URASHIMA - Forced Exposure

$28.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 3/24/2023

Japanese solo project Jun Konagaya's Grim released the beautiful EP, Message, in 1987. It was his first and sole full folk music release despite having an album called Folk Music in 1986 that was a classic industrial album, featuring Yukio Nagoshi, founding member of the Vasilisk unit, on guitar and percussion and A. Takahashi on vocals, with collaboration and technical support from Tomo Kuwabara, partner and co-founder with Jun Konagaya of the legendary group White Hospital. This EP kind of feels like walking through an ancient fairy tale forest, all hazy, and magical, and slightly creepy. Remastered with the entire A-side enclosing the original six tracks and the B-side featuring the 2021 noise-oriented remix. Edition of 199.

$28.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 3/24/2023

Reissue, originally released in 1996. Along with Merzbow, Incapacitants, and Hijokaidan, Masonna is one of the best (known) Japanese noise projects. A psychedelic touch, cascades of electronic noise and vocal belching mixed together constitute the ingredients of Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé, the double-barreled named for Masonna. Yamazaki "Maso" Takushi created Masonna in 1987 and simultaneously he started recordings on cassette tapes and seven inches for his own label named Coquette. His plentiful productions were presented in an ultra-limited edition, sometime totally confidential (one sole copy), and contributed to create a mythology based above all on the astonishing intensity with which "Maso" devastates and reprocesses the vocal cords, in a true total electronic song. In his impressive live performances, he created and electrically overcharged universe, punctuating the electric and vocal sonorous power with some quite moments and brief interruptions, conferring a very particular dynamic to his pieces. Inner Mind Mystique, released for the first time in 1996, includes seven studio recordings are making full use skillfully editing how to edit cut-up, in which elaborate lump-sum making has been performed with the effects, burbling electro noises, high-pitched twees, and other sci-fi sounds, erupting out to drown out the screams, as if to make full use of the ancestral vocal sound. With the "harshtronics", the extensive set of pedals that is used by Masonna to filter vocal and feedbacks, are surpassed all extremes with a full frequency violence that is as fast as it was psychedelic. Everything is scraped, cosmic, and beautiful and focuses an electrically overcharged universe, punctuating the thrilling and vocal sonorous power with some quite moments and brief interruptions, conferring a very particular dynamic to work. Each pieces display a vast array of electronic sound events meticulously sequenced to a complex vocal fusion symbolizing the entire spectrum of earthly and heavenly sounds. Dynamic extremes evoke a restless flight through space, or through the depths of human subconsciousness, between dream and reality. Ultimately the noise disappears, like a dot in the sky gradually fading into nothingness -- an "ascension" that closes the loop in a ritual of life that can begin anew again at any time. Truly stunning and historically monumental within the genre, it can't be missed by any fan of Japanese experimental music and noise. Faithful reproduction of the original 1996 release on Release Entertainment; includes A3 poster and cardboard insert; edition of 299.

$40.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 3/24/2023

Reissue, originally released in 1990. Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of what music could be. Embracing technology and the machine, even in its earliest iterations, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at an unadulterated manifestation of sonic expression that has continued across the last 44 years, setting the pace for the entire genre of noise along the way. When it comes to Japanese noise, few projects have pushed boundaries or risen to a more iconic status than Merzbow. The mutant child of punk and experimental music, the project's blistering sounds -- as singular and wild as they are unique -- are among the movement's most important, definitive statements, continuously laying the groundwork for countless artists who have followed in its wake. Cloud Cock OO Grand marks a new era for Merzbow, the first of many CDs that will go in the direction we'd see in the '90s. It is also the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow's '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl. Composed and performed on synthesizers, metal devices, noise electronics, and string instruments, all recorded at extreme volumes, Cloud Cock OO Grand's five tracks present an enthralling sonic assault, deeply driven by the presence of electronic sounds, played against the sparse interjections of Akita's heavily processed strings, that push toward new territories of the extreme, while subtly nodding toward historical gestures from the early years of the avant-garde. On the double vinyl, the tracks are not only remastered by Merzbow, but are recontextualized and open up a new sense of his studio experimentation at the time. Cloud Cock OO Grand is a stunning feat of remarkable importance within the genre of noise, delivering this long unavailable masterstroke back into our hands, while further illuminating the project's crucial work from the 1990s. This is an absolute must for the indoctrinated Merbow fan as much as those just entering this incredible world. Cover faithfully reproduces the original artwork; includes a poster; edition of 299.

$28.00 PREORDER RELEASE DATE: 3/24/2023

First time reissue, originally released in 1986. Solmania is a Japanese noise music project founded in 1984 by Masahiko Ohno. The hallmark of this amazing artist, who builds his experimental electric guitars from spare parts, is his freakish ability to use the stringed instrument by generating absolutely unique sounds, both in his live performances and recordings. The guitars used by Masahiko Ohno are multi-neck guitars and harp guitars and take on extremely bizarre shapes, using unconventional body shapes, extra-necks, strings, and pickups in unusual places, and various extraneous gadgets such as mics or tweets. Pushing far beyond expectations of free improvisation, Solmania weaves blistering passages that incorporate touchstones from progressive, punk, metal, noise, and drone, into more intricate movements of dystopian avant-gardism, culminating as a strikingly forward-thinking expanse of sonic creativity that pushing toward uncharted ground. Still, in all this, his advanced technical and interpretive skills are always evident, and his sense of lyricism in all music, quite profound. Traveling through the winding and jagged grooves of modified noise guitar, you come across Highdrophobia. Recorded and mixed in September 1986 and released the following month on cassette on Fatagaga Tapes FTC-08 in an extremely limited edition, this rare gem finally rears its ugly head in a new analog version on 12" vinyl. With his stunning modified guitar, Solmania uses tape, radio, metal, turntable, and vocals to create three incredible sound tracks of wild noise madness, offering the listener an excellent overview of his music's development. From side A single session, with its gumtree-shaking shimmer and mottled chords, through to the wildly sophisticated free noise sculpting of side B, divided into two tracks, where a horse-galloping guitar figure transform and uplift it from standard to something deeply original. A sublime, noisy effort of left field DIY minimalism constructed from recurring guitar pieces, vocal and a peppering of diverse object as turntables, radio and invisible effects, Highdrophobia illuminates a hidden but remarkable legacy of a great performer at the begin of his creativity and consciousness in the mid of the '80s. A masterpiece of guitar drone, its dense harmonics and overtones induce trance-like states, providing one of the most creatively thrilling, immersive experiences. New artwork by the artist himself; reverse cardboard sleeve plus 12" insert; edition of 199.

