PSF Records - New Release -

UPCOMING Releases
05/21/2008
Iro Iro Tamafuri CD – 80s shamanic noise legends!
Aural Fit 2nd CD – full-churn heavy psych!

NEW Releases

PSFD-8028
Kazuki Tomokawa / Blue water, red water

Vocals, Guitar – Kazuki Tomokawa
Drums, Percussion – Toshiaki Ishizuka
Piano, mandolin, accordion – Masato Nagahata
Guitar – Taro Kanai
Violin – Ayumi Matsui
Tuba, Recorder – Takero Sekijima
Cello – Hiromichi Sakamoto
Latest album of devastating emotional transcendence from the Japanese underground's most lyrical singer-songwriter. Full of classic, richly textured songs of love, loss and stunned acquiescence to the wonders of the world. Alongside Tomokawa's regular collaborators Toshiaki Ishizuka and Masato Nagahata, the expanded group also includes Compostela-veteran Takero Sekijima on tuba and recorder, and improv-legend Hiromichi Sakamoto on cello.
Includes Tomokawa's ending theme song for director Rokuro Mochizuki’s "Johnen – Jo no Ai" – a retelling of the Abe Sada story.
Booklet includes lyrics in Japanese and English.

$18

PSFD-178
Shizuka / Live/Traditional Aesthetics

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.

$15

PSFD-177
Tamio Shiraishi / Live Duo & MICO

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.

$15

PSFD-176
Vajra / Live 2007
Release Date: 03/20/2008
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.

$15

PSFD-174
Masayoshi Urabe / Flag of Midsummer

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.

$15

PSFD-8027
Kan Mikami / Juw
Release Date: 03/20/2008
Latest in PSF’s popular long-running series of solo releases by Kan Mikami. It’s another coruscating slab of truly individualist dada-folk-blues, obliquely twisted songcraft that refuses to pander to the banal realities of contemporary society. For those that choose to partake in its bounty, there’s richness aplenty here – the utter devastation and the unbearable ecstasy of the quotidian, transmitted just through six strings and the sandpaper rasp of Kan’s vocal chords.

$18

PSFD-172
Ahousen / Ahousen
Release Date: 12/25/2007
Katsu: guitar
Suu: saxophone, voice
Akira: bass
Tail: drums
Lunatic avant-free-rock, honed in guerrilla street performance. Debut album from one of the most exciting discoveries from the recent Tokyo Flashback 6 compilation.
There's an entrancing sense of moon-kissed lunatic wildness about Ahousen (the group's name means Ship of Fools). Their avant-rock meets free jazz meets enka melancholic sound is entirely their own, a crazed communion with dead voices, honed to blistering perfection in guerrilla performance on the night-time streets of Shinjuku.
For those of a genealogical bent, the group has some history. Guitarist Katsu played with original Tokyo Rockers legends Lizard in the seventies. Drummer Tail has played with Suishou no Fune.

$15

PSFD-170
V.A. / Asian Flashback

Featured groups/artists:
Lia Jianhong, Munehiro Narita, Shoji Hano; Mustangs; Kiyasu Orchestra; Mafeisan; 10; Xiao Be; D!O!D!O!D!; Yukie Sato; 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 andmotor-psych free-rock emperor Munehiro Narita, alongside a ton of utter unknown names.

$15

PSFD-175
Kim Doo Soo / Ten Days Butterfly
Release Date: 12/3/2007
Kim Doo Soo - guitar, vocals
Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea’s acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs – political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion… Despite having been active since the mid eighties and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits.
On Ten Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous still melodicism, Kim’s vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin, piano, organ and harmonica. A reflective and unearthly beautiful masterpiece.
Also available on 180g double-vinyl.

$15

PSFK-001-2
Kim Doo Soo / Ten Days Butterfly (2LP)
Release Date: 12/10/2007
Kim Doo Soo - guitar, vocals
SOLD OUT
Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea’s acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs – political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion… Despite having been active since the mid eighties and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits.
On Ten Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous still melodicism, Kim’s vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin,

PSFD-173
Onna / Katawa
Release Date: 12/3/2007
Keizo Miyanishi - guitar, vocals
Kotei Penguin - electric guitar, violin
Roiki - acoustic guitar, etc
The musical alter ego of obsessive pointillist underground cartoonist and illustrator Keizo Miyanishi, Onna have been in varying liminal stages of musical existence/non-existence since the early eighties. Their bleak and nihilistic no-wave downer sound riveted the Tokyo scene of the time –an early line-up featured a pre-White Heaven Michio Kurihara. But after a couple of years and just one single, the group faded back into silence, becoming the stuff of rumour and faded memories. It was kind of shocking then to have a reformed Onna suddenly doing the rounds of Tokyo clubs a year or so back.
After a couple of CDrs and an acclaimed appearance on Tokyo Flashback 6, Kataha is their first album in well over a decade. Detuned and fractured psychedelic blues filled with a bucketful of abject fear and personal loathing – topped off with some of the most strikingly original vocal mannerisms in the Japanese underground. A fantastic return.

$15

PSFD-171
Gendai Sokkyo / same
Release Date: 12/3/2007
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.

