Due to unprecedented delays in global production, we are anticipating a May 2022 release date for the upcoming Kazuki Tomokawa releases.
In a generation of musicians that came of age in postwar Japan, Kazuki Tomokawa stands as a pioneer of radical individualism—forging a sound and sensibility marked by shocking intimacy and blistering honesty. In his third album, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, released by Harvest Records in 1977, Tomokawa creeps “ever more inward,” as Kiichi Takahara writes in the record’s original introductory text—embracing an attitude pervasive amongst musicians of the time who interrogated the prosaic and the profound alike, eschewing politics and society in favor of an “attitude of total self-containment.”
Tomokawa recorded the album over the course of a month—from August 24 to September 25, 1977—at Tokyo’s famed Onkio Haus studio in the bustling Ginza district. The arrangements, accordingly, are amped up: paired with the Black Panther Orchestra, Tomokawa’s “screaming philosopher” vocals find their match with the orchestra’s electric guitar, bass, piano, tuba, and ground-thumping drums played by the Brain Police’s Toshi Ishizuka—who appears on Tomokawa’s first three records and remains his collaborator to this day.
“This is Kazuki Tomokawa in the flesh,” concludes Takahara. A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth is, in Tomokawa’s uncanny way, able to cut through facade and artifice in pursuit of truth. “You call that life?” he heckles, exhausted by the melodrama and nihilism of youth counterculture, “try saying you’re alive!”
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 1975–1977 3xCD Box Set
$35 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
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