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Reissue, originally released in 1982. Zouroku No Kibyo is the first album by Hijokaidan, released in April 1982. It is a compilation of live recordings from 1981, when the extreme performances of Hijokaidan first attracted attention, and is a record of the chaotic inner energy of young people in their early 20s, influenced by rock, jazz, contemporary music, and avant-garde art, erupting outside. It was first released on the independent Osaka label Unbalance Records and came to be regarded as a historical masterpiece of independent recordings in Japan. It was later released on CD several times by Alchemy Records, and was also released by the major Japanese label Teichiku Entertainment. An analog reissue of the album was released in 2006 by the German label Vinyl On Demand in the form of a double LP set. This will be the first time that the album will be reissued in its original form as a single analog disc, this time on Urashima in 2022. Hijokaidan is a Japanese noise band with a turning lineup that has ranged from two members to as many as fourteen in its early days. The group is the project of guitarist Yoshiyuki "JOJO" Hiroshige, its one constant member, who is owner of the legendary Osaka-based Alchemy Records. The ensemble began at the very end of the '70s as a performance art-based unit whose anarchic shows would often involve destruction of venues and audio equipment, food and garbage being thrown around, and on-stage urination. As the group's lineup changed over time, their focus became less performance-based and more musically based, fine-tuning their sound into a dense wall of white noise created by each member both for live performances and for studio recordings. Zouroku no Kibyo resting at a fascinating juncture between space-harsh progressive, improv and noise, it was years ahead of its time when it first appeared becoming one of the great holy grails of Japan noise. Creatively thrilling -- filled with emotive highs and lows -- it's a crucial piece in the puzzle of Japan's wild and wonderful history of noise music. The album pushes noise practice and the very notions of language into uncharted realms, improvising with a ferocity different from that of hard rock or punk, and a chaos unlike that of free jazz. Released with original cover art with draw by Hideshi Hino, plus all the inserts that were on the original 1982 LP: live photo book (two A3 double face foldable), one Japanese sheet, and a lucky triangle card with, exclusively for this edition, extensive liner notes by JOJO in Japanese and English. Edition of 299.

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Reissue, originally released in 1991. Incapacitants are the best noise band to ever come out of Japan; the group was formed in 1981 in Osaka, as the solo project of Toshiji Mikawa, a member of the amazing noise group Hijokaidan. Mikawa later moved to Tokyo, where he joined with Fumio Kosakai (also an occasional member of Hijokaidan, as well as a former member of C.C.C.C.) to make Incapacitants a duo and they released its first album Feedback of N.M.S. on Alchemy Records CD in 1991. Sometimes it's the result of luck. In others it's due to years of rigorous work or through unlikely combinations of individual creative practices. In the case of Feedback of N.M.S., the first release to feature the collaborative duo of Mikawa and Kosakai, all three are in play. Comprising three tracks of visionary expression -- incorporating elements of junk metal, modular synthesis, hand-made noisy objects, and real-time instrumental and vocal improvisation -- it encounters each artist entering a new stage of their career, harnessing the challenges posed by the other as a means to drive toward new creative unknowns. Central to this is the pair's unique approach to structure and form, in addition to their chosen instruments and electronics. The first track "Curse Of Ceauşescu", played on two sides of the first vinyl is something incredible. A truly stunning, visionary expanse of texture and tonality -- pushing noise practice and the very notions of language into uncharted realms. The others two tracks that fill the sides of the second vinyl complete this masterpiece increasingly pushing into more constrained of electronics phenomena, site specific resonance, and complex harmonic interplay, that consistently rethink the terms of noise, infusing it with tension, dissonance, and a deeply emotive, human touch. An absolutely masterful piece of work, threaded with risk, ambition, raw immediacy, and precision. While astounding artists in their own right, deserving every bit of the accolades they've thus far received, Toshiji Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai seem capable of something profound together that has yet to have heard. Feedback of N.M.S. is everything you would hope to hear from an experimental endeavor and so much more. Includes six cards reproducing Takuya Sakaguchi's original drawings and adding an unreleased drawing and extensive notes in Japanese and English; edition of 299.

