harmonic sculpture featuring squealing tribal sounds and characteristic ethnic noise. Massima Akita keeps us on our toes by offering experiments with varying instruments such as guitar, wooden percussion, violin. A sublime noise opera among the best works to date from this unique Japanese artist.”

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ
Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

“First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983. Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is PURE MERZ.”

"The king of Japanese noise, Merzbow, joined on stage by Hungarian drummer extraordinaire, Balázs Pándi (known for his work with The Sun Ra Arkestra, Bill Laswell, Justin Broadrick, Bong-Ra, Venetian Snares and more). The special event on September 29th, 2016 took place under the roof of the legendary FAC251 building, the original home of Factory Records' headquarters and where many of Manchester's musical elite set foot. The show features an exemplary performance of Masami Akita's trademark Japanoise...

“A Perfect Pain is a manifestation of the incredible power created by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Psychic TV/Throbbing Gristle) -- the founding father of the industrial world, and Merzbow -- the undisputed king of Japanese noise. Recorded exclusively for Cold Spring, A Perfect Pain has been hailed as an important album and an extremely successful collaboration.“

“On their first official collaboration, Japanese noise pioneer Masami Akita aka Merzbow and Australian sound sculptor Lawrence English present a harrowing, surrealist portrait of nocturnal industrial activity, spawned by field recordings made in a sprawling factory complex seven hours north of English's home in Brisbane. He characterizes the area as "uneasy and unsettling," awash in the sickly glow of smelters and refinement machinery, somehow not of this world - a liminal quality vividly captured in...

As a strangely beautiful festival finale, the Finnish pair known as Pan Sonic met with the Japanese sound manipulator Merzbow for the first time. Perched behind their laptops, Pan Sonic artfully explored acoustic phenomena and together constructed a so...

Ken Matsutani – guitar
Inage Louis – bass
Hiroshi Hasegawa - electronics, field recordings
Rinji Fukuoka - drums, percussion, voice

“Instrumental psych from Japan. Ken Matsutani was manager of the legendary Captain Trip Records. Japanese guitarist and vocalist, best known as the leader of Marble Sheep, he has also participated in several other Japanese rock underground groups including AOR and Cement Women (1982), Onna (1985), White Heaven (1986). Rinji Fukuoka is a Tokyo-based...

This is the fourth album by this Japanese quartet of vocals/violin/guitar, keyboards, bass/synths and drums whose history goes all the way back into the mid 1980's. An excellent quality live recording of symphonic progressive, done Japanese style. "Mid...

"Japanese bluesman Kan Mikami is nothing less than an unalloyed force of nature; a skin-shredding blast of frozen wind from the poor, rural north of Japan that he calls home. In the late 1960s, like thousands of other Japanese young people Mikami made his way to Tokyo in search of a life different from that of his parents. Since then he has forcefully carved out a space for himself in the culture as a modernist poet, a raging folk singer, an author, an actor, an engaging TV personality, and one of...

"The highly anticipated official reissue of holy grail album MKWAJU by acclaimed Japanese percussionist Midori Takada's MKWAJU Ensemble, sourced from the original masters.
Originally recorded in February and March 1981 and released by fabled Japanese avant-garde label Better Days (home of Ryuichi Sakamato's debut album, Yasuaki Shimizu's Kakashi (1982), Colored Music's self-titled LP, MKWAJU is the fruit of the collaboration between Takada's crew and world-famous composer/musical director Joe...

“MONO formed in Tokyo, Japan in the closing winter weeks of December, 1999. They played their first live shows at the top of the new millennium, and released their first album, Under The Pipal Tree, in 2001. Recorded live in one day on a razor-thin budget, Pipal Tree was an earnest introduction to the curious magic of a band that would eventually become synonymous with monstrously dynamic, contemporary classical rock music. To commemorate those austere beginnings – and celebrate their remarkable...

"Just in time for their 10-year anniversary, Mono return with their fifth studio album, the absolutely massive Hymn To The Immortal..

Latest from this very fine, long-standing Japanese post-rock band, obviously originally influenced greatly by Godspeed, but by now with their own distinct take on ‘the epic’!

“The conflict and correlation between dark and light is a universal theme with a historically rich history. Musically, perhaps no band in the 21st Century has mined that relationship more consistently or effectively than Japan's Mono.
Across 10 albums in 20 years, Mono have convincingly reflected the quietest and most..

“MONO began in Japan at the end of the 20th Century as a young band equally inspired by the pioneers of moody experimental rock (My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai) and iconic Classical composers (Beethoven, Morricone) who came before them. They have evolved into one of the most inspiring and influential experimental rock bands in their own right. It is only fitting that their evolution has come at the glacial, methodical pace that their patient music demands. MONO is a band who puts serious value in nuance...

"Under The Pipal Tree is the debut album by now-legendary Japanese experimental rock band, MONO. Released in 2001 on avant-garde icon John Zorn's Tzadik label, Under The Pipal Tree showcased a young Japanese quartet whose wide range of influences – most notably Sonic Youth, Mogwai, The Velvet Underground, and Neil Young's Crazy Horse – were on ferocious and ambitious display. Though MONO would eventually become known for their expert marriage of metal and classical genres, Under The Pipal Tree...