The first record (1989) from Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha, now available for digital consumption. This is also the only officially-released evidence of the group’s brief incarnation as a quartet, with Haino joined by second guitarist Maki Miura of Shizuka. The way the twin guitars coil like smoke around the skulls of the dynamite rhythm section is one of this set’s many joys, as is Haino’s harmonica playing on the first track (sounds like Dylan’s “Highway 61” slowed to a narcoleptic swamp pace) and his beautiful vocals throughout, moving from forlorn castrato peaks through lung-puncturing screams and growls. In many ways, this is Fushitsusha at their most straight forwardly rocking, a fact that should endear it to any lost Rallizes fans looking for a way ‘in’. Highest recommendation, naturally.

Wild, bombastic high energy rock ‘n’ roll from Keiji Haino’s punishing power trio. The first track on this ludicrously heavy 1994 set sounds like the end credits to your life and is one of Haino’s most epic guitar conceptions. Highest recommendation for any humans still in touch with their brain.

Brand new solo CD from Keiji Haino features four long nocturnal pieces spontaneously scored for tabletop electronics, F/X pedals, ‘air-FX’ and ‘digital air theremin’. This is the most electronics-heavy Haino disc to date and much of it bears comparison to his early Milky Way recording, with moments of torrential digital downpour illuminated by flares of fluttering code, wild frequency fluctuations and skies of shortwave bloop. Some absolutely mangled vocals worked deep into the maul and also some kind of wind instrument that makes the last piece sound like an exorcism in a nuclear bunker. As necessary as every other Haino side. Comes in a black hard-card Fushitsusha-style gatefold with colour pics and a 4 page booklet featuring pics and Japanese text.

Very intimate, low-level guitar/loops/vocal recordings from Keiji Haino featuring some of his most hypnotic and personally intense solo playing, all recorded live in the depths of the night at minimum volume. An absolute beauty that ranks alongside classics like Affection and Era Of Sad Wings, this is Haino at his most elegiac and haunting. Comes in large format, gatefold digipak. Highest recommendation.

Early, ultra-mysterious solo album from Keiji Haino, not to be confused with his later group project of the same name. Here he works his way through a dungeon of percussion, metal, vocal and drone to create a death-decadent psychedelic mediaeval polyglot. Beautifully blasted atmosphere, highly recommended.

First instalment of solo hurdy-gurdy from Keiji Haino features some of his most gorgeous instant compositions, all constructed from huge pools of black overtone and mud-thick drones. The actual sound of the hurdy-gurdy’s operation is just as much a part of Haino’s conceptions as the heaving tones it generates and the combination of lungs, wood and rotary action is extremely potent and very psychedelic. Also features some of Haino’s subtlest vocal interventions, like he’s simply singing softly to himself. Highest recommendation.

Outrageously heavy solo debut from Kousokuya frontman Jutok Kaneko, here extrapolating trio (with ex-White Heaven drummer Koji Shimura and bassist Takuya Nishimura) and solo moves all the way over the event horizon. Endless Ruins sounds like an apocalyptic Crazy Horse running down the end-of-century blues. Still one of the most profoundly inventive and individualistic guitarists to come out of the Tokyo underground. Highly recommended.

Great duo CD (reissue of a privately distributed CD-R) featuring a live show from Tokyo University Of Fine Arts on 11 November 2001from avant guitarist and improviser Kazuo Imai (whose How Will We Change CD has long been one of the hidden jewels in the PSF back catalogue) and pianist Shuichi Chino. Chino has done a lot of theatre and soundtrack work, and has recently collaborated with Butch Morris. He is the most consistently audible player here but the force of Imai’s acoustic guitar conceptions is utterly magnetic, as he teases fluttering, inchoate tone-forms from his guitar in a way that beautifully shadows Chino’s spare note-clusters.

Kousokuya, led by renowned guitar monster Jutok Kaneko, were a massive presence on the Tokyo underground throughout the 80s and 90s. Their debut LP, originally self-released in a tiny run in 1991and since reissued on CD by PSF, plotted galaxies of heavy gravity like nothing this side of Neil Young’s Weld and Black Sabbath’s Masters Of Reality. Kaneko’s guitar playing is brutally blunt, working staggered rhythms into huge, tottering constructions that crash to earth with all the ferocious inevitability of dead stars. Vocalist Mick’s high despairing vocals and ten-nods-behind-the-beat bass style reinforce the profoundly desperate, nihilistic air while drummer Ikuro Takahashi (Fushitsusha et al) sets single megaton blasts in the background. Live Gyakuryu Kokuu is a killer retrospective of this mammoth outfit, two long tracks recorded the same year as their debut album that work forms from ominous black gulfs like nothing else this side of Fushitsusha. Highest recommendation.

Alongside Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha, Jutok Kaneko’s death-decadent Kousokuya ruled the Tokyo underground of the 80s and 90s with a lead fist. Kaneko can mangle six strings better than anyone this side of Neil Young and Tony Iommi. 1st is a long-overdue reissue of Kousokuya’s ultra-rare debut LP, originally self-released in 1991 in an edition of only 200 copies. It features the classic original line-up of guitarist Kaneko, female bassist/vocalist ‘Mick’ and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (of Fushitsusha et al). Hands down one of the most formally flattening records to come out of whole Japanese scene. Highest recommendation.