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Green Wheels is Merzbow in its most straightforward, most genuine, most uncontrolled and refined form. Originally released by the legendary US label Self Abuse Records in 1995 on CD and 5-inch vinyl record, both housed in a foil-lined cardboard box with the abstract and impressive art work created by the artist himself, which has become another of the fetishist objects of Merzbow and now incredibly hard to find. Like all of his work since the early '90s, Green Wheels is an uncompromising cascade of brutal noise. In this album you find nothing of the minimalism of his early '80s, completely overwhelmed by synthesizers and handmade objects that become his unconventional weapons to create bursts of noise. The three tracks of the original CD, radiate the listener from the rackets of a rain of nails on metal plates, the synthetic crashing bombing, industrial percussion and the metal (green) wheels that roll and scrape. The two very short 5-inch tracks hurt you with thousands of jabs in just a matter of minutes. Then closes with two unreleased tracks from the same fantastic mid-1990s period which can undoubtedly be considered two wonderful discoveries for their intensity and beauty; musical pieces that blend perfectly and complete the reissue on this cassette. When you get to the end of the tape, you will feel purified, once the granite landslide subsides. It is like mental liposuction, eradicating all anguishes and hesitations. Everything was perfectly recorded and mixed in March-May 1995 at ZSF Produkt Studio, Masami Akita's home studio from the late '80s to late '90s; the outcome it's warm and bright as the bare steel of Shinjuko skyscrapers under the (rising) sun of hot Japanese summers. Tape reproduces the original art work; edition of 199; O-card 300g wrapping clear box with j-card and laser print green shell; includes download code.

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Originally released on CD in 1990 by Alchemy Records as part of the Good Alchemy Series, Rainbow Electronics marks the pinnacle of Merzbow's late '80s noise phase. Selected and transformed from about 21 hours tape of primitive raw material recorded during three years (1987-1990) in 14 fragments lasting about 74 minutes, this monumental work is an aural trip through a cold plotted universe of intergalactic space ships and golden celestial bodies. Remastered in December 2019 and split into two parts directly by the artist for the cassette version it opens up with a slow, kind of creepy tempo, reaching from dirty harsh noise flows coupled with eerie reverbed screeches and scrapes of iron objects. Noise and blasts come from every angle, and all you can do is sit and take it. Then continues with solid drumbeats briefly emerging from the static and disappearing just as quickly, again long stretches of subdued electronic drones buzzing along sleepily and the occasional sudden shift of noise into something more violent, though it all happens kind of slowly and gradually. A truly mesmerizing and immersive body of sound and its intense finish is something of pure artform. "I don't need a lot of words about Merzbow. All you have to do is immerse yourself in the sound." translated from Japanese liner notes of Alchemy Records CD by Toshiji Mikawa. Edition of 199; O-card 300g wrapping clear box with j-card and laser print orange shell; includes download code.

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"From around 1998, Yamazaki Maso started to incorporate trippy, spacey electronic elements into Masonna performances. In order to better pursue these elements alone, in 2000 he started Space Machine, his self-labeled 'analog electronic cosmic sound project'. For as long as he had been performing under the Masonna moniker, Yamazaki had been ardent fan of early electronic music from the '50s and '60s, and in order to research the impact that electronic sounds had upon the spiritual lineage audible in sixties US and British psychedelic music and seventies krautrock, Yamazaki began collecting analog synthesizers and vintage electronic equipment. He continuously experimented with these instruments in his home studio, and while groping towards an understanding he discovered a new direction for his own music, a direction different from his work as Masonna. The violent extremity of Masonna live performances made no allowances for avoiding inevitable and direct physical damage to the body. In 2000 Yamazaki was forced to temporarily cease Masonna activities due to ill health, and this allowed him to concentrate more fully on Space Machine. Space Machine -- the end result of Yamazaki's daily inner trip explorations of music at his Space Machine Systems Studio -- and Masonna are like two sides of the same coin. Space Machine's concept exists at the opposite pole to Masonna's screaming noise action and extreme one-man rock band style. In Space Machine, all vocals, physical action and rock elements have been comprehensively excluded in favor of a non-rhythmic, pure electronic sound that cannot even be considered as part of the noise genre. The sounds are created using only analog echo machines and analog synthesizers (including the EMS VSC3, Roland System 100 & 100M, PAIA 4700 Modular, Doepfer Modular, etc.) There is no use whatsoever of the fuzz and distortion effects so characteristic of noise and rock's musical palette and which were heavily featured in Masonna. While the sound does have points in common with what is generally known as electronica or onkyo, what sets it firmly apart is the music's tenaciously psychedelic viewpoint. The absence of a beat signals its difference to the hedonistic physicality of trance dance music. And of course, there is no connection to old synthesizer music with its whiff of religion and its leanings towards new age naturalism. However, in the fervent and endless cosmic spaces of Space Machine, in the infinite floating weave of its future retro electronic tapestry, in its mixture of the organic and inorganic we can perceive an uncanny vibration..." --Satoru Higashiseto (from box set liner notes)

This incredible box, released in a deluxe wooden edition with digital printing on the lid, contains the first album Cosmos From Diode Ladder Filter released on CD on Alchemy Records and the four mini CDs released on P-Tapes, California based label run by Damion Romero, reissued for the first time on vinyl on three records. The box is accompanied by a series of photos of the impressive equipment used by Maso Yamazaki taken by Masahiko Ohno and extensive notes in Japanese by Satoru Higashiseto, translated into English by Alan Cummings. Edition of 199.

