japanese experimental music artists

The 10 Best Experimental Japanese Artists, according to Ultrademon

Ultrademon – real name Lilium Kobayashi – is a Kyoto-based artist, who has released music under a variety of aliases over the years. Having emerged with a kind of seapunk aesethetic that ended up inspiring the likes of Azealia Banks, her sound has shape-shifted over the years, finding a home on Rephlex with the now-cult ‘Seapunk’, a scene-defining record.

‘Chamber Music’, her latest record, was written mostly in Tokyo but also in Kyoto, and takes shape as a deeply personal tale from beginning to end. Listening mostly to metal and sub-genres like dungeon synth, black metal, death metal and doom throughout that period, the album expresses the emotions of regret, loss and pain that she was feeling at the time, through sounds that are spacious and clean and feudal track titles.

As a Japan-dwelling artist who likes to uncover exciting leftfield music, we asked Ultrademon to list her favourite experimental Japanese acts. “These songs do have a focus on Kyoto-based artists though some span other parts of Japan,” she says. “I don’t consider this an exhaustive list but rather, ten artists I recommend.”

She also sent this tweet:

It would be nice if just occasionally perhaps music content providers could write about Japanese artists without defining what they do in terms of their nationality. — Chris SSG (@mnmlssgs) October 30, 2019

“To start off, a younger artist getting some shine right now. He recently played the Discipline party (Bushbash, a venue around Tokyo) among other spots. His works touch on the club atmosphere more than the gallery – that of the ambient art school sound. Here is a clip of him from there performing a section of his recent work ‘Palace’. ‘Palace’ could constitute a ‘deep listening’ work by some metrics. I’ve listened to it many times over. My usual diet of music doesn’t include much electronic music these days, though Hegira Moya makes the cut.”

“I wondered if I should include Sugai Ken since, well, he’s getting a lot of coverage – in fact he recently released a mix via Dummy Mag . But I did want to mention a record that I thoroughly enjoy, especially in the colder months. Seemingly one of Sugai Ken’s most straight ahead works in some way. He captures the feeling of summer evenings in Japan. The sounds of the forest and the insect chirping, all via synthesis of sound. That work is called 如の夜庭.

“In Japan, there are a few species of cicada. Some people get really into their song, as this video shows the songs of the different types of cicada and what months they are active. Feel free to try and figure out which ones Sugai Ken likes.”

丈の低い木の丈は低い from Muku Kobayashi on Vimeo .

“I saw Kobayashi at the BnA Alter Museum, a sort of hipster hotel that features local artists and performance on occasion. His performance was so refreshing. The work is named ‘Shojiki’, where he ‘rewound’ different kinds of tape. The concept is supposed to play with the idea of magnetic tape being rewound in comparison though the effect was the most interesting aspect. The stretching sound of sticky packing tape being wound up on a spiralling mechanism. He and a partner would stretch various types, running around spools to create different frequencies. As the tape wears out, it harkens to the temporality of magnetic tape… well at least this is the concept? The ripping tape sound is an aural treat. As he stretches the tape, I feel he stretches the abstract machines of sound art. I wish I could see more works akin to this – rather than the over-abundant sonic naturalism (field recording works) and most despised in my eyes (yes, it is a fault of mine) oral performance art vein of sound art. i.e. – making mouth sounds into a mic. The body of his works almost completely focuses on the use of slow oscillations on a short curve. Simple oscillator modulations. Manifesting visually (moving video cameras), stretching tape, or automated shifts of simple oscillators.”

“I first discovered Komatsu’s work when returning to the USA from my first Japan tour – long before moving here, back in 2013. Among some gifts I received on my trip, one was a CD labeled ‘Mad Egg’ given to me by someone I performed with. For perhaps two years I pronounced his former moniker MADEGG instead of Mad Egg…

“Anyway, upon my recent move to Kyoto back in April, I was scouring the upcoming gigs and discovered a seemingly and interesting one at a local venue I’d been wanting to check out. It featured some Resident Advisor rated ‘up and coming’ producer or someone… I don’t remember the headliner though the opener left an impression. I didn’t even realise it was Mad Egg under his real name now… though I felt a familiarity. His work spans overt noise experimentation – sparse synth enunciations popping and pinging like a language lost – though the bulk of his works would perhaps be placed within the ‘ambient’ territory.”