Quite simply one of the greatest psych/bliss guitar records of all time. Shizuka’s vocals are pitched just this side of Venus while guitarist Maki Miura (ex-Fushitsusha) lays down some of the most mind-blowing melodic/noise guitar solos this side of you-fucking-name-it. Also features Jun Kosugi (ex-Fushitsusha) on drums. Highest recommendation. One of the key Japanese underground albums.

The latest release from free saxophone/guitar/percussion actionist Masayoshi Urabe presents another couple of lungfuls of rock ‘n’ roll breathing with long passages of charged dead air punctuated by immolating roars and sad blue dirges that have as much to do with Don Dietrich, Lou Reed and Jojo Hiroshige as Albert Ayler, Kaoru Abe and Peter Brötzmann. This is some beautifully charged throat action: the first piece sounds like a distant cousin of the piece he performed at last year’s Instal fest in Glasgow and god knows that show twisted a bunch of ears out of shape for good. Urabe’s armoury here also includes metal chains, guitar and harmonica. Great cover shot too, with Urabe primed for a guerrilla assault. One of the most regularly fascinating of Tokyo’s next wave. Recommended.

Debut volume of this unbeatable PSF series dedicated to documenting current activity on Tokyo’s psychedelic underground. This one features world-beating exclusive tracks from Marble Sheep & The Run-Down Sun’s Children, High Rise, Ghost, Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Verzerk, Kousokuya and Keiji Haino. Highly recommended.

Another necessary volume in this on-going series documenting current activity on Tokyo’s psychedelic underground and a long-time personal favourite, the line-up and track choice here is unbeatable, with exclusives from Overhang Party, White Heaven, Fushitsusha (a fabulously unrelenting noise guitar blow-out), Cobalt, Kumo To Hae, Sweet & Honey, Ghost, Daiichi-Kakkensha, Uchu Engine, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Shizuka, the latter of whom raise the roof with guitarist Maki Miura roaring his way through heavens of feedback and blues. Love that fake ringwear on the cover too, a real touch of class. Highest recommendation.

Quite possibly Keiji Haino's greatest solo side to date, this one features vocals and guitar and moves from some beautifully wired folk-song through to moments of explosive solo fuzz and the kind of soul-peeling vocal form that'll have you re-thinking your entire way of life. Can't recommend this one enough - an ideal place to start for the uninitiated too.

Necessary reissue of the debut solo album by Keiji Haino, originally issued on the highly-collectable Pinakotheca label in 1981. This is Haino on guitar and vocals and represents an early apex of profoundly human improvisatory ritual that moves from totally wired/haunted vocal experiments through ecstasies of immolating overdriven guitar and black, haunting ballads. Features three bonus live tracks that didn't appear on the original album, the last of which remains one of the most jaw-dropping noise reveries of the modern rock era. Highest recommendation, some choice pics in the booklet too.

Simply put, the greatest rock record of the modern era. It's almost impossible to fully do justice to the breadth and scope of this epochal 1991 recording from Keiji Haino's outrageously beautiful/powerful trio, suffice to say if you buy only one album in this lifetime…

This is another beautiful live document from the late starcrossed free saxophonist Kaoru Abe's peak period, three solo alto improvisations from '72 that work echoes of weird popular song and folk ghosts into some torrential throat action. Abe was always at his most exploratory when he was all alone in space and this is a thrilling document of a man liberated from any interactive concerns and free to follow the gush of his own muse. Highly recommended.

Alongside noise guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, the late saxophonist Kaoru Abe was in the vanguard of Japan's new music, articulating an approach to the saxophone that matched extreme velocity with an elastic facility with the instrument's most phantom registers and a sculptural approach to instant composition that saw him carve poignant shapes from massive blocks of silence. Abe died of a heroin overdose on September 9th, 1978 at the age of 29, making 2004 the 27th anniversary of his passing, one that was marked by special rites in Japan. As a memorial to this great sound-thinker PSF put together a special package, an official release of the rarest of Abe's recorded works, originally released as a bootleg in a plain white sleeve on the Osaka Soundworks label in 73/74. The early-70s were Abe's most prolific and inspired years and this live set from 1972 is a stone classic, a powerfully focussed set of solo saxophone that works the molten flow of his brain and fingers into lines of dense, ferocious beauty, from drooling, all-out blurt to exactingly articulated ice-cold blues. Mesmerising. Includes Japanese/English liners by PSF owner Hideo Ikeezumi.

For any Abe neophytes this is the one to start with; a high-wire duo set that sees Abe's breath conceptions shredded by Yamazaki's ferocious percussive assault. Yamazaki is best known for association with free-noise guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi as part of the guitarist's New Directions ensemble and this is a wild disc, with two long tracks recorded 24/1/1972 that pack as much blood and fire as already-canonical blow-outs like Adieu Little Man, Duo Exchange and Interstellar Space.