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First time vinyl reissue. Few projects can claim the seminal importance of the Incapacitants on worldwide noise scene. The group was formed in 1981 in Osaka, as the solo project of Toshiji Mikawa, a member of the amazing noise group Hijokaidan. Later Mikawa moved to Tokyo, where he joined with Fumio Kosakai, also an occasional member of Hijokaidan, as well as a former member of C.C.C.C., to make Incapacitants a duo. They've been making some of the most unremittingly ear-shattering racket for decades as Incapacitants, one of the most significant noise outfits to emerge from the groundbreaking Japanese scene in the early 1980s, and still one of the most radical and powerful. They've consistently been responsible for some of the most complex, chaotic, loud, and downright fun releases in the genre. Almost thirty years have passed since the first publication of Quietus. Is the fourth Incapacitants album released on Alchemy Records and along with Feedback Of N.M.S. has definitively consecrates them as the "Gods of Noise". "No Risk, No Return" fills completely side A, and it's just uncontaminated, pure electronic distortion of the highest quality: exciting, frightening, hypnotic and fascinating all at the same time. Side B open with a small noise gem, furrows that precede the intensity and the noisy purity that will characterize all the production of the Incapacitants, titled "Backfire". And then comes the masterpiece "Goby Fishing", whose sound is particularly exciting, agonizingly dense and full of detail, with thrilling psychedelics feedback and sonic bulldoze, all sounding crystal clear. It's the perfect soundtrack for your lake holidays or, for anyone with an inkling of interest, it's a wonderful time capsule from the Golden Age of Japanese Noise. A highly sought-after milestone in noise music -- bridging rigorous practices of experimentation and highly refined elements of power electronics and hold countless revelations for anyone yet to encounter their wonders first hand. Incapacitants create inexhaustible chaos verging on the sublime, and take you on a truly excruciating journey toward catharsis. This is truly the spirit of noise: no macho posturing, no pseudo-intellectualism, no "rocking out", no pretense! Fully remastered; edition of 199 copies.

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Mauthausen Orchestra was one of the most important musical projects of the Italian industrial scene in the '80s and has contributed to the birth of the power electronics and harsh noise across the globe. Tape after tape has constituted, in a few years, the backbone of what we will know as an alienating and extremist style, made of metal nightmares and sonic torture, often dilated, dissected and extended up to the limit of endurance. Mauthausen Orchestra carry you as real rituals of a civilization without gods, in a pure world of suffering. Infinite modulations towards a sky that has now disappeared and locked in concrete. A fierce nihilism that overflows into the undefined territory between mind and matter, marking your brains and your skin. A single act of sensory rape trying to deconstruct any rational particle that approaching the sound composition. About almost ten years after the death of Pierpaolo Zoppo, an unforgettable artist and a forerunner of industrial music with his Mauthausen Orchestra cult" project, this new release of completely unreleased material -- containing tracks he composed between 2009 and 2012 -- is released by Urashima in double cassette format, after CD format released last year by Standa, with five bonus tracks (for a total about forty minutes of unreleased material) not present on CD. This new work -- a release which has been officially authorized by his family -- shows Pierpaolo Zoppo at the peak of his artistic maturity: after investigating the most extreme and intransigent sounds for years with impetus, he finds a moment of reflection and some quietness, without completely abandoning its original instinctive and "wild" nature, he knocks corners and softens forms, giving fifteen tracks of music/non-music as "strong" as ever, but at the same time touching and "poetic" as never before. Private Thoughts Recordings (the title of the album was taken from notes that Pierpaolo himself had pinned with a felt-tip pen on a few home-burned discs containing his original recordings) is perhaps the best gift that the artist could have left you before departing for his long journey, and the most intense proof of his deep sensitivity and his incredible avant-garde "sound visions". Housed in a beautiful deluxe wooden box of seven inch size with five doble face inserts with nine collage by Stefano Gentile and audio compiled and mastered by Pierpaolo's longtime friend Giuseppe Verticchio. Double cassette in a limited edition of 99, hand numbered copies; includes download code.

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Exquisitely recorded and mixed between February and May 1995 at ZSF Produkt Studio, Masami Akita's home studio from the late '80s to late '90s, Magnesia Nova is stunning immersion into the world of Merzbow during one of the project's most engrossing and important period. Inspired by the intersections between Greece and Japan and between Western and Eastern civilization along with work of Athanasius Kircher (all of the track titles have been taken from Kircher's works), is a true blasts of noise, meticulously crafted into gorgeous sound collages. For the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow's '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl, in double LP, featuring last side of second LP with 20 minutes of unreleased bonus track took from the same period of the recording sessions. Like all of his work since the early nineties, Magnesia Nova is an uncompromising cascade of brutal noise. In this album you find nothing of the minimalism of his early '80s, completely overwhelmed by synthesizers and handmade objects that become his unconventional weapons to create bursts of noise. The album begins with "Rituale Lucis" and "Magnesia Nova", a parade of overloaded, layered and pulsating synthesizers and feedback. Two minutes are enough for the artist to take us to the territories of the most creative experimentation in the history of noise. There are sounds from a parallel universe suspended in time and straight out of an old amp that mumbles before going back to freaking out with synth razors. The sounds are unlike anything else played before or after. You find yourself in the world of dreams and the rhythm of the sound construction thickens, until the great progression of eternal noise materializes. On the second side of the first record the crashes of noise return and the gates of primordial chaos open with "Oedipus Organum", while "Specula Naturalum" comes to an end, as if it had never begun: perhaps it has been there since the beginning of time, an explosion of synthetic sounds, which seem like the spatial drifts for minor chords by Klaus Schulze. The second record open with "Pantometrum Erotica" that begins with a dark modulation, where an obsessive rhythm alternates with screams of noise and the now familiar synthesizer sound and continue with "Sphinx Mystagoga" where everything collapses into a single otherworldly synthesizer voice that explores an uninhabited planet. Magnesia Nova is a stunning piece of work, that blur the boundaries between pure noise, performance and experimental music. Redesigned reverse cardboard gatefold sleeve LP with original paint art by Masami Akita; edition of 299.

