This is where it all began. One of the first releases on the then fledgling PSF label was a DLP by Fushitsusha, Keiji Haino's ultimate rock unit.

Fushitsusha's 4th album.

Digital theremin, air synth, air FX, etc.

Another step into previously unexplored territory for Haino--his first ever all-electronic album.

Uchu ni karami tsuiteiru waga itami (the title means roughly 'Tangled up in the universe, my pain') sees Haino using a bewildering range of electronic instruments.

Gorgeous new bag of home-recorded mystery from Haino. Apparently recorded alone, late at night and at minimal volume, these latest recordings tremble with the same deep-welled emotional sensitivity and sense of veiled threat that animated classics like Watashi Dake?, Affection and Era of Sad Wings.

Keiji Haino is Fushitsusha's mainman. Dark Avant-garde experimental music with various ancient instruments and metal. Complete black package.

Haino uses a hurdy gurdy, runs it through his battery of effects and winds up with a large whoosh of noise not unlike Tony Conrd's violin.

Tokyo's OTHER black-clad guitar master has finally made a solo album is true cause for rejoicing. Kaneko is known, if at all, as leader of Kosokuya, one of the most idiosyncratic and least appreciated rock groups in Tokyo. (Also available on LP.)

Shuichi Chino / piano Kazuo Imai / guitar Pianist Shuichi Chino's lengthy career is more convoluted, with early stints in groups like Wha-ha-ha and the Downtown Boogie Woogie Band, followed by theatre and soundtrack work, and a towering heap of sessions with improvisers like Butch Morris, and Kazuhisa Uchihashi. 001111 is a reissue of a minimally distributed private cdr, documenting Chino and Imai's acoustic duo meeting at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, on 11 November 2001.

Jutok Kaneko guitar, vocals
Mick bass, vocals
Ikuro Takahashi drums

These newly uncovered live recordings date back to 1991, the year that the group’s debut album was released. Two long tracks of grinding, soaring blackhole sonics that chart the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one save Fushitsusha. Don’t pass up this chance to catch a barely acknowledged group-mind at a rarely glimpsed peak of staggering beauty and dynamic force.

This is the CD reissue of Kousokuya's debut album "1st," recorded from 1989 to 1990. The increased demand for the reissue by maniac collectors around the world -- in combination with the popularity of Juntoku Kaneko's solo album "Endless Ruins" -- resulted in the release of this CD (which also includes an unreleased studio track).

Dark atmosphere by female vocal and psychedelic guitar(from Fushitsusha). This is their 1st album.

Compilation, Highlight of recently Tokyo Psychedelic underground music scene. All are previously unreleased. Includes:Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Ghost, Marble Sheep, HIGHRISE, etc.

Exclusives from Overhang Party, White Heaven, Fushitsusha, Cobalt, Kumo To Hae, Sweet & Honey, Ghost, Daiichi-Kakkensha, Uchu Engine, Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Shizuka

"His 3rd solo album. Noisy, but more tender than previous approach! Full of dark and lyrical atmosphere. Another side of Haino!" PSF

Much needed reissue of the first solo Haino from 1980. The extreme personal depth that every Haino release exudes. This CD adds previously unreleased track of 28 minutes!

"2nd live album of 140min! Needless to say, great performance, with complete black cover + booklet. 2CD!" PSF

Long-awaited official reissue of the rarest of all recordings by mercurial, live fast and die young alto hero Kaoru Abe. Originally released sometime in 1973 or 1974 on the Sound Works label out of Osaka, this was a bootleg LP of Abe in full-flowing solo action. The records came in a plain white sleeve, the label makes no mention of Abe's name, and they came with a very high price tag for the time. Needless to say, this has since become a laughably rare record, unseen by even the most dedicated of Abe collectors. Rarity aside, this is an utterly thrilling missive from Abe's most uncompromising and satisfying period. As yet untrammelled by self-abuse, his utterly distinctive voice on alto rings swift, clear and true, scattering diamond shards of light in its wake. Stunningly concentrated and sure-footed ­ it needs to be heard.

The resourceful drummer on the duo date, Hiroshi Yamazaki, is probably best known for his twenty plus year association with the late guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi in the revolutionary New Directions group.