Anyone looking for a way into the blasted, form-gobbling sound world of Japan's late noise-guitar god, Masayuki Takayanagi can back the fuck up. Yr here, bub. This 11/12 March 1970 recording remains one of his most flattening sides, three tracks - “Extraction”, “Intermittent” and “Excavation” - of screamingly beautiful feedback-caked rock/jazz blurt. Takayanagi wild, exacting use of feedback is staggering and Sabu Toyozumi's drums get all the way in there, batting shards of shattered noise codes straight back at him. Bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa drills the whole thing through the floor while saxophonist Mototeru Takagi strangles the hell out of his instrument. Just breathtaking, one of the all-time great free noise summits and every bit the equal of high energy blow-outs like Monkey-Pockie-Boo, Machine Gun, Mars Live, Clear To Higher Time etc…

A compilation that culls tracks from a series of ‘lecture concerts' that took place between September 2003 and February 2004 at Mesar Haus, Tokyo. Kicks off with a fantastically dense hurdy-gurdy drone from Keiji Haino and also features tracks from guitarist Kazuo Imai, pianist Junichiro Okuchi, shamisen master Michihiro Sato, turntablist Otomo Yoshihide and saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe.

Another necessary volume in this on-going series documenting current activity on Tokyo's psychedelic underground, this one features exclusive tracks by Keiji Haino, Broom Dusters (featuring members of Miminokoto/LSD-March), Musica Transonic, Puka-Puka Brians (members of Maher Shalal Hash Baz/Aihiyo), On-Na Kodomo, Shizuka, Akiyama-Sugimoto, High Rise, Kakashi, Construction, Psychedelic Crazy Horse and Hikyo String Quintet.

Arguably the most-flattening volume in this legendary series to date, Tokyo Flashback 2 features exclusive tracks from White Heaven (“Silver Current”), High Rise with Keiji Haino, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Marble Sheep, Overhang Party, Yura Yura Kingdom, Yuragi, Kousokuya, Ghost (“Sun Is Tangging”), Ohkami No Jikan (featuring Maki Miura ex-Fushitsusha/Shiuzka) and Fushitsusha, who cover The Jacks' legendary “Marianne”. Yow.

Live kokyu (single string traditional instrument with a grainy, vocal sound) improvisations from the leader of Tokyo acid-folk orchestra Ché-SHIZU and regular Masayoshi Urabe duo partner. Also features plenty of hypnotically treated metal percussion, scalp-shearing cymbal work, rough tape composition and Mukai's beautifully idiosyncratic throat work. A lonesome voyage through whole new vectors of late-night trance. Recorded in 1984 and one of the major unsung monsters in the PSF back catalogue.

Another special/limited Kan Mikami edition from PSF, this one was originally scheduled as the follow-up to Mikami's fan club-only album, 19 Years, 2 Months, 16th Night, re-released by PSF last year. This one reads like Mikami's very own Genuine Bootleg Series, a collection of live, studio and demo material recorded off the cuff and on the lam. Moves from the oddest country swing moves ever fried in acid through moments of beautifully misconstrued Diddley-beat and blats of pure soul poetry so savage that the very arc of his syllables is enough to make your chest crease. This is the perfect opener for the Mikami neophyte. Housed once again in a special hard white card gatefold jacket, this comes in a limited edition of 1000 copies and is already all-but sold out at source. Highly recommended.

Fabulously feral live recording of Keiji Haino's first band, Lost Aaraff, from 1971. This is a crazed freedom chase across drums, vocals, horns and piano, with Haino matching fucked Cecil Taylor-styled note-clusters with some infernal free-form vocals, punk-primitive heads and the ecstatic element of Albert Ayler. Mind-blowing stuff, and highly recommended.

Part of PSF's new Kazuki Tomokawa art edition series bundling classic Tomokawa back catalogue in beautiful gatefold card jackets with all new art from Tomokawa himself. All releases limited to 500 copies. Ferocious live selection from this vital Japanese folk spirit with Tomokawa at some kind of apex of personal revelation. Highly recommended.

Part of PSF's new Kazuki Tomokawa art edition series bundling classic Tomokawa back catalogue in beautiful gatefold card jackets with all new art from Tomokawa himself. All releases limited to 500 copies. Dream team hook-up from the two reigning kings of the Japanese folk-brut underground, with help from a cast of PSF heavies including the late free bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa. Highly recommended.

Part of PSF's new Kazuki Tomokawa art edition series bundling classic Tomokawa back catalogue in beautiful gatefold card jackets with all new art from Tomokawa himself. All releases limited to 500 copies. Another incredibly anguished live recording from one of the most singular avant/folk performers to come up through the Japanese underground. Solo and duos with longtime collaborator Masato Nagahata. Highly recommended.

The disc that started it all: insane speedfreak trio action from three of the punkinest heads on the Japanese underground: guitarist Munehiro Narita, bassist/vocalist Nanjo Asahito and drummer Ujiie Yuro. Almost impossible to believe this was recorded back in 1986 while everyone else was collecting flexi-discs. CD includes two bonus tracks. A modern guitar classic, yr collection is all the limper without it.