$15


	PSFD-8028 Kazuki Tomokawa / Blue water, red water Vocals, Guitar – Kazuki Tomokawa Drums, Percussion – Toshiaki Ishizuka Piano, mandolin, accordion – Masato Nagahata Guitar – Taro Kanai Violin – Ayumi Matsui Tuba, Recorder – Takero Sekijima Cello – Hiromichi Sakamoto Latest album of devastating emotional transcendence from the Japanese underground's most lyrical singer-songwriter. Full of classic, richly textured songs of love, loss and stunned acquiescence to the wonders of the world. Alongside Tomokawa's regular collaborators Toshiaki Ishizuka and Masato Nagahata, the expanded group also includes Compostela-veteran Takero Sekijima on tuba and recorder, and improv-legend Hiromichi Sakamoto on cello. Includes Tomokawa's ending theme song for director Rokuro Mochizuki’s "Johnen – Jo no Ai" – a retelling of the Abe Sada story. Booklet includes lyrics in Japanese and English.	$18

	PSFD-178 Shizuka / Live/Traditional Aesthetics 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.	$15

	PSFD-177 Tamio Shiraishi / Live Duo & MICO 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.	$15

	PSFD-176 Vajra / Live 2007 Release Date: 03/20/2008 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.	$15

	PSFD-174 Masayoshi Urabe / Flag of Midsummer 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.	$15

	PSFD-8027 Kan Mikami / Juw Release Date: 03/20/2008 Latest in PSF’s popular long-running series of solo releases by Kan Mikami. It’s another coruscating slab of truly individualist dada-folk-blues, obliquely twisted songcraft that refuses to pander to the banal realities of contemporary society. For those that choose to partake in its bounty, there’s richness aplenty here – the utter devastation and the unbearable ecstasy of the quotidian, transmitted just through six strings and the sandpaper rasp of Kan’s vocal chords.	$18

	PSFD-172 Ahousen / Ahousen Release Date: 12/25/2007 Katsu: guitar Suu: saxophone, voice Akira: bass Tail: drums Lunatic avant-free-rock, honed in guerrilla street performance. Debut album from one of the most exciting discoveries from the recent Tokyo Flashback 6 compilation. There's an entrancing sense of moon-kissed lunatic wildness about Ahousen (the group's name means Ship of Fools). Their avant-rock meets free jazz meets enka melancholic sound is entirely their own, a crazed communion with dead voices, honed to blistering perfection in guerrilla performance on the night-time streets of Shinjuku. For those of a genealogical bent, the group has some history. Guitarist Katsu played with original Tokyo Rockers legends Lizard in the seventies. Drummer Tail has played with Suishou no Fune.	$15

	PSFD-170 V.A. / Asian Flashback Featured groups/artists: Lia Jianhong, Munehiro Narita, Shoji Hano; Mustangs; Kiyasu Orchestra; Mafeisan; 10; Xiao Be; D!O!D!O!D!; Yukie Sato; 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 andmotor-psych free-rock emperor Munehiro Narita, alongside a ton of utter unknown names.	$15

	PSFD-175 Kim Doo Soo / Ten Days Butterfly Release Date: 12/3/2007 Kim Doo Soo - guitar, vocals Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea’s acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs – political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion… Despite having been active since the mid eighties and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits. On Ten Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous still melodicism, Kim’s vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin, piano, organ and harmonica. A reflective and unearthly beautiful masterpiece. Also available on 180g double-vinyl.	$15

	PSFK-001-2 Kim Doo Soo / Ten Days Butterfly (2LP) Release Date: 12/10/2007 Kim Doo Soo - guitar, vocals SOLD OUT Kim Doo Soo is the deepest and most introspective of Korea’s acid folk singers. Many are the legends that cling to his songs – political oppression, alcoholism, suicide, a ten-year period of mountain seclusion… Despite having been active since the mid eighties and having released four acclaimed albums in Korea, most Western listeners only became aware of him through his tracks on the recent Damon & Naomi compilation, International Sad Hits. On Ten Days Butterfly, his fifth album, he mines productive veins of profound melancholy, animistic nature, and unfathomable, hermetic affection. The whole is couched in a veil of the most gorgeous still melodicism, Kim’s vocals and guitar shaded with subtle accordion, violin,

	PSFD-173 Onna / Katawa Release Date: 12/3/2007 Keizo Miyanishi - guitar, vocals Kotei Penguin - electric guitar, violin Roiki - acoustic guitar, etc The musical alter ego of obsessive pointillist underground cartoonist and illustrator Keizo Miyanishi, Onna have been in varying liminal stages of musical existence/non-existence since the early eighties. Their bleak and nihilistic no-wave downer sound riveted the Tokyo scene of the time –an early line-up featured a pre-White Heaven Michio Kurihara. But after a couple of years and just one single, the group faded back into silence, becoming the stuff of rumour and faded memories. It was kind of shocking then to have a reformed Onna suddenly doing the rounds of Tokyo clubs a year or so back. After a couple of CDrs and an acclaimed appearance on Tokyo Flashback 6, Kataha is their first album in well over a decade. Detuned and fractured psychedelic blues filled with a bucketful of abject fear and personal loathing – topped off with some of the most strikingly original vocal mannerisms in the Japanese underground. A fantastic return.	$15

	PSFD-171 Gendai Sokkyo / same Release Date: 12/3/2007 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.	$15