The late M.Takayanagi is the one and only guitar improviser in Japanese music history. Recorded in 1970. This is Noise? No! This is free jazz? No!

Artists included: 1. Keiji Haino (hurdy-gurdy,etc.) 2. Kazuo Imai (guitar) 3. Junichiro Okuchi (piano) 4. Michihiro Sato (tsugaru-syamisen) 5. Yoshihide Otomo (turntable) 6. Masayoshi Urabe (alto sax) Compilation containing six lengthy solo tracks by some of the most fascinating improvising musicians currently active in Japan. The CD documents a series of lecture-concerts, exploring the meanings, methods and implications of free music, which took place between September 2003 and February 2004 at Mesar Haus in Tokyo.

Features exclusive tracks by Keiji Haino, Broom Dusters, Musica Transonic, Puka-Puka Brians, On-Na Kodomo, Shizuka, Akiyama-Sugimoto, High Rise, Kakashi, Construction, Psychedelic Crazy Horse and Hikyo String Quintet.

Features exclusive tracks from White Heaven, High Rise with Keiji Haino, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Marble Sheep, Overhang Party, Yura Yura Kingdom, Yuragi, Kousokuya, Ghost, Ohkami No Jikan (featuring Maki Miura ex-Fushitsusha/Shiuzka) and Fushitsusha.

"Kokyu is Chinese ancient instrument. Floating atmosphere like legendary Taj Mahal Travellers!" PSF

Hoi (Addendum) is another long-rumoured record that at last sees the light of day. It was originally scheduled to have been released by Mikami’s fanclub as a follow-up to the 19 years 2 months 16th Night DLP (PSF reissue, MK-1/2), but the project was shelved at the last minute. Now, ten years down the line, the world finally gets to hear this wonderful trawl through Mikami’s deepest archives. Eighteen tracks, all previously unreleased, comprising live versions, outtakes and much more. Special card jacket, limited edition of 1000.

Haino's first group, live recorded in '71! Bizarre voice + piano + drums. Incredible & historical recordings.

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.

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.

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.

Monumental performance by Japanese psychedelic garage masters. Incredibly wild and tough guitar sound.

Masayuki Takayanagi: guitar Kenji Mori: alto sax, flute, recorder Nobuyoshi Ino: bass Hiroshi Yamazaki: drums, percussion Long-awaited reissue of a true masterpiece of Japanese free improvisation! Mastered from the rediscovered master tapes! Recorded in May 1975, less than a month after the legendarily intense April is the Cruellest Month, Eclipse has always been the rarest and most mysterious of the Takayanagi and New Direction records. With April is... due to come out on ESP Disk (the release was scuppered when the label folded), Iskra the small label who were putting out Eclipse decided to reduce their pressing to just 100 copies. The original master tapes then vanished, and original copies of the LP began to change hands for huge sums on the collectors’ market. Eclipse sees the same group that recorded April is… and the two volumes of Axis playing at a dizzying peak of telepathic empathy. Grimly ratcheted tension, whooping freedom, slash and burn explosions, and the unmistakeable hovering, molten whine of Takayanagi’s guitar… Simply put a classic, classic record that needs to be heard by anyone with an ear for freedom sounds.

"Hallelujahs were a band led by Shinji Shibayama, during the mid-eighties. It floats on layers of melody rather than rhythm, and in places it has an incomparable start of autumn melancholic atmosphere." PSF

Hideaki Kondo - guitar Takuo Tanikawa - guitar, computer Shin-ichiro Kanda - piano, analogue synthesizer Tetsuya Miyazaki - live electronics, computer Jun Kawasaki - contrabass Masami Irumagawa - cello Naoto Nishizawa - drums, percussion "Free improvisation may have provided the original touch-paper for Exias-J's inception as a group, but by the time of the performances documented on this DVD we had gradually begun to move beyond it as a category. For instance, we began to incorporate deliberate internal structures in the form of compositional techniques such as minimalism, twelve-tone or atonalism, and we started to interrogate musical forms such as the sonata or ostinato. Or else in performance, we adopted approaches such as reliance upon a restricted number of modes, variations on a particular theme, extended instrumental technique, and a forms of expression based on (non-harmonically structured) sound images themselves. In order to construct these phenomenological relationships multiple techniques have been employed here, however they appear to be completely subordinated to receptive function of the viewer and the creative function of the musicians. I believe that this is something of which we can be justifiably proud. Since music relies upon these phenomenological relationships as its medium, I never like to make light of the methods by which modes and phenomena can be generalized, however, I have no desire to turn a method into a goal." Kondo Hideaki Third release on PSF by Exias-J (Experimental Improvisor's Assocation of Japan), Japan's most conceptually determined improvising collective and their first DVD. Containing three performances from Tokyo and New York, this is a challenging clash of methodologies and sonorities, hugely exciting in its electric power and formal heft. 142 minutes, region free, NTSC format.

Hideaki Kondo 10 string gut guitar, gut guitar Michio Karimata flute Jun Kondo contrabass Osamu Nomura percussion First solo album by Hideaki Kondo, leader of Japan leading improvisation collective, EXIAS-J. Kondo is known for the theoretical rigour that lies behind his technical mastery of the guitar, and for the multiplicity of his methodologies, encompassing free jazz, avant-garde, rock and folk forms. As in the playing of the late Masayuki Takayanagi, there is an originality and clarity of thought, a combination of historical understanding and contemporary intentionality, in Kondo¹s approach to guitar improvisation that is simply stunning. This first solo album presents Kondo largely on ten-string gut guitar, moving with an uncanny grace and concentration from stone melodic beauty to densely structured improv violence. Fabulous support work from Exias J regular Kondo, and sometime Keiji Haino collaborator Michio Karimata.

Guitarist/vocalist Keiji Haino, bassist Barre Phillips and drummer Sabu Toyozumi

Live set of violin, piano, bass

Kazuo Imai / acoustic guitar "far and wee", only Imai's second solo release (following "How will we change?", PSFD-70), sees him setting aside the electric strurm und drang in favour of the limitations of a nylon-strung acoustic guitar. In Imai's hands though, the instrument is opened up in an utterly thrilling fashion, as he agilely traverses clumped string thickets, high tension slide motion and yawning acoustic caverns with a jaw-dropping array of extended techniques. There's a density of conception and creativity on display here that is simply jaw-dropping.

Masahiro Deguchi - flute, guitar, effects, kalimba Masaaki Motoyama - viola Hirokuni Ueno - piano Hiroyuki Usui - drums, percussion Takanari Sato - drums 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.

Asian underground compilation with 13 groups. Featuring Li Jianhong, Narita Munehiro, Hano Shoji, Mustangs, Kiyasu Orchestra, Mafeisan, 10, Xiao He, D!O!D!O!D!, Sato Yukie, Yoshiteru Koga Jizo, Kim Young Jin, Li Daiguo, Amature Amplifier, Soonie. "First PSF compilation to focus on the linkages between the established underground scene in Japan and nascent ones in China and Korea. Politics and history had long prevented exchanges between the three countries, but in recent years increasing trade and cultural linkages have revealed exciting new synergies. Covers the breadth of new East Asian underground forms ? white-out noise, face-peeling free improvisation, lysergic rock, limpid acid folk, electronic tone float, coruscating punk, free jazz and avant-art moves. Features relatively established names like China's king of noise guitar Li-Jianhong and motor-psych free-rock emperor Munehiro Narita, alongside a ton of utter unknown names." -- Alan Cummings.

Guitar, Vocals: Keiji Haino Guitar, Vocals: Kan Mikami Percussion: Toshiaki Ishizuka First live album by the Japanese rock power trio to end all power trios – Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino and Toshiaki Ishizuka!! This presents the group at a thrilling peak of their rock deconstruction-reconstruction praxis, one of those all too rare manifestations of the musical sublime. Mikami is in top blues testifying form, his voice a thing of cracked beauty and weathered power. Haino and Ishizuka infuse the songs with telepathic engagement – constant layered motion, percussive blast-bombs and eruptions of black lava. Simply a ferocious record. Limited edition of 1000 in mini-LP style paper-sleeve.