Major reissue (from newly unearthed master tapes) of this crucial side from Japan's premier free noise guitarist, the late Masayuki Takayanagi. Recorded in May 1975, in the wake of the sessions for the legendary April Is The Cruellest Month (originally scheduled to come out on ESP-Disks right before the label folded), Eclipse was originally issued in a totally non-locatable run of 100 copies on the tiny Iskra label and has enjoyed a fairly legendary reputation among hardcore collectors for some time now. This restored version is a massive public service, bringing to light one of Takayanagi's hands-down greatest sides, up there with Call In Question in the way that it demolishes common jazz/rock/improvised tongues in favour of a vicious, form-gobbling simultaneity that welds heavy, eternally-extended drones with blurts of immolating guitar noise and raging free jazz. Same line-up as April... and both Axis volumes and a necessary side for a full understanding of the evolution of liberated musical thought in Japan. Comes in a deluxe hard card sleeve that's an exact replica of the original. Highest recommendation.

Archival release of euphoric psychedelic pop-rock from this early Japanese underground group led by Shinji Shibayama of Nagisa Ni Te and Org Records. "It floats on layers of melody rather than rhythm, and in places it has an incomparable start of autumn melancholic atmosphere." - PSF.

Exias-J, The Experimental Improviser's Association Of Japan, are a group of young second generation experimental musicians who take up where sound thinkers like Masayuki Takayanagi, Kaoru Abe and Group Ongaku left off, focussing and redirecting their prodigious energies with the use of sonic binds, game plans, directed improvisations and sound-gorged group exchanges. The collective are centred around guitarist Hideaki Kondo, a ferocious player who deals in the same kind of feedback-delivered satori as Takayanagi, and drummer Naoto Nishizawa, whose liberated approach to time sacrifices none of the punctuating fury of rock drumming. This new region-specific DVD bundles three professionally filmed performances that extend particularly focussed vibrations into long, sustained investigations of various modes of freedom. Includes live at Classics, Tokyo July 21st 2004, live at Tonic, New York October 30th 2003 and live Grapefruit Moon, Tokyo April 17th 2005. 142 minutes.

Debut PSF solo album from Hideaki Kondo of Japanese improvisers Exias-J. Here Kondo plays 'gut guitar' and '10-string gut guitar' both solo and accompanied by Michio Karimata on flute, Jun Kawasaki on bass and Osamu Nomura on percussion. There are moments here that match the rolling majesty of Robbie Basho's thought circa The Falconer's Arms while others - specifically the bloodied interpretation of Masayuki Takayanagi's "Herdsman's Pipe Of Spain" - match avant fury with tactile string theory and moments of haunted, baroque space. One of the best sides to come out of this collective to date.

Another one of those chronologically-upending archival Haino finds that makes the birth of his whole aesthetic seem historically immaculate, Free Rock - recorded in 1982! - sees Haino on electric guitar playing zoned avant garage crank in the company of some of the most legendary avant-provocateurs to come out of the ranks of the Los Angeles Free Music Society: Dennis Duck (ds), Fredrik Nilsen (b), Tom Recchion (mock cello, strangaphone) and Rick Potts (g). Post-Ubu Heart Of Darkness No Wave never sounded so completely liberated.

Heavyweight improvised session from three masters of modern tongue: guitarist/vocalist Keiji Haino, bassist Barre Phillips and drummer Sabu Toyozumi.

Heavyweight violin/piano/bass improvised trance from some of the hardest-thinking subterranean Japanese avantists. The way that Yoshizawa's unwieldy bass constructs are cocooned in scores of light by Takehisa Kosugi's (ex-Taj Mahal Travellers) violin and then exploded by Miyake's piano is fairly dazzling.

Second all-solo outing for liberated Japanese guitarist Kazuo Imai, the long-awaited follow-up to his thumping How Will We Change? Here the action is all derived from a fantastically manipulated nylon string guitar, using techniques that are way outside the usual post-Derek Bailey vectors. A stunning, singular document from this key thinker.

Debut release for this new Japanese underground ensemble that combine austere avant classical arcs of viola, piano, flute, guitar and percussion with sudden darts of improvised chamber jazz, Maher Shalal Hash Baz-esque idiot avant and deep psychedelic string work. “Another piece of ineffable mystery from the deepest bowels of the Tokyo underground. Led by flautist and guitarist Masahiro Deguchi, Gendai Sokkyo (the name means Contemporary Improvisation) are a group with no discernable history, who seem to have sprung from nothing to fully formed life. As the name suggests, the group showcase an improvisatory fusion of methodology and sound palette, drawing upon free jazz/free improvisation, avant rock moves and the textures of contemporary classical. An explosion of weird dynamics, suggestive in its inclusiveness and entirely psychedelic in its approach.” – PSF.