“They have collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto (which of course gains major points overseas…) among other things. The three-piece never allows you to hear the fully worked out modulating rhythms and odd time signatures. Eventually, for some brief refrain, it comes together. Though when they are ‘off’ the tension is fucking terrible, though I do like pain… Attempting to produce sound art through vectors outside the pattern system regular band forms.

“They experiment with minute deteritorialisations within the refrains. Essentially it’s all refrain. Three refrains with modulations. Each instrument functions autonomously, though it’s a presupposed feeling. It’s an attempt at battling so to speak – it doesn’t translate to violence, perhaps just confusion at times. Kukangendai runs the venue 外 (Outside, detached, farther beyond) in Kyoto which came from the name of one of their pieces. They moved from Tokyo, and then opened the venue in 2016. They recently premiered their new record ‘Palm’ [above].”

“I first heard P.O.V.’s work on a CD I picked up from the Metal Disk Union shop in Naka Okachimachi. Pilfering through the black metal section I was scouring for something I would find interesting, I come from another time, perhaps, when one would go to the record store as a teen and buy CDs based on finding the cover interesting. Anyway this isn’t 2005, so yes I googled the release on my phone to basically find nothing. I got home and discovered upon opening and listening (there was no text on the outside of the CD) that it was a three-way split EP. Two noise artists and one depressive black metal act. I looked online for this P.O.V. and reached out. The release’s title, I later learned, stands for ‘Penis On Vagina’… so for all the cis het guys who just love guitar pedal distortion and Merzbow this will be your guy… Really though, I do love his work. A bit outside yet straight ahead… and he loves noise. He grew up in Nakano yet currently lives in Oita, near the many hells.”

“Not only breaking the Japanese folk modality at times, Sawai makes profuse use of vibrato on the string. She as such, is an experimental classical Japanese musician. Although I’d like to break this down a bit… in European-rooted music, 12 tone equal temperament is the norm. Since Western music is dominant, for most who are used to this feel anything out side of this tuning feels “out of tune”. Since it is not based on the hegemonic Western 12 tone standard. A koto player using western notation is playing experimentally, in a non-Eurocentric context. Though Western music did permeate and effect Japanese music through the early 20th century. There was even a whole style of imitation western music created by Japanese musicians ( for example ). Or later on in funk music .

“There is a deep history regarding this – that is for another article… We can see in Japanese pop music there are different modes used. The form here is rooted in Japanese folk music there is an obvious influence. Try and listen for it in J-pop or J-rock, even. Oddly similar to some strains of midwestern emo, though I digress… The point is, even if Sawai’s song sounds traditional to Euro-centric musical ears, her playing western notation on a Japanese folk instrument is experimental. So this brings into question: what defines experimental? Is it defined by the dominant culture? In what context? I bring up many questions and challenge you readers to think about these things when digesting new sounds.”

“Akao’s work invokes not only the spirit of the melancholic mythic topological of Japanese folk, but invites a new view, borrowing from the poetics of modern European and American composition. A classically-trained musician within the ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ musical worlds, Akao pays homage to eons old tradition while pushing the boundaries of what is deemed possible with the Japanese flute. She rose to popularity in the ’80s participating in collaborations with pop and funk artists, bringing the Japanese flute to a new audience in a new light. She was trained classically in western modalities and integrated these stylings from the outside within. And a more minimal take . In the ’90s and beyond she shifted to going deeper into the folkloric roots of her instrument, at times collaborating with experimental artists. My favourite of her works is the album “Requiem for Maiden and Young Warrior” song “Legend of the Water Flame”. Unfortunately I could not find a clip of this one online though I did find another one of her works as a reference (above).”