Vocals, Guitar – Shizuka Guitar – Miura Maki Bass – Seven Drums – Kosugi Jun Shizuka were THE great lost-in-action group of the Tokyo underground psych scene during the early to mid nineties. Led by doll-maker Shizuka, and with ex-Fushitsusha alumni Maki Miura and Jun Kosugi on hand, they created some of the most fragile and intense acid-rock of their time, but remained largely undocumented and under appreciated. This gig documented on this CD, recorded at Bears in Osaka in 1995, was long whispered of amongst the cognoscenti. It catches them at a near-divinely inspired peak of fucked-up narcotic bliss. Shizuka’s uncanny vocals and tremulous sense of timing washing like brown sugar over fluid nebulae of guitar and drum nirvana, peaking and churning in perfect, weightless filigrees of light, cosmic cold and invisible motion. Miura’s guitar playing is just jaw-dropping. Booklet includes lyrics in Japanese and English.

Alto saxophone – Tamio Shiraishi Alto saxophone, piano molanica, etc – MICO A rare live album from one of the major names in the Japanese free noise underground – Tamio Shiraishi. Shiraishi was one of the major movers in the free noise/underground rock/DIY improv Minor scene of the late 70s and early 80s that gave birth to so many of the major names in the Japanese underground. He was a pivotal member of a large number of groups associated with the scene, including Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha. But Shiraishi has rarely recorded and thus enjoys far less name recognition outside of Japan. He has lived in New York City for the past decade or so, collaborating with the likes of Sean Meehan and the No-Neck Blues Band. This compilation of live recordings captures Shiraishi live in Europe, the US and Japan between 2001 and 2007, together with NNCK member MICO. Forceful, intense, chaotic improvisations for saxophone, vocals, percussion, piano etc. Shiraishi’s trademark ultra high-pitched dog-whistle sax and guttural vocals are showcased to full and outstanding effect.

Alto saxophone, harmonica, chains, metal, accordion, bells, toy flute – Masayoshi Urabe Metal junk, cello, etc - Kiyoharu Kuwayama (track 2 only) A new solo album by Masayoshi Urabe is always a cause for rejoicing. This is his first since the frankly frightening Ware Wai Seidei No Kyojyo Zo on PSF in 2003. Urabe rarely plays live now, but this live album catches him in action last summer in a converted saké brewery on the shores of Lake Biwa, near Kyoto. The damp heat of midsummer in this part of Japan seems to have worked its magic on Urabe, and this is an altogether gentler performance than normal. Over one long solo track, he bends his breath and body to the air in his saxophone, his tones blending with the sound of the insects outside the venue. A shorter second track captures him in a rare outing on accordion, toy flute and harmonica together with Kiyoharu Kuwayama. Another radical, effortlessly convincing album from the master of contemporary rock n roll breathing.

Guitar, vocals – Shizuko Orimo Drums – Toshio Orimo An ultra mysterious blast from the deepest underground! Iro were (and still are) a little known shamanic improvisation unit, consisting of Kawasaki-based husband and wife Shizuko and Toshio Orimo. Formed in 1981, they released a number of cassette-only albums during the eighties. Deeply suspicious of the merest whiff of commercialism, they never took the opportunities for greater fame - in spite of some substantial media coverage in Japan at the time. The duo still perform today, in a more ethnic, esoteric ritual mode. Tamafuri was originally released on cassette on their own Shaman Label in 1985. It’s a fantastically charged blend of ultra-propulsive ethnic drone, free jazz drumming with harsh noise textures and intense, almost possessed vocal incantations from Shizuko. As Takeo Udagawa puts it, “their high-energy improvisations feel intensely dangerous, like a nuclear reactor-core going into meltdown, throwing out waves of radiation and intense heat”. A must for any true believer in the power of wailing blurt – from Keiji Haino, to LAFMS, to Takayanagi. Comes with great contextual liner notes (in Japanese and English) by fringe music researcher Takeo Udagawa. And, yes, Shizuko and Toshio are indeed the parents of young shakuhachi sensation Sabu Orimo.