New compilation from PSF that parallels the Tokyo Flashback series by compiling a clutch of previously unknown acid/psych/folk/avant/unknown tongue moves from across Asia, peppered with a few better known names that have done much to foster links between Japan and Asia at large. This one pretty much hands you your ass on a plate if you figure yourself any kind of ‘expert’ on the far out sounds of the far east, with a jaw-dropping selection of off-the-map action that feels as revelatory and mysterious as the first time you were hipped to the sound of the Tokyo underground. Tracks from players like Munehiro Narita (High Rise guitarist), drummer Shoji Hano and guitarist Li Jianhong and his group D!O!D!O!D! work as convenient map-points from which to navigate the insane selection of sounds here, with newcomers like Mustangs, Kiyasu Orchestra, Mafeisan, 10, Xiao He, Sato Yukie, Yoshiteru Koga Jizo, Kim Young Jin, Li Daiguo, Amature Amplifier, Soonie. The set runs from flat-lined psychedelic electronics, to proto-Fushitsusha death jams, oblivions of harsh noise, stoned folk mutterings and high-wire free improvisation. Highly recommended.

Studio recordings from the duo of Japanese folk-spirit Kan Mikami and percussionist Ishizuka (Vajra et al): “Mikami is in as fine a fettle as ever. Ishizuka is the perfect partner to Mikami’s unique phrasing, all in the eternal now as straight forward momentum is fractured into a schizophrenic tumble in twenty dimensional directions at once.”

First ever live album from the world-beating trio of Keiji Haino, Kan Mikami and Toshi Ishizuka in a limited edition of 1000 copies in mini paper LP-style sleeves with obi. Haino's playing is at its most straight-forwardly beautiful, with soul-searing arcs of beautiful single-note bliss cutting high swathes through the heart of Mikami's black blues. There is a suite of songs that appeared on another Mikami CD that represents the most epic and emotionally-charged playing the trio have ever laid down and the way that Ishizuka triggers single martial explosions while Haino illuminates the space above him has exactly the same electrifying spirit/force of the Albert Ayler Orchestra. There are moments here that are so outrageously epic, just increasing peaks of vertical tone-on-tone, that it's almost overwhelming and when Haino joins Mikami on vocals it feels uniquely cathartic. The tongue-in-cheek blurb on the disc best sums it up: "With a combined age of 171, the most powerful geriatric rock trio in the world." And it's no mere hubris. In the absence of Fushitsusha, they might just be the greatest rock band in the world. Best Vajra ever. Highest possible recommendation.

Shizuka's sole studio album, Heavenly Persona, has long been one of the real jewels hidden in the PSF back catalogue. Indeed, Alan Cummings calls them "THE great lost-in-action group of the Tokyo underground psych scene". The group came together from the fallout of a bunch of early Fushitsusha line-ups, with original second guitarist Maki Miura (who played on Fushitsusha's debut Untitled/1st CD on PSF) joined by Fushitsusha drummer Jun Kosugi, Miura's partner Shizuka on guitar and vocals and Seven on bass. But outside of their one official studio album and a few patchy live recordings evidence of their majestic take on extended psychedelic rock has been pretty thin on the ground. So this album may well be one of the most anticipated PSF releases in an age, the official follow-up to Heavenly Persona, consisting of a beautifully recorded live set from 1995 long whispered about in underground circles, with the band at the peak of their powers. The form here is more extended than on their studio album, with songs that explode into disruptively melodic lead guitar bombs, combining the white-heat of Keiji Haino with the emotionally fraught aspect of classic Neil Young. Shizuka's vocals float on a bed of ethereal reverb and the group interaction is just gorgeous, piloting hushed F/X through damaged blues and classic Japanese psych moves. But it's the guitar playing you'll keep coming back to, with some of the most amazing six-string destructo moves ever torn from a stack of amps. Seriously. An incredible record from one of the all-time great Japanese underground groups. Highest possible recommendation.

New live duo CD that pairs saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, one-time member of Fushitsusha, with the mysterious saxophonist/pianist/vocalist Mico from The No-Neck Blues Band. Shiraishi has a phenomenal facility with phantom upper-register squeals, developing a whole vocabulary from lonesome feedback highs ala Kaoru Abe or Masayoshi Urabe and Mico brings a wild ritual edge to the deal, exploding into jabbers of unknown tongue and ripping darts of breath from her saxophone. The disc compiles live performances from across the world recorded between 2001 and 2007. Comes in a glossy hard card gatefold sleeve.

New album from this Japanese saxophone outlaw, recorded live in August of 2007 in a converted saki brewery on the shores of Lake Biwa, with an orchestra of insects in attendance. This one has a massive depth of field to it, with blurry semi-audible environmental sounds positioned in various perspectives which Urabe by turns illuminates and obliterates. Some beautifully on-point playing here, running from tiny illuminated bubbles of breath through to gorgeous sunrise tones, with Urabe playing in a gentler and more straightforwardly gorgeous style than on previous releases. The second track features a guest appearance from Kiyoharu Kuwiyama of Kuwiyama-Kijima on metal-janks and cello, with Urabe switching to accordion, toy flute and harmonica. Recommended.