“The event I saw LINEKRAFT at was an outdoor performance of the ROHM theatre in Kyoto. It was sort of in conjunction with the international film festival, though not directly. It was really odd in a way to hear harsh noise and industrial blaring in the middle of the day outside a famous theatre in a sort of museum area of Kyoto. At first I was unconvinced, judging and older generations harking back to some age of industrial I was too young to hear. Deeper into his performance I began to hear it. The cutting high end of him smacking scrap metal attached to a surface mic cut through all the sound more than any other during the whole performance. By the end he had removed his shirt to reveal a traditional tattoo, twisting dragons down his back. The event organisers themselves spoke to bringing out a sort of ancient esoteric energy in everyone. You can read about it (in Japanese) and the group that put it on.”

“Unfortunately I have not seen this group live. Though I have heard of them through friends. They planned a live protest in front of the agency for cultural affairs in Tokyo, regarding the Aichi triennial defunding. The triennial was defunded due to the showing of a piece speaking of the dark history of comfort women . A fact the Japanese government typically denies or tries to sweep under the rug. They have organised other events similar… Honestly I can’t really describe them, but if you are still curious here’s more about them .”

Ultrademon’s ‘Chamber Music’ album is out now via Soft Architecture – find it here .

Read next: The 10 Best Examples of Chinese Instrumentation in Hip-Hop/Pop, according to GZ Tian.

Japanese Innovators: Pioneers in Experimental Sounds

Tokyo-based journalist Ian F Martin looks back through the decades to see who was responsible for the genre-defining music emerging from the Japanese underground scenes over the past 40 years.

Browse season

Artwork: Aleesha Nandhra

Despite J-Pop’s almost subliminal infiltration into the international pop cultural consciousness over recent years, and despite the occasional novelty hit or surge of viral attention, the West’s exposure to Japanese music over the years has for the most part been with various incarnations of its underground.

The story of Japanese underground music, however, is not a linear narrative so much as an endlessly intersecting garden of forking paths.

The post-war music laboratory of the 1950s and ’60s

One of its beginnings lies in the fading days of the U.S. post-war occupation and the subsequent period of ambiguous, semi-colonised democracy, when experimental artists from a variety of disciplines began exploring their newfound cocktail of freedom and American cultural influence.

Formed in 1951, the Jikken Kobo artists’s workshop positioned themselves as a distinct break from the Japanese artistic tradition, with a self-taught, exploratory approach that drew influences from contemporary and pre-war European and American art.

Credit: Shinchosha  Publishing Co, Ltd.

Among Jikken Kobo’s fourteen members were a number of musicians, including composer Toru Takemitsu, who made early experiments in musique concréte . Takemitsu was also profoundly influenced by John Cage, upon being introduced to his work by fellow experimental composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, briefly jettisoning musical scores for circular diagrams designed to be interpreted by the performers. More profoundly, Takemitsu was fascinated by Cage’s incorporation of rhythms, timbres and silences influenced by his studies of Zen Buddhism, crediting Cage with reigniting his interest in traditional Japanese music.

Trailer for 'The Woman in the Dunes (Suna No Onna)', 1964 - Toru Takemitsu

Cage’s influence loomed large over the post-war Japanese underground, and his work, along with that of Minimalism and drone pioneer LaMonte Young, is audible in the work of sound art collective, Group Ongaku.

Formed in 1960 by composer Mieko Shiomi, Group Ongaku incorporated elements of musique concréte and the noises of furniture and domestic appliances into their performances, not to mention playing traditional musical instruments in any way they could think of but the conventional one. One factor linking this generation of musicians is that they functioned in many ways as the Japanese branch of an international scene. Composers like Ichiyanagi and Shiomi spent time studying and making music in America, while the influence of composers like Cage and Young was profound on those who remained in Japan. Thanks in part to the influence of Yoko Ono (who was married to Ichiyanagi for a time), connections between Group Ongaku and the international Fluxus collective flourished, with Shiomi herself becoming a member, along with fellow Group Ongaku members Takehisa Kosugi and Yasunao Tone. And in this way the Japanese 1960s avant-garde generation was able to return the influence, albeit in a less dramatic fashion.