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Reissued for the first time on vinyl. Formed in 1984, Solmania is a music experimental project of Masahiko "Masaki" Ohno and is one of the earliest amazing noise projects out of Japan. Pushing far beyond expectations of free improvisation, Masahiko weaves blistering passages that incorporate touchstones from progressive, punk, metal, noise, and drone, into more intricate movements of dystopian avant-gardism, culminating as a strikingly forward-thinking expanse of sonic creativity that pushing toward uncharted ground. Erosion captures an astounding concert at Eggplant, in Osaka May 15th, 1987, recorded at the venue, using guitar, tape, radio, metal, turntable, and voice and published on cassette by Solmania own legendary label Fatagaga Tapes the same year in very limited edition. Vinyl is comprising a single, extended work over two sides, for about 30 minutes where the artist dives into one of the most joyous and tense musical expressions to have emerged during that decade, generating dense, trance-inducing guitar drones that seem to touch the eternal, washing the ear in rich overtones and harmonics embellishments that transcend their sources -- the original instrument -- in uncanny ways. While unquestionably a work of free improvisation, bordering on noise, Erosion is particularly noteworthy for how far it often strays from the expected tropes and syntaxes of that idiom. Intricate and delicate movements, the artist weaves moments of profound catharsis into moody passages that are permeated by images of dystopian sci-fi - driven by the sounds of guitar -- creating a soundtrack for an ever darkening world, while managing to retain all the hope and optimism embodied by a creative territory and language that activates conversation and the communication of ideas across distinctions of cultural, individual practice, and time. Erosion is a masterpiece of guitar drone, its dense harmonics and overtones induce trance-like states, providing one of the most creatively thrilling, immersive experiences that we can call to mind. Fully remastered from the original analog tapes. Edition of 199.

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With his flagship project, The Rita, Sam McKinlay has explored and distilled into sound various permutations of obsession and vice for over five lustrums. Though his musical approach has remained more or less consistent, the subject matter inspiring McKinlay's work has periodically shifted through the years, mapping out the constellation of non-musical obsessions that occupy his mind: sharks, drag racing, Giallo cinema, skateboarding, snorkeling, nylons, ballet, and females to name just a few. Frequently, McKinlay utilizes field recordings and other sounds sourced from the objects of interest before encrypting them in an opaque shell of noise. For The Rita, the abstraction and minimalism of the female form has played a major role in the fetishized development of his source sounds and harsh sound manipulations. Eye shadow and eyebrow pencil pushed to raccoon-like limits and nylon stockings have been used repeatedly in past recordings to personally investigate via harsh sound the abstracted qualities of the aesthetics. For this completely new work utilizing aspects of the female as starting point, The Rita picks apart all leg and foot medical taping/bandaging source sounds by Gabi Losoncy. The various portrayals of the invisible woman in popular media and her choice to be wrapped in medical bandage to represent her otherwise invisible bodily form. The taping and bandaging are articulated and applied in such a way to envision the woman's form in a linear fashion, not unlike contour lines on a map. The predatory nature of her invisibility is tightly cloaked in bandage form. Crushingly beautiful, conceptual rich, and patent by a deep sense of emotive tension. Housed in a beautiful deluxe wooden box of seven inch size with laser engraving of original artwork by Sam McKinlay, two doble face black and white press on high-quality natural paper inserts and full colored letterpress postcard with soft touch lamination. Double cassette in a limited edition of 99, hand numbered copies; includes download code.

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Akifumi Nakajima was probably best known for his work under the name Aube, which was one of the more prolific and most interesting noise acts from Japan. He had an impeccable and marvelous sense of design and appreciation for the materials, taking packaging beyond just using regular old paper with his wonderful and unique label G.R.O.S.S., dedicated to releasing experimental music and noise, in addition to his own recordings as Aube. Hiroshi Hasegawa formed the Japanese noise act C.C.C.C. in 1989, and own label Endorphine Factory, that sprang from Japanese noise scene, during what can be considered the "golden age of noise". He also behind solo projects Mortal Vision and Astro pointing to synthetic vortexes and psychedelic ejections. Fumio Kosakai is among the founding members of C.C.C.C., also an occasional member of Hijokaidan, and a permanent member of the largest noise duo Incapacitants with Toshiji Mikawa, one of the most significant noise outfits to emerge from the groundbreaking Japanese scene in the 1980s, and still one of the most radical and powerful. Club Skull is the creative juncture between these three brilliant minds that has produced unceasingly exciting lands of sound. Not only has it fizzed below aspects of noise music, but great swaths of ambient and experimental music, synthesizer, and tape culture. Covering a vast amount of territories within its remarkable cohesiveness -- from glacial passages, brooding beats and shifting long-tones that paint images of a darkened world, to long stretches of playful tribalism and repetitive minimal synths and rhythms -- The Origins Of... emerges from the shadows of history to reveal a missing link between ambient and quite music, and the electronic and noise act, created by one of the great unsung visionaries to have emerged from Japan during the early 1990s. The actual makeup of the album places it as an entirely free-standing gesture, almost unlike anything else of its time and place; too delicate to be industrial, too quiet to be noise, too nonconcrete to be ambient, and too melodic to be pure electronics. These three formidable actors of the Japanese noise scene, gather together in the studio at After Beat in Tokyo on 1992 to record the first (and only) session. Mixed at Studio Mecca and released by Akifumi Nakajima on G.R.O.S.S. in 1993 on tape. First vinyl release, restored and remastered from original DAT master; edition of 199.