"The reincarnation of the in-the-red psych aesthetics of early High Rise. One of the biggest underground psych/noise rock discoveries was Tokyo-based Aural Fit. A heavy, bludgeoning cudgel of a band, all distorted grime and redlined aggression, their 2004 self-released first album burst over the scene like a big bag of heavy spanners. They followed up with a track on Tokyo Flashback 5, but then line-up changes seemed to sideline their juddering, thundering rock juggernaut. Leader Mondo Bohachi has gone about reassembling the group from the ground up, and these are the first recorded results. If anything, it's even scarier, noisier and more rock than last time. 'Loud' and 'psychedelic' are still the watchwords, needles in the red all the way, and all the Stooges, Blue Cheer, TG, etc., references you might require are present and correct. Loud, vicious and dumb -- it doesn't really get much murkier or animal-mind-melding than this. Turn it up. Four tracks, 38 minutes. Mini-LP style card sleeve with obi and insert." -- Alan Cummings.

Guitar, vocals, organ, drums, trumpet-Tori Kudo Alto sax, flute-Masami Shinoda Euphonium, ocarina-Hiro Nakazaki Bass-Hirofumi Mitani Drums-Kanji Nakao Guitar, bass-Takuya Nishimura Enticing archival document of an early (1987) show by wide-eyed mystics Maher Shalal Hash Baz at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo. The visuals provide a rare and valuable opportunity to pick apart the working methods of one of the Japanese undergroundfs most truly original and agile thinkers, Tori Kudo. In Maher Shalal Hash Baz he took the heterophonic voicings, the deliberately fluctuating rhythmic mis-steps and the non-unison unison so characteristic of Japanese traditional music and re-applied them to idiot savant mini-hymns arranged for electric guitar, euphonium, ocarina and organ. Itfs a music that exists in a unique world of its own, alternately donning and shedding the armour of rock and jazz. Another major draw is the presence of the late Masami Shinoda on alto sax. Shinoda was an important, though largely unsung, figure in the history of the Tokyo underground during the eighties and nineties, showing up in all manner of groups from punk iconoclasts Jagatara and Pungo, to his own experiments with chindon marching advertising bands. He spent a few years in Maher in the eighties and this DVD captures the innocent joy and rapturous invention he brought to their music. 24 tracks, 75 minutes.

Conceived of as a tribute to the late Fushitsusha bassist Yasushi Ozawa, who passed away in February 2008, this CD presents a fascinating and rare glimpse of the nascent Tokyo underground scene, circa 1977/1978. Another piece of the puzzle! Compiled by Satoshi Sonoda, who led a student club at Meiji University dedicated to the performance and appreciation of free and out musics of many stripes, the CD documents the fascination with musical collisions of free jazz, rigorous twentieth century composition, art-inspired free improv moves, as well as the fried gargle of acid punk. Capturing small scale shows in after-hours university classrooms and tiny clubs, this is a music that is just intensely evocative of its specific time and place. Includes appearances by Yasushi Ozawa, Satoshi Sonoda, Chie Mukai, Masami Tada, and members of Gaseneta. Seven tracks, 75 minutes. Includes extensive, detailed liner-notes about the people, places and happenings of late seventies Tokyo by Satoshi Sonoda in both Japanese and English.

Bass, Vocals: Asahito Nanjo Guitar: Munehiro Narita Drums: Yuro Ujiie First DVD by the kings of speed garage psychedelia, High Rise! Recorded live in Osaka in 1986, around the time of their second album by the all-time classic line-up of Nanjo (bass, vocals), Narita (guitar) and Ujiie (drums). Suitably grainy and colour-saturated visuals capture the group laying down their staggering brand of intense garage-psych with Narita’s guitar ripping weird, devastating solo holes in the songs, and Ujiie and Nanjo laying down that exhilarating sense of reckless acceleration. Still some of the most effective rock qua rock ever recorded. Just unbelievable. Six tracks, 25 minutes.

"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." Volcanic Tongue

Second album from striking new Japanese free improv trio, who first shot to prominence on Tokyo Flashback 7 (PSFD-189).

The young group consists of Masahiko Ota (guitar), Shintaro Takasugi (contrabass) and Naoto Yamagishi (drums, percussion) – all still in their 20s. They first formed in 2007 and self-released their now sold-out debut album the following year.

The group displays a sure sense of structural dynamics and excel at the construction of brooding ambient atmospheres that seem to be informed by traditional Japanese aesthetics. Ota’s acoustic guitar is occasionally reminiscent of the sour, tangled lines of Masayuki Takayanagi, but the group have a confident sense of their own identity that belies their age. A group to watch!

Five tracks, 39 minutes. Papersleeve.

"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." Volcanic Tongue