Rock gets dangerous: the origins of the 1970s underground

At the same time John Cage was having such an extraordinary influence on Japanese avant-garde composers, there were big changes happening in Japanese jazz and theatre, alongside the gradual emergence of rock music. Jazz had been perhaps the key point of contact with American music for Japanese people in the immediate post-war period, and had formed the basis for the development of the pop music industry through the 1950s and early ‘60s. However, as the ‘60s wore on, artists like pianist Yosuke Yamashita embraced free jazz and in the process blew the horizons of Japanese jazz wide open.

Yosuke Yamashita, 'Burning Piano 2008,' March 8, 2008 at Noto Resort Area Masuhogaura, Shika-machi, Ishikawa, Japan

Despite Yamashita’s uncompromising avant-garde approach (he famously performed on a burning piano as part of a 1973 art piece), Yamashita combined international acclaim with a status as a household name in Japan. At the same time, musicians like bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa, guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi and saxophonist Kaoru Abe continued pushing jazz beyond the limits of genre, eventually forming links with the experimental fringes of the emerging Japanese rock scene.

'Musicians continued pushing jazz beyond the limits of genre, forming links with the experimental fringes of the emerging Japanese rock scene...'

Rock music, meanwhile, had finally begun to emerge as a distinct and powerful creative force after about a decade or more of successive faddish obsessions with first rockabilly, then Ventures-influenced instrumental surf guitar music, and finally the Beatlemania-driven ‘Group Sounds’ movement. The swirling, Doors-y psychedelic balladry of The Jacks foreshadowed the emergence of a new generation of loud, dirty, heavy and mysterious rock music influenced by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the emerging Western progressive rock movement. Perhaps the most influential figure in this ‘New Rock’ scene was high school dropout, Yuya Uchida, who had ridden each successive Western rock’n’roll wave in search of his sound before retreating into an impresario role behind the legendary Flower Travellin’ Band. Buoyed by Uchida’s overseas connections, most notably his friendship with John Lennon, Flower Travellin’ Band were able to tour internationally to some degree of acclaim, and recorded their 1971 masterpiece album, Satori in Canada.

Album cover for Flower Travellin' Band's 'Satori' (1971)

Parallel with the birth of free jazz and rock in Japan was the growing intersection of music and theatre. Playwright and film director Shuji Terayama worked closely with musicians in both his stage and filmed works, with composer and frequent Terayama collaborator J. A. Seazer (real name Takaaki Terahara) combining psychedelia with Japanese folk and traditional theatre music on many of Terayama’s soundtracks – most notably on Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyō (‘Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets’) and Den’en ni Shisu (‘Death in the Country’).

J. A. Seazer - Kodomo Bosatsu (from 'Den’en ni Shisu)

Consciously or not, what nearly all these artists were engaged in was an attempt to fuse foreign influences into a distinctively Japanese kind of new music, and in the process they helped lay foundations that would endure for decades to come. However, the distinctly anti-establishment or countercultural nature of many of the artists also helped ensure that, while internationally or academically respected artists like Yosuke Yamashita or Toshi Ichiyanagi could rake in awards and acclaim domestically for their experimentation with musical form, a lot of the most forward-looking music of the ’70s was locked out of polite discourse and ghettoised as ‘underground’ music.

While Yuya Uchida and Flower Travellin’ Band were courting overseas attention, back in Japan more sonically out-there bands like former Fluxus/Group Ongaku member Takehisa Kosugi’s drone rock collective Taj Mahal Travellers and noise-rock pioneers Hadaka no Rallizes (Les Rallizes Dénudés) emerged from out of the late ‘60s/early ’70s commune scene.