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Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé, the double-barreled name for Masonna, is one of most prolific, adventurous, and respected noise artists, making dozens of releases on his own legendary and astonishing label Coquette, presenting them in very limited editions, and reflecting his predilection for '60s psychedelic music revisited in its own very peculiar way. He transforms his voice into noise, feeding the microphone back through a process of extreme distortion. His shouts become clipped bursts of overloaded sound, doubled and extended by a delay that displace the sounds into stuttered blasts of static. Masonna claims that his interest in making noise is rooted in childhood encounters with the sounds of destruction on TV. Initially playing in Japanese punk band The Sadist, active since the mid '80s, as a vocalist under aliases of Rin with his buddy and guitarist Michio Teshima, who founded Vanilla Records in 1985 to release the band's works. In a very few years Michio's label will become a reference point for all Japanese noise projects, releasing artists such as Violent Onsen Geisha, C.C.C.C., Incapacitants, Solmania, Aube, Merzbow, and Masonna. In 1988, Masonna released debut album Like a Vagina on cassette by Coquette, an overdriven blast of psychedelia and harsh noise. Masonna Vs. Bananamara, Masonna's second release, was originally issued on Vanilla Records in 1989 in a tiny vinyl edition of 290 copies. Given its iconic status and rarity, it's little wonder that it currently commands heavy figures on the secondary market. In classic DIY form, it was recorded at home by Masonna on a variety of instruments, with hallucinatory vocals, and used no mixing and overdubbing, rendering a startlingly visceral and dense effect. Across the album's two sides -- containing a mind boggling 29 tracks -- Masonna transforms his voice into noise, feeding the microphone back through a process of extreme distortion. His shouts become clipped bursts of overloaded sound, doubled and extended by a delay that displace the sounds into stuttered blasts of static, heavily underscored by explosive blistering guitars, and cascades of electronic noise, culminating as one of the most striking and emotive gestures in the entire genre of noise. Absolutely incredible and visionary -- not to mention an engrossing, challenging, and thrilling listen -- Masonna Vs. Bananamara allows you to witness where it all began for a hugely important artist's lifelong commitment to an exploration of noise music. First ever reissue; edition of 299.

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Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The moniker of Japanese artist Masami Akita was born in Tokyo in 1979. Inspired by dadaism and surrealism, Akita took the name for his project from German artist Kurt Schwitters's pre-war architectural assemblage The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau. Working in his home, he quickly gained notoriety as a purveyor of a musical genre composed solely of pure, unadulterated noise. Embracing technology and the machine, first in an absolutely analog way and then welcoming digital innovation, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme. Hybrid Noisebloom, originally issued by Vinyl Communications on CD in 1997, is the latest in this trilling bread crumb trail. It is also the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow's '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl. Composed and performed on EMS and Moog Synthesizers, Theremin, metal devices, noise electronics, and voice, all recorded at extreme volumes, Hybrid Noisebloom's five tracks present a fascinating sonic assault, heavily driven by the presence of electronic sounds, played against the sparse interjections of Akita's heavily processed vocals, that push toward new territories of the extreme, while subtly nodding toward historical gestures from the early years of the avant-garde. "Plasma Birds" investigates timbral relationships, the fragmentation of melody, and abrasive, provocative noise -- shifting from the sparse, airy, and restrained, to dance clusters of interplay and back again. "Minotaurus" finds a strange middle ground between the intuitive logics of their instruments; synth and electronics taking on decidedly percussive approaches, while metal device's fractured polyrhythms and beats often veer toward the presence of a notable tonality. "Mouse Of Superconcetion", formed by screeches and from swinging and chugging to stepped back and sparse combinations of rhythm and tone, moves from the lingering sensibilities of straight-ahead synth to radically out hard blow fire. Launching from a total wall of sound, "Neuro Electric Butterfly" takes the listening on an endlessly surprising journey through its devices' inner world, shifting between airy open passages that feature endless combinations of one or more effects, to furious moments of sonorous lashings where the sound falls in together in brilliant dialogical periods of conversant texture and psychedelic intervention. "The Imaginary Coversation Of Blue" embeds bristling fragments, percolating tones, and poignant dissonances within a sweeping field of echoes rumbles and drones. First vinyl release; edition of 299.

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Urashima present the first ever vinyl reissue of Kansai based noise band Hijokaidan's Modern, originally released in 1989 on CD. Resting at a fascinating juncture between space-harsh progressive, impro and noise, it was years ahead of its time when it first appeared becoming one of the great holy grails of Japan noise. Creatively thrilling -- filled with emotive highs and lows -- it's a crucial piece in the puzzle of Japan's wild and wonderful history of noise music. The core of the band revolves around the trio Jojo Hiroshighe, Junko, and Toshiji Mikawa with sporadically the participation of various artists both for live performances and for studio recordings. On this vinyl shows up in the classic three-person line-up leading the way to one of the best reissues among offerings of their incredible discography. Modern double-vinyl LP, carving out uncharted territory between Faust and mid-70s Soft Machine, pushed improvisation into a near undefinable realm. The sound of Hijokaidan subverts and deconstructs; hits you, not like an avalanche, but like a prolonged electrical discharge on neuromuscular receptors: the most visceral and buried side of the noise is hidden in Jojo's pick-ups, in Junko's voice and in the extraordinary as well as exceptional object of Toshiji called "the Mikawa". Across the four sides of vinyl, comprising a sole one works, Hijokaidan stretches out, laying down cycling fuzz rhythms and guitar feedback lines that channel the modalism of John Coltrane and hypnotic psychedelia, before embarking upon scream excursions into the outer realms. Incorporating a playful, pop sensibility, without sacrificing its temperaments of violence and extremism, takes on a terrific vision of organized sound; a notion of the avant-garde which falls far closer to its inception as a structured music, than were it has often historically strayed. Fully remastered for vinyl by Nobuki Nishiyama. Gatefold sleeve with photos formerly featured on the CD, with the iconic group photo reprinted inside the gatefold; edition of 299.

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Urashima present a first time vinyl reissue of Violent Onsen Geisha's Shocks! Shocks! Shocks!, originally released on legendary Vanilla Records in 1989. The Tokyo-based Japanese experimental musician Masaya Nakahara known as Violent Onsen Geisha has been dazzling listeners with his entirely singular approach to sound since 1989. Harnessing his unique natural approach to mixier by combining techno, pop samples and hip-hop, as well as his sister's karaoke singing or his parent quarreling, screams and glass or ceramic bowls broken, he incredibly built a body of work in recorded contexts that has almost no parallel, producing arrangements where all the style and the sonic atmosphere meet in a happy junk room and elaborating his delirious patchwork studio from magneto-phone tapes. His amazing cut-up proved interesting to major band such as Sonic Youth and Beck, who invited him on a US tour in 1995. At the height of his music career as Violent Onsen Geisha in 1998, Nakahara published Mari & Fifi No Gyakusatsu Songu Bukku (Mari & Fifi's Massacre Songbook) and made his debut as a novelist. In 2001, he received the 14th Yukio Mishima Award for Arayuru Basho Ni Hanataba Ga ("Bouquets of Flowers Everywhere"), and became increasingly active as a writer and movie critic. Despite the density of its structures, that combine the most disparate musical genres with deafening shouts and crashes, Shock! Shock! Shock! feels like a breath of fresh air, fearlessly skirting the line between creative rigor and focused interplay and a playful irreverence in ways that leave you wondering where the hell you are. A truly thrilling exchange of collages, vacillating between kitsch, the austere, and boundary pushing structures, all played against and pushed onto the next level by Nakahara incredible talent. Unflinchingly beautiful and creatively challenging, Shock! Shock! Shock! completely defies genre and definition, rising as a wonderful reminder of what noise music is all about. A justly radical zone of creative patchwork sound. "For someone who has no musical talent like me, the only thing that I could naturally create was noise." --Masaya Nakahara. Mastered by Andrea Marutti. Edition of 299.

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Limited repress. Urashima present a reissue of The New Blockaders' Changez Les Blockeurs, originally released in 1982. Within the history of noise music, there are few artifacts, as seminal as The New Blockaders' Changez Les Blockeurs. Anyone who has even a casual interest in noise music should need no introduction to The New Blockaders. Hailed by Ron Lessard (of legendary US noise label RRR) as, "the first truly devoted noise artists," TNB self-released their debut LP in 1982. That original LP is now one of the most sought-after (and expensive) noise records ever. The fact that Changez Les Blockeurs is held in such high esteem by the likes of Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound), who was the first person to hear the LP back in 1982 and reworked the album as NWW Plays Changez Les Blockeurs (DPROM 138CD,2018), David Jackman (Organum), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Masami Akita (Merzbow), Toshiji Mikawa (Incapacitants) and countless others is testament to its greatness and well-deserved legendary status. Lying in wait for almost 40 years, the LP emerged again in 2004 as a limited edition on the German Vinyl-On-Demand label, and since then has remained rare, elusive, and coveted -- until now. 2022 will mark the 40th anniversary (or, more accurately, anti-versary) of Changez Les Blockeurs and in celebration of this, Urashima present a limited reissue which has been expertly remastered at Audiplex Studio in Hamburg by Asmus Tietchens, himself a well-known German avant-garde composer. Black virgin vinyl; includes 12x12" insert.

"Changez Les Blockeurscaused a lot of fuss back in the early '80s, with its two 'tracks' of disorientating junk noise, squeaks, scrapes and the pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof. Lumps of metal get thrown around in a bid to resurrect the ghost of Tristan Tzara, two invalids in wheelchairs fencing with broken car aerials, two elephants fencing on bicycles, two squeaky wheelchairs fighting over a slack spring, it could or an army of tin men dismantling a Jean Tinguely sculpture while bouncing around on pogo sticks in need of three-in-one. We'll never know, and that's half of the appeal Changez Les Blockeurs sounds like nothing else before or since. It's magnificent in its absurdity. Its construct is simple but yet devastatingly effective. Today you'd be hard pressed to find anyone involved in Noise who doesn't cite TNB as an influence." --Mark Wharton

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Originally released in 2003. On February 24, 2001 Marco Corbelli take part in the performance "Autopsia dell'opera d'arte vivente come vivisezione del corpo di dio" in the Viareggio art gallery, Studio D'Arte Memoria Indelebile. Together with three other artists he stages an autopsy on a shapeless body, which represents the living work of art. Corbelli actively participates in the pseudo autopsy, as well as sounding the live event. The recording of the sound performance will be released two years later on Slaughter Productions in an extremely limited box set titled Close To A Corpse consisting of three CDr. The first two CDr contain the complete live recording in the Tuscan art gallery. They are improvised synthesizer recordings, an infected and purulent soundtrack, which actually transports you to the mortuary of a corpse and you can smell its stench pervading your senses. The pauses between one burst of sounds and the other are just the introduction to the next nightmare. The third CDr contains ten wonderful unreleased tracks recorded in the studio in September 2002, apart from Basic Procedure Autopsy (recorded and released in 1995), without the use of vocals or other effects: just the faithful "Sequential Circuits Six-Trak". Both the live tracks and those recorded in the studio represent the artist's sonic maturity and stand out from the rest of his discography for their eccentricity and the ability to make exceptional use of analog synthesizers, pulsating tones and enveloping frequencies by mixing a shocking atmosphere of hellish manifestation, where cruelty and compulsive disorders are more evident and interesting, showing Corbelli deeper work, pushing himself further into the experience of his concrete "noise" vision. Comes in a double vinyl for studio tracks and double CD for live tracks, fully remastered by Andrea Marutti. Edition of 199.