Out of nowhere mind-blower form the Japanese underground: Iro were/are the husband and wife duo of Toshio and Shizuko Orimo, parents of legendary shakuhachi wunderkind Sabu Orimo who dropped some major sides via the Subjective Spirit Sound imprint. Still active today, their contemporary mode is more attuned to meditative explorations of esoteric Shinto ritual, but back in the 80s they were known as one of the most militant off-the-map refusenik psychedelic noise barbarians on the scene, cutting a raft of impossible to score cassettes on their own Shaman label with titles like Anti-Heroism Manifesto, Black Shit, Shamanism Rock, Vagina & Penis, Nuclear and Dragon Spirit, Earthquake Sound. The group actually formed in 1981 and first came to non-attention via the championing of Kenichi Takeda of the equally militant A-Musik but due to their profound rejection of commercialism and their commitment to anti-nuclear, anti-war and human rights causes they continued to evade the radar. The liners describe their early work as 'Ornette Coleman meets Kazuko Shiraishi with Patti Smith' and this CD reissue of a 1985 recording - their first ever official CD - provides jaw-dropping evidence of just how wild this group's early incarnation really was. Translating as Soul Shaking, Tamafuri is a wild, free rock side that pairs mangled guitar and free-punk drums with crazed post-Junko/Yoko vocal eruptions. The most obvious stylistic comparison has gotta be Harry Pussy, with the detonating percussion and hysterically huffing vocals as intense and pre-formed as anything from the lips and fingers of Adris Hoyos while the guitar playing is just nuts, abandoning virtually anything that would immediately associate itself with six electric strings and instead sounding closer to the metal-on-metal percussive crank of the Richard Youngs and Matthew Bowers' Site/Realm LP. Think of a particularly blunt Chris Corsano/Heather Leigh Murray jam and extrapolate that into 60 minutes of non-stop form destroying gush. A revelatory side, beautifully crude in its refusal of consensual tongue, lets just hope there's more to come. Highly recommended.

Follow-up to this Japanese psychedelic power trio's gob-smacking self-released debut. Their first full-length for PSF, this one almost outdoes Mainliner in terms of totally over-the-top fuzz-damaged production, with a bottom end that's as crunchy as Blue Cheer and as wiped-out as Nanjo Asahito's Christmas card list. The vocals are wild; aggressive, barked, monosyllabic and the lead guitar seems to coalesce out of distortion, tape warp and densely compacted highs and lows to birth serpentine forms that meld the time-warping potential of early Makoto Kawabata at his most formally extended with a more damaged punk rock/No Wave style that could almost be Les Rallizes Denudes-play-Germs-play-Motorhead with the addition of Billy TK for exaggerated axe ecstasy. Can't recall anything quite as adrenaline-charged and obliviously wasted as this since maybe one of the more brutal Univive sides. The guitarist/vocalist is called Mondo, they look like the Scientists circa Atom Bomb Baby, there are four massive tracks on the disc that never let up with the fuzz=satori stance and it all comes packaged in a hard card shrunken LP style sleeve with Obi. It's at times like this when you remember all over again why PSF is the greatest label in the world. Highly recommended.

Much-in-demand release of some eye-opening early live footage from the ‘classic’ and most punk-primitive incarnation of Tori Kudo’s idiot-avant orchestra and Japanese underground legends Maher Shalal Hash Baz circa 1987. Trading on mis-interpretations and amplifications of the more feral aspects of musical outsiders like Mayo Thompson, Syd Barrett, The Raincoats and Albert Ayler, Maher Shalal Has Baz created some of the warmest and most melancholic post-punk avant garde music ever articulated by non-musicians. This 75 minute film documents the group when they featured the late Masami Shinoda on alto sax, a central player in the whole Maher mythos who Kudo still describes as one of only two full-time members of the group. Also features another key member, Hiro Nakazaki, on euphonium, Hirofumi Mitani on bass, Kanji Nakao on drums and Takuya Nishimura on guitar and bass. Maher’s music is fragile but very physical and getting to grips with the dynamic up-close and in the flesh adds a whole new dimension to your appreciation of the depth and rigour of Kudo’s beautiful, a-musical vision. And Shinoda’s playing is a real joy. Highly recommended.

International big-band summit from a group led by Japanese folk spirit Kan Mikami and featuring female Korean percussionist Heyon Shin, Tsugaru Shamisen virtuoso Michihiro Sato (who has played with Keiji Haino and John Zorn), drummer Toshi Ishizuka (Vajra et al) and Toshiki Sawada.