Despite rarely addressing politics directly, Rallizes in particular were dogged by associations with radical left organisations such as the Red Army Faction and its successor groups – a source of much public anxiety and police attention after a series of high profile terrorist incidents such as the Asama-Sanso hostage incident.

Les Rallizes Denudes - 'Night of the Assassin'

Partly as a consequence of this, and perhaps partly as a simple result of sole consistent member Takashi Mizutani’s reclusive personality, Les Rallizes Dénudés developed a reputation as a band shrouded in mystery and secrecy, their releases initially confined to ultra-lo-fi live bootlegs, soaked in banshee wails of feedback. More broadly, mainstream suspicion towards underground music in the 1970s may have contributed to an environment where progressive rock was never able to reach the pomp and sonic excess of its British contemporaries. Instead, a distinctive Japanese underground musical tradition was formed where artists who emerged from the psychedelic rock scene like Lost Aaraaf vocalist Keiji Haino could collaborate freely with artists from diverse backgrounds such as folk singer (and occasional Shuji Terayama associate) Kan Mikami and improvisational jazz bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa.

'All these artists were engaged in an attempt to fuse foreign influences into a distinctively Japanese kind of new music...'

Creative listening: the influence of punk and new-wave

The underground nature of much of the experimental music from 1970s Japan also perhaps explains why there is no clear cut-off dividing 1970s rock from punk in the way there was in the UK. Bassist Reck and sax player Chico Hige of ’70s underground band 3/3 were among the key players who helped kick off Japanese punk after a period living in New York, where they played with and absorbed the influence of no-wave pioneers Lydia Lunch and James Chance. Returning to Japan, they renamed themselves Friction and helped produce the Tokyo Rockers compilation, which was a critical album in defining the first generation of Japanese punk.

' Listening sessions of overseas free jazz, experimental music and progressive rock crossed the line into performance'

It was west of Tokyo in the Kansai area, around Kyoto and Osaka, that punk really found its experimental footing though. The ‘free space’ Drugstore in Kyoto provided a creative environment where listening sessions of overseas free jazz, experimental music and progressive rock often crossed the line into performance. Starting out with madcap ideas like creating sounds by adding items to a Japanese-style nabe hotpot, the freeform performances at Drugstore eventually began to coalesce into structured ‘noise’ performances.

Frequenting Drugstore from the ‘70s to the ‘80s were people like Hide ‘Bidé’ Fujiwara and Yoshiyuki ’Jojo’ Hiroshige of early Kyoto punk band Ultra Bidé. Hiroshige went on to form the noise act Hijokaidan and start the Alchemy Records label, which helped document legendary noise acts from the Kansai area and beyond like Masonna, Incapacitants and Merzbow, bringing them to international attention via a small but dedicated mail order tape audience around the globe, and in North America in particular.

Merzbow - 'Woodpecker No.1'

This shift from the ’70s underground into the experimental ’80s wasn’t just confined to the nascent punk generation though: punk’s more cheerfully ironic, synth-bothering cousin new wave also made a similar transition.

Susumu Hirasawa from progressive rock band Mandrake absorbed the influence of The Sex Pistols and proto-electro French punks Métal Urbain and refashioned his band as the Devo-esque P-Model. Meanwhile one-time Tokyo Kid Brothers member Koichi Makigami gradually found his way from theatre into new wave and avant-pop, partly under the oblique influence of overseas encounters with The Ramones and British avant-rock band, Henry Cow.

Merzbow. Photo: James Hadfield

Koichi Makigami

Parallel to these roots in the ’70s underground, however, was a thread of influence from more mainstream sources.

One of the most important bands in helping to define Japanese mainstream rock music was folk-rock band Happy End, led by Haruomi Hosono. In 1978, Hosono teamed up with Yukihiro Takahashi of somewhat respectable glam/prog rockers Sadistic Mika Band and producer/composer Ryuichi Sakamoto to embrace electronic and synