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The first vinyl reissue of Hiroki Ishiguro's masterpiece "koh Maiton", which has been gaining attention from diggers and collectors in recent years after being featured on the groundbreaking compilation album "Heisei no Oto: Japanese Left-Field Pop From the CD Age (1989-1996)" from one of the most renowned label "Music From Memory". Hiroki Ishiguro is a Tokyo-based pianist, synthesizer player, and composer born in Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, who has composed and produced numerous studio and support musicians, videos, and event music. This is the first ever analog release of his second solo album, "koh Maiton", released in 1993, while the song "Unity" was also picked up for the aforementioned "Heisei No Oto" and was highly sought after in the context of the New Age revival and beyond. The album was created during a stay on Ko Mai Thon, a small island near Phuket, Thailand, and includes a total of 10 melodic and poetic songs, including "eternal", reminiscent of nostalgic video game music from the early 2000s, "Unity", a gem of city jazz that reflects a sophisticated urban nightscape, and "epilogue", a new age fusion number with an ethereal and transparent feel that echoes the world of Ken Muramatsu's "+blue". This is a must-listen album recommended to a wide range of listeners, from city pop to fusion to new age / ambient fans!!

Japan-born, London-based composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Hiro Ama (Teleman) announces his debut solo album ‘Music for Peace and Harmony’, set for release on 4 October via Prah Recordings.

Seeking solace amidst today’s chaotic world, Hiro turned to an obscure 1980s Japanese synthesiser called the Waraku – literally translated to “peace and harmony” – to craft an album that blends electro-acoustic textures and warm melodies, while drawing on classical romanticism, spiritual jazz and electronic music. The album features collaborations from British singer Keeley Forsyth and flautist Gail Tasker.

“A lot of things are fragile and chaotic at the moment in this world, and I wanted to make music to soothe my mind and heart. Modern music sometimes sounds too pristine and sanitised. I like those spontaneous sounds. ’ says Hiro.

Hiro Ama’s meticulous approach is evident in every aspect of the album, from playing almost all the instruments to producing and mixing. Incorporating sounds of the Waraku’s koto (Japanese harp), drums, and synths alongside the Jupiter 8, DX7, and piano, Hiro explores organic and electronic sounds. Notably, instead of traditional drums, Hiro can be heard humming the drum parts to create a texture reminiscent of old jazz records. Keeley Forsyth’s haunting vocals on the tracks ‘Metal Wires’ and ‘Billowing’ bring a particular intensity that complements the album’s spacious instrumentation. Hiro was inspired by Debussy’s famous adage, “music is the space between the notes”, and throughout, the album is underscored by an ethos of spaciousness and simplicity.

Thematically, ‘Music for Peace and Harmony’ also explores the healing power of nature. Tracks like ‘Find Me In The Nearest Forest’ and ‘Forest Bathing’ are rooted in Hiro’s love of the natural world and inspired by the Japanese practice of Shinrinyoku (forest bathing).

Hiro Ama's debut album unfolds with gentle melodies where classical and jazz influences meet modern electronic production. ‘Music for Peace and Harmony’ is an essential record to discover life’s moments of peace and beauty.

On the verge of their 40th and in the midst of their 20th anniversaries, respectively, HIJOKAIDAN and SISSY SPACEK merge in Tokyo for their first collaboration, featuring JOJO HIROSHIGE, JUNKO, T. MIKAWA, CHARLIE MUMMA, FUTOSHI OKANO, TENENKO (guest) and JOHN WIESE. Hijokaidan formed in 1979, marking the first wave of groups in Japan exploring extreme noise. Sissy Spacek formed in 1999, often playing in large ensembles of players, and frequently exploring grindcore as a base for creating extreme music, often while eschewing the notion of music altogether. During Sissy Spacek’s 20th anniversary tour in Japan, the recordings of “Amok Time” and “Seven Directions” were made with Hijokaidan in collaboration. While Hijokaidan’s sound has been described as a continuous climax of your entire progressive rock collection, Sissy Spacek’s “Twenty-Five Fragments” is a sequence of peak chaos from their 2018 tour, recorded on walkman for maximum effect.

This is a compilation album by three bands in the Kansai underground scene in the late 70s, including Hijokaidan, which laid the foundation for noise and industrial music in Japan. Since it was released two years before the first album "Zouroku no Kibyou" (1982) , this is sometimes regarded as Hijokaidan making their debut with this compilation. Decades after the release of this album, Japanese noise music stretched out their arms to the world.