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Sickness Report was released in 1996 in CD format for Release Entertainment, a sub-label of Relapse were made by Marco Corb, post-industrial sound soaked in death. The A side of the record closes with "Brain Penetration", aseptic and sharp as a razor blade, which bangs you straight in the stomach. The second side of the vinyl continues to drag your mind into the perverse ecosystem created by the author, until you get to exhaustion with "Slow Agony Of A Dying Organism", where the sound of a distorted synth seems to sigh the last gasps: mind stir the suggestion of the powerful, death-diluted stuff that is put into your hands. Stunning and immersive from start to finish, Sickness Report, is pure gold and a highpoint of Atrax Morgue career; it sounds as prescient today as it did at the mid of the '90s. An absolute must that can't be missed. Carefully remastered for the vinyl edition by Andrea Marutti. Edition of 199; virgin black vinyl; A3 size poster.

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Urashima present a reissue of C.C.C.C.'s Cosmic Coincidence Control Center, originally released in 1992. The 1990s were a fascinating moment for music and new idioms of experimental music began to bubble in the underground. While often belonging to highly localized scenes and thus overlooked by a broad listenership in the moment, many of these gestures have proven to be profoundly important and influential and have left an indelible mark on the musical landscapes that have followed in their wake. Particularly notable among others C.C.C.C.'s first album, Cosmic Coincidence Control Center, that sprang from Japanese noise scene, during what can be considered the "golden age of noise". The Japanese noise act C.C.C.C. was formed in 1989 by Hiroshi Hasegawa and Japanese bondage film star Mayuko Hino and was active until 1998. On their first work, recorded at Telecom Studio in Higashi-Nakano, Tokyo on 1991 and released by Hasegawa's own label Endorphine Factory in CD format on 1992, there are four members; each playing a different instrument, to create their own unique sound. Hiroshi Hasegawa and Fumio Kosakai on electronics and synths, Ryuichi Nagakubo on bass and Mayuko Hino on vocals and metal percussion working together make for a diverse project that goes a way beyond the standard "electronic roar" that most noise artists rely on. The result is a startlingly visionary body of sound that stretches across this vinyl reissue, gathering intricate, noise ambiances and captured sonic fragments, deftly manipulated and infiltrated by electronic pulses and various other interventions, toward an immersive and cohesive sonic environment, that drowns the ear in sheets of detail. Bordering on an ecstatic sonic assault of the highest order, the work's movements range from incredible arrangements of electronic noise and tonality to a stunning effort of synth, all constructed with an incredible sense of immediacy and physicality, making the album easily one of the most noteworthy and incredible recordings from C.C.C.C. An absolute gem from the vaults of '90s noise music: bristles with energy, physicality, and immediacy, representing a highwater mark from one of the most important noise collectives of the last 30 years. With Hidenobu Kaneda's pictures from the photo session used for the original CD artwork and Akifumi Nakajima's original notes on layout, Urashima create the perfect replica of the original artwork for the vinyl version; Includes exclusive inserts and posters.

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Urashima present the first vinyl reissue of Masonna's Hate, originally released in 1995. Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé, the double-barreled name for Masonna, of course, is one of most prolific, adventurous, and respected noise artists, making dozens of releases on his own legendary and astonishing label Coquette, presenting them in very limited editions, sometime totally confidential (one sole copy), and reflecting his predilection for '60s psychedelic music revisited in its own very peculiar way. He transforms his voice into noise, feeding the microphone back through a process of extreme distortion. His shouts become clipped bursts of overloaded sound, doubled and extended by a delay that displace the sounds into stuttered blasts of static. From noise lines, to minimal, warbling expanses, to the ambiences and schizoid thinking effects, it's a journey into a versatile mind who we clearly never heard enough from. Released by Coquette on cassette in 1995 in just 15 copies with handmade covers, composed of different materials and inserted in transparent envelopes, the album Hate features one of Masonna's most exciting and extraordinary work. By deploying stripped down microphone-and-scream foundations, Masonna's ingenious sonic palette and his unerring sense of rage are cast in thrilling, clear-eyed relief. The use of pedals and effects overwhelms the vocalizations that are practically not heard and creates an irresistible tension, layering a dazzling array of rich sonic colors, hard fragments, and unsettling timbres over the sort of taut psychedelic feedback used in kosmische musik and the echo of Tangerine Dream's masterpiece Zeit ring out in the grooves of the double vinyl reissue. The polarities are pronounced and brilliantly assembled, injecting even the most rough brushwork with an inescapable air of suspense; it's a real gem, deftly balancing harsh noise and otherworldly effects. A towering holy grail of Japan noise music. Among the most ferocious and rare cassette from the artist discography, finally entering the light of day on vinyl analog support. Gatefold cover; edition of 299.

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Originally released in 1988. Cascades of electronic noise, in a very peculiar way. Masonna transforms his voice into noise, feeding the microphone back through a process of extreme distortion. His shouts become clipped bursts of overloaded sound, doubled and extended by a delay that displace the sounds into stuttered blasts of static. Like A Vagina is one of Maso's first recordings and was released on cassette on his home label Coquette in 1988. The original cassette is graphically provocative and contains a long track on each side. Although quite immature as recordings, you are faced with a real discovery, what will become an exceptional blast of vigor and revelation from Japan. Masonna surpassed all extremes with a full frequency violence that was as fast as it was psychedelic. Explosive few seconds of visceral feedback, fast and beautiful and focuses an electrically overcharged universe then awesome screaming create a complete audio assault. A revelation and terrific listen from start to finish, not to mention a crucial addition to the canon of Japanese noise music and its shadowy history that radically challenges and expands the terms of movement's definitions. An absolutely amazing accomplishment for which Urashima deserve a great deal of credit, offering long overdue attention to a never before available body of work composed by one of Japanese noise's most important figures. An absolute must for seasoned noise music fans and devotes of obscure side of Japan electronic music. Edition of 299.