Dedicated to "Memories Of Yasushi Ozawa", the late Fushitsusha bassist, Everything Lies Beyond The Burning Summer Grasses is a major collection of otherwise unreleased material put together by Satoshi Sonoda from the late 70s that provides an illuminating snapshot of the breadth and depth of the then-nascent Tokyo underground sound. Sonoda founded a student club at Meiji University dedicated to the appreciation of fringe and avant garde music and his 'club' functioned as one of the central pegs in the underground scene, attracting players like Yasushi Ozawa and Chie Mukai, both of whom make appearances on this CD. Sonoda was a formidable electric guitarist in his own right, influenced as much by rock groups like Free and The Jimi Hendrix Experience as Keith Rowe, Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey. This archival CD bundles a clutch of performances featuring or related to Sonoda: a series of different shows from Free Music Space/Free Music Revolt - a free-improvising ensemble along the lines of Group Ongaku/East Bionic Symphonia/Marginal Consort - and ANARkISS, a crazed punk/Velvets/avant garage group active on the Minor scene and featuring members of Gasaneta. The Free Music recordings are revelatory, combining fractured improv moves with endless repeat-riff boogie and almost Mazzacane-styled wrist action, conflating psych rock and outside modes with alla the genre-gobbling ferocity of the modern PSF aesthetic. The '77 material featuring Sonoda, Ozawa, Seigo Nakane and Mitsuhiro Ueda is particularly beautiful, a triumphal psychedelic groove inspired by the most iconoclastic rock guitar testimonials. In his excellent liners - full of touching memories of Ozawa - Sonoda asks for this track to be played at his funeral. Later Free Music tracks feature Chie Mukai of Tokyo acid folk group Che-SHIZU alongside some mysterious underground figures. But the real gravy may be the ANARkISS tracks, recorded live at the legendary Minor cafe in 1977. The three cuts are absolutely scalding, with crazed brokedown guitar, wretched gobble-punk vocals and a furious Kan Mikami cover providing one of the more persuasive distillations of the whole Minor ethos outside of the Gasaneta and Noise CDs. A vital addition to your Japanese underground shelf: highly recommended.

Nanjo Asahito’s High Rise were the original Psychedelic Speed Freaks that gave the PSF label their name and their aesthetic, with Ikeezumi founding the imprint with the specific intent of documenting their insane take on extended psychedelic punk. Their glory years were the mid-80s, specifically 1986 where they recorded their classic album, High Rise 2. This fantastic archival (region free) DVD catches the band at the peak of their hyper-exaggerated powers, with the line-up that cut the second album powering their way through a 1986 set that combines outrageous explosions of wah-wah guitar with everything-in-the-red aesthetics and a look that combines freak-out Detrotisms with Velvets cool. Still one of the all-time great psychedelic punk groups, this DVD is a timely reminder of why they blew so many minds when they first turned up via bootleg LPs in the west. Recommended.

Rare non-Japanese release for PSF, with an album from the more acid folk-aligned incarnation of My Cat Is An Alien featuring Maurizio and Roberto Opalio alongside vocalist Ramona Ponzini. Ponzini sings and recites in Japanese while the brothers play slow acoustic guitar, slow percussion and transparent drones. Every track recorded “in a different mystic location of the Western Alps”. Compiled by Hideo Ikeezumi. Packaged in hard card miniature gatefold sleeve.

First completely solo album from Japanese folk spirit, gambler, actor, pin-up, painter and decadent poet Kazuki Tomokawa in 16 years. Consisting of just vocals and acoustic guitar, A Bumpkin’s Empty Bravado was recorded after an illness where Tomokawa was advised to temporarily give up drinking and smoking in order to save his life. Tomokawa is one of the great contemporary vocal stylists and the force and conviction of his delivery is so powerful that it effortlessly transcends the language barrier. His song-writing here is inspired, with melodies that sound a little like classic Dylan made a bit more elastic and given tougher phrasing. The bulk of the material feels like timeless folk-simple melodies re-birthed as vehicles for dark, surrealist violence and to counter the force of his striking vocal delivery he delivers some particularly tender guitar picking alongside this classic driving ballad style. Comes with a fold-out poster sleeve featuring art from Tomokawa and sleevenotes and lyrics in both English and Japanese. Highly recommended.

Solo piano album from Tori Kudo of Worst Noise/Guys N Dolls/Maher Shalal Hash Baz et al. Tori’s style relates to both free jazz and classical composition, albeit elevating ‘errors’ to the status of creative prima materia. Some of his playing here sounds a little bit like Muhal Richard Abrams’ early AACM recordings, that same slightly off sense of melancholy, a quality which the boxy nature of the recording gives further emphasis to, giving the performance a nice alone-in-a-room ambience. Kudo plays fairly gently, chasing fortuitous ghostly ideas up and down the keyboard, now stuck on a simple repeating melody, now spreading out into elegiac waves of stumbling exegesis. The title comes from a piano performance piece (not sure if it’s the one on the CD) where Kudo played the piano while a dancer danced in and out of a cut-out frame.

Brand new instalment in this legendary compilation series from PSF, now in its seventh volume. For this latest survey of the state of the contemporary Japanese psychedelic underground the label ran a special live night at Koenji Show Boat in May of 2009 and recorded all of the players’ sets. The disc opens with the outer space choral folk of Le Son De L’os, a trio that features Yuko Hasegawa of Onna-Kodomo on guitar and vocal, Masahiro Deguchi of Gendai Sokkyo on flute and guitar and Shizuo Uchida on bass. Bo No Kubo are a drums/acoustic bass/guitar improvisatory unit that translate the Incus aesthetic to Tokyo. Derakushi are a phenomenal free jazz/psych ensemble who use electric rock firepower to propel the furious saxophone of Shun Suzuki; expect a full-length album from these guys on PSF very soon. There’s a great, minimal tracks from shakuhachi player Sabu Orimo, here with his new unit that features drummer/harmonica player Tomohiko Namiki. Touyounomajyo are a classic guitar/bass/drums power trio that would have fit in just as well on some of the earlier volumes and Hasegawa-Shizuo, who have had a bunch of previous releases on labels like PSF and Tiliqua, close the set with an epic drone imagining. Nothing cuts to the heart of the Tokyo underground like PSF’s Flashback series. Recommended.

Keiji Haino’s cover group, dedicated to wild – often completely unrecognisable - extrapolations on rock, folk and Japanese pop standards, featuring ex-Fushitsusha drummer Ikuro Takahashi and Miminokoto guitarist Masami Kawaguchi on bass. This beautiful live recording includes fantastically tranced versions of The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby”, “Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones and a tune by Japanese GS group The Spiders. Hard to believe that this actually happened. Highly recommended.

Debut PSF album from this improvising trio based in Tokyo. Bon no Kubo appeared on the Tokyo Flashback 7 compilation and released their first album, 1^st, in 2008. A trio of guitar, contrabass and percussion, the group take inspiration from the Incus label and Company Week ethos while extending it into specifically Japanese modes that “aim at the sublime”. Some of the playing is fairly aggressively nuanced and the interaction is unequivocal but there’s also a sense of space, of distance, that gives the music a baroque grace, even as Naoto Yamagishi disembowels the cello and Masahiko Ota darts across the guitar. Shrunken LP style sleeves with obi and insert.

Ass-blasting Blue Humans/Borbetomagus/Demo Moe-styled free jazz garage rock from a quartet that lit up PSF’s Tokyo Flashback 7. Some of the material best resembles Adam Nodelman-era Borbeto, with a ferocious electric bass backbone, but there’s a little more breathing space than on the early Agaric jams. The electric guitar comes out of the pugilistic post-Sharrock school while the saxophone flits from eerie Pharaoh Sanders’ style mysticism-of-tone to balls-to-the-wall Gayle-isms. Comes packaged in a hard card gatefold sleeve with obi strip.

When Shizuka Miura took her own life earlier this year the Tokyo underground lost one of its most magical psychedelic voices. Although her group only recorded one studio album during their time together, it still stands as one of the key PSF releases, the perfect blend of floating female vocals and massive post-Haino guitar oblivions courtesy of her husband ex-Fushitsusha guitarist Maki Miura. Truly, Shizuka were a live band, with the looser, more improvisatory set-up of the shows allowing Miura to really stretch out, extending Shizuka’s zoned acid folk songs into new realms of euphoric six string excess. This nicely presented DVD functions as a memorial to Shizuka, a professionally filmed document of their last ever performance at Tokyo’s legendary Showboat venue on 30^th December 2008. Right from the first chiming guitar chords this is an instant trip, with the visuals – running from close-up shots to full band views  – taking you right there. Shizuka always had one of the most drug-damaged sounds of any of the PSF groups and she seems particularly blasted here, lost in her hypnotic vocals and with a primitive/naive aspect that is extremely affecting. But when Maki steps on his fuzz pedal he effectively steals the show, combining screaming arcs of post-Neil Young heavy metal with wild avant garde form. There’s a wide variety of approaches here, with the group occasionally stripping it down to just Shizuka and Miura before bringing the bass and drums back in for full-band assaults. Outside of Keiji Haino Maki Miura remains the Japanese guitar god of choice and it’s heartbreaking that this amazing group will never play together again. Elegaically wasted female fronted psychedelic guitar excess doesn’t come any better than this. 74 minutes, all region DVD. Limited edition of 500 copies. Highly recommended. 

Excellent solo document from this Japanese saxophonist, one-time member of Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha and collaborator with the No-Neck Blues Band. The recording captures a run of guerrilla performances on the New York subway. Shiraishi’s style comes out of the whole Abe/Urabe school of playing all the way up in highest phantom register and cutting it up with huge icebergs of silence. Only here, with all of the subterranean noise and train drones and waves of commuters, it feels like he’s leading some kind of oversize Scratch Orchestra, with squealing split tones and haunted feedback echoing through miles of buzzing tunnels while New York moves in and out of focus. For Rollins it was the Brooklyn Bridge but it makes sense that Shiraishi would prefer somewhere deeper underground. An industrial strength solo saxophone set. 

Debut album for this great pastoral/acoustic psych unit who made their debut on the recent Tokyo Flashback. Le Son De L’Os is basically the duo of Hasegawa-Shizuo (who also play in Kito Mizukumi Rouber) alongside Masahiro Deguchi. The trio use acoustic guitar, vocals, flutes, pianos, bells and a one string bass to navigate a void of tone that crosses dosed and beautifully mistranslated UK acid folk moves with advanced improvisatory strategies. If you can imagine Mark Fry cutting some avant jams for Incus back in the ‘day’ then I salute you, visionary.