Edo” is a cosmic ambient experimental masterpiece conceived in 1977 by Masashi Komatsubara and developed alongside with Hideki Matsutake (a.k.a. Logic System and reductively defined by many as the "fourth member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra"). As a true sound scientist, he pours all his efforts into this record, and aimed at the widest possible use of an electronic instrument that was at the forefront at that time — the Moog IIIc. He extends his research by trying to break down the last wall between modernity and the past: the union and eurythmy between artificial sounds and traditional sounds. All this through a perfect three-way collaboration together with the shamisen musician Konae Imato, and the creation of a unique and extraordinary charming work dedicated to the double soul of the capital of Japan: ancient Edo, now the current day city of Tokyo.

Herbert Eimert was a German music renaissance man, with his expertise ranging from theory to composition, editing, radio production, and criticism. He wrote numerous books on music theory, worked for years at the British occupational forces run Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk. It was there in 1951 that he established a studio for electronic music that he ran until 1961, which hosted recordings from Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Cardew, among others. This brilliant work begins on side A with 'Epitaph Für Aikichi Kuboyama', a brilliant piece of voice and electronics dedicated to a Japanese fishing boat radioman, who lost his life from complications related to radiation poisoning in 1954, after the ship he worked on was contaminated from fallout after the USA's nuclear testing at Bikini atoll. In addition to being a brilliant piece of electronic musique concrete, it is a damning indictment of nuclear warfare, as prescient now as it was during The Cold War. Side B is made up of six studies in electronic music, showcasing Eimert's talents which are as impressive as his more famous contemporaries. Essential early electronic music.

Here is a portal to a vast and relatively unknown world, the Japanese cyber-occult underground media scene of the early 1990s; our guide is the late Henry Kawahara, a media artist and electronic music producer whose expansive and visionary conception of digital technology merged with a desire to break free of the constraints of mere rationality.

This collection, the first-ever archival release of his work, is drawn from recordings released during the period 1991-1996, an exceptionally fertile time for Kawahara. Originally released on CD by a few Japanese independent labels including Hachiman Publishing, a cyber-occult / new-age / old shinto book specialist, the releases were available mainly in book stores, so this sumptuous and prescient music has remained relatively unknown. The original titles and tag lines of the CDs give clues about Kawahara’s interests and the music itself: Digital Mushroom, Subtropical Illusion, Never-ending Asia, and so on. This 15-track gateway compilation is available on double 12” vinyl and CD; the CD version has two extra discs featuring sound from two art installations entitled Dysteleology - α and Dysteleolog - β from the 1990s. All formats feature extensive English liner notes. Cover art by 2yang, with liner notes by Keisuke Oki and Koki Emura, with an interview of Sūgen Takeda (Hachiman Publishings)

"Henry Kawahara has been called “the Jon Hassell of Japan”, but upon closer inspection one finds that his work operates on very different terms. Like Hosono's forays into computerized Ryukyu folk “sightseeing music” or Tsutomu Ōhashi's Ecophony trilogy, Kawahara's world projected ancient musical traditions and notions of cultural identity onto the modern digital plane through a fusion of cybernetic thinking and pan-asian cultural introspection that makes Western attempts to do the same seem quaint in comparison. Kawahara's omnidirectional sound “illusions” were constructed not as albums but psychological experiences, billowing with a then-nascent notion of early 90s cybernetic spirituality that was proliferating on both sides of the Pacific as the hyperlinked state of global connectivity we know today was just beginning to crystalize. Through digital representations of folk instruments, shifting Midi sequencing and custom binaural recording technology he aimed for psychoacoustic effect as much as artistic, all via a countercultural form of distribution untethered from the commercial expectations of post-bubble modes of artistic production. This EM collection draws out the best of his fruitful early-mid 90s period into a revelatory sequence, generously opening Kawahara's world to all." — Spencer Doran (Visible Cloaks)

This anthology is the second compilation from EM Records of the works of the late Henry Kawahara, a media artist and electronic music producer who was particularly active in the Japanese cyber-occult underground of the 1990s, a scene linked with technologies such as 3D (binaural) recordings, brain machines, sound chairs, computer graphics and compact discs. These tracks, produced 1990-95, include a series of recordings described as “Parallel Data Sounds” and “Sound Lsd”, a “new language system that speaks directly to the cerebrum” using “frequency components that are not perceived by the conscious mind”, reflecting Kawahara’s interest in concepts such as astrology, love mantras, and astral projection. Also here are two pieces featuring dolphin sounds and human brainwave feedback, as well as pieces from a recording unit called H Music De-perception (hmd) and a group called Xiaoyun. The majority of tracks here were not originally released under Kawahara’s name, but this compilation is an essential key to decoding the Henry Kawahara saga, and also an unveiling of the secret we planted in the previous release, "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm: Essential Henry Kawahara," which Kawahara himself was involved in selecting before his death.