Brand new tribute set of cover versions and punk extrapolations based around the phenomenal body of work birthed by Mr Jojo Hiroshige aka Alchemy label boss and Hijokaidan mainman. Features a totally disobedient Beefheart-style rave-up from the Oshiri PenPenz, microphone-gobbling action from Masonna (first new recording in years), great psych/pop stylings from Doodles, monstrously deformed guitar/noise from Solmania, GaramonKakinoki +AOL and a whole bunch of other punk Kansai Industrialists. Think of it as a particularly focussed Night Gallery instalment. Highly recommended.

Excellent new Incapacitants live disc on Lasse Marhaug’s new label. Recorded at the All Ears Festival in Norway in 2007, this one features two hysterical tracks. The first is the classic duo of T. Mikawa and Fumio Kosakai, working out of control circuitry and convulsive vocal blurt into some beautifully adrenalised shapes, from huge standing waves of all-devouring technicolour through gurgling, strangulated bombs and doofs. Second track adds collaborator Tommi Keranen of Testicle Hazard for a more pugilistic evisceration of everyday electronics. Another monster from Pica. Recommended.

Original edition of one of the key Japanese noise LPs, Hijokiadan's 1983 Viva Angel LP, their second official album. Viva Angel is a classic primitive noise/rock rite from an early trio line-up featuring Jojo Hiroshige, T.Mikawa and Naoto Hayashi. Hysterical vocals ala Sun City Girls/Oshiri Pen Penz, totally squelchy levels of feedback destruction, formless rock gush at its most ecstatically overdriven, heavy psychedelic rock and moments of almost Lynchian body-horror sonics. Comes with the elusive insert. Vinyl: EX+/Sleeve EX +.

Irresistible new compilation CD from the reactivated Alchemy Records, an all-female psych set curated by Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan. Features fragile, breathless song stylings from a bunch of upcoming femmes including Akiko Hodaka (formerly of Maher Shalal Hash Baz), Mai Mishio of Uzumibi, Hirachin of Oninko! and Totsuzen Danboru, Shiho of Ten-No.5 and Yuka Fujita of the excellent Chozu. “Produced by Jojo Hiroshige of Hijokaidan (The King Of Noise), the godfather of Japanese noise music and the owner of Alchemy Records. He realized the strength, fragileness, delicateness and other elements that only women could have are the keyword for this decade. This album contains 11 tunes from emerging female musicians that Hiroshige picked out from the Japanese underground music scene.” – Alchemy. 

Rigorous new CD from Mattin and company, the result of several years worth of work and thought. It comes with an extensive and thought-provoking essay that teases apart many of the suppositions, clichés and unarticulated ideologies that underline the practice of improvised music. The music on the disc - pitting ‘philosophers’ against ‘musicians’-  represents an attempt to create improvised music outside of anything that could pass for technique or displays of instrumental ability, something that goes beyond interpretive standards altogether. The sound is dense, blunt, aggressive, having more in common with the free music coming out of the LAFMS or early electro-acoustic Japanese noise than academic European improvisation. There’s a lot going on here and both the liners and the sonics are fairly challenging, so it’s one you might wanna spend some time with. But it’s certainly one of the fullest realisations of Mattin’s ideas in sound. Beautifully packaged too.

New work from European thinker/performer/Billy Bao member/Lou Reed fan Mattin with a set of deconstructed language works that combine cut-up speech with scalpel sharp noise interludes and the kind of uncanny atmosphere of Robert Ashley’s Automatic Writing: "Object of Thought is a stunning must have release by one of the most deep thinking artist in the field of noise and improvised music; Mattin's voice is crushed and modulated by feedbacks and distortions and reassembled into a stream of multilayered thoughts and abrasive/ harsh sounds. This is the Mattin's new work since Noise & Capitalism, the critically acclaimed book that explores the relationship of experimental music with the economic system that we are living in... Is it possible to take self-reflexivity to the point of positive feedback while making a commodity out of my intellect? Can this process help me to understand how I am objectified by capitalism? This is a very difficult question, as I am using English which firstly, is not my mother tongue, and secondly is the language more aligned with capitalism. To what extent does the use of English language shape my thoughts and actions? If our general intellect is appropriated by capitalism, can we get it back through a process of improvisation with our thoughts? Can my unconscious be my instrument for improvisation? Can we produce our subjectivity through the language that we are improvising with? During the first week of February 2010, from Monday to Friday, I appropriated the usual working times (9 to 5pm) in order to set up a framework and impose some discipline. I went to Alpha Electro-acoustic Studio, Visby, I recorded my thoughts and then began to cut, edit, distort ... as a way of making a montage of my own subjectivity, as a way to dismantle myself. If noise can be everything it can also be my lack of articulation. By using my thought processes as material for improvisation, I tried to explore the limitation of the given situation, understanding that at the same time I am objectifying my thoughts in the vinyl that you are holding in your hands." – Mattin.