Due to unprecedented delays in global production, we are anticipating a May 2022 release date for the upcoming Kazuki Tomokawa releases.
Finally, His First Album: The Flower of Youth / Souls / Yumiko’s Spring / Song from the Void / Grave / Hail the Wonderful Law of the Lotus Sutra / Phone Call / An Akita Fox Song Run Amok / World School / Resistance, Age 23 / Mr. Ishimori / First Bon / A Cat Burglar in the Night / Bright Night
Straight from the Throat: Grampa / Goddam Winter / American Kuyuran / Dagadzugu / A Fitting Adolescence / Footbridge / The Spring is Here Again Song / Fridge / Smithereens / Don’t Kill the Sea Lions / Harmonica / A Little Ditty / Stone
A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth: Try Saying You’re Alive! / Kill or Be Killed / Memory / Got a Problem? / Namahage / My Hometown is Also Inside a Dog / The Boys of Hachiryū / The Donpan Song Goes Off the Rails / Runaway Boy / Missed My Time to Die
A poet, soothsayer, bicycle race tipster, actor, prolific drinker, self-taught guitarist, and living legend of Japanese sound, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-folk scene in the mid-1970s, forging a sound and sensibility marked by throat-wrenching vocals and searing ennui. Among his musical peers in postwar Japan, Tomokawa distinguished himself as a pioneer of radical individualism. He had “the personality of a hydrogen bomb”—as the notorious ultraleft band the Brain Police once put it—and a sound to match. Now, Blank Forms Editions gathers Tomokawa’s earliest records for the first time in a deluxe three CD box set comprised of Finally, His First Album (Harvest Records, 1975), Straight from the Throat (Harvest Records, 1976), and A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth (Harvest Records, 1977).
In each record, Tomokawa shouts, cries, wails, and croons, his folk stylings tinged with psychedelia and swelling into ground-shaking rock.. Many tracks are performed in his native Akita dialect, a highly regional vernacular of north Japan rarely heard beyond the prefecture, and even less often used in music. Matching his guttural, all-out vocals are profoundly existential meditations on everyday life and the world around him; this is, as record executive Kiichi Takara dubs it, “I-music.” It looks toward the interior, the quotidian, and the domestic with piercing and ever-honest eyes.
The accompanying liner notes (here translated for the first time) include introductions by Takara, a round table discussion with Brain Police, and lyrics for all three albums—tracking the rise of Tomokawa as the “screaming philosopher” of Japan. The box set will be in conjunction with the release of each record in LP format in 2022, and the musician’s 2015 memoir, Try Saying You’re Alive! (Blank Forms Editions, 2021), the first-ever English translation of his prose; together they provide the definitive introduction to the singular world of Kazuki Tomokawa.
Kazuki Tomokawa (b. 1950) is a prolific singer-songwriter from Hachiryū Village (now the town of Mitane) in the Akita Prefecture area of northern Japan. Since his first release in 1975, he has recorded more than thirty albums. The 2010 documentary about his life, La Faute des Fleurs, won the Sound & Vision award at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and that same year saw the Japanese release of the book Dreams Die Vigorously Day by Day, a collection of his lyrics spanning forty years. His most recent albums are Vengeance Bourbon (2014) and Gleaming Crayon (2016), both on the Modest Launch label.
The Shadow Ring (1992-2002) –
11xCD + DVD box set with book
The Shadow Ring
$200 USD
Cold Drinks, Hot Dreams –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Atrás del Cosmos
$25 USD
Turzets –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
James Rushford
$25 USD
Live on KFJC –
Limited Edition Cassette
The Shadow Ring
$15 USD
DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr SSSOFTTT DIVINI TIESSSSS!!!!!!!!! –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Charlemagne Palestine
$25 USD
Turning in Space –
'Motorwave' Cassette
Áine O'Dwyer
$15 USD
Turning in Space –
'Playing Place' Cassette
Áine O'Dwyer
$15 USD
Turning in Space –
'Slipstream' Cassette
Áine O'Dwyer
$15 USD
Turning in Space –
Triple Cassette Box Set
Áine O'Dwyer
$35 USD
Turning in Space –
Triple Cassette Box Set (art edition)
Áine O'Dwyer
Sold Out
Put the Music In Its Coffin –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
The Shadow Ring
$25 USD
City Lights –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
The Shadow Ring
$25 USD
Solo for Tamburium –
Limited Edition Compact Disc
Catherine Christer Hennix
$20 USD
Solo for Tamburium –
Limited Edition Double Vinyl
Catherine Christer Hennix
$35 USD
Texas Music –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Jerry Hunt, Philip Krumm, Jerry Willingham
$20 USD
Music of Dary John Mizelle –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Dary John Mizelle
$20 USD
Music of BL Lacerta –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
BL Lacerta
$20 USD
Hybrid Musics –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Larry Austin
$20 USD
Cartography –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Gene De Lisa, Robert Michael Keefe, Rodney Waschka II
$20 USD
Works –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
James Fulkerson
$20 USD
Cantegral Segment(s) –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Jerry Hunt
$20 USD
Neo Seven –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
7038634357
$25 USD
Aphorisms –
Limited Edition 2xCD
Graham Lambkin
$20 USD
Aphorisms –
Limited Edition 2xLP
Graham Lambkin
$30 USD
The Cat & Bells Club –
Limited Edition LP
The Cat & Bells Club
$25 USD
Larynx –
2xLP
Lary 7
$30 USD
May 99 –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Charles Curtis, Alan Licht, and Dean Roberts
$25 USD
New Sense of Hearing –
Limited Edition CD
Takehisa Kosugi + Akio Suzuki
$15 USD
New Sense of Hearing –
Limited Edition Vinyl LP
Takehisa Kosugi + Akio Suzuki
$25 USD
Irida Records: Hybrid Musics from Texas and Beyond, 1979–1986 –
Limited Edition 7xLP + Book (Box Set)
Various Artists
$225 USD
Ground: Five Mechanic Convention Streams –
Limited Edition Double LP
Jerry Hunt
$30 USD
Kazuki Tomokawa: Finally, His First Album - LP
$25 USD
Blank Forms Editions Brooklyn, New York
Blank Forms is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting emerging and underrepresented artists working in a range of time-based and interdisciplinary art practices, including experimental music, performance, dance, and sound art. Blank Forms provides artists with curatorial support, residencies, commissions, and publications to help document, disseminate, and advance their practices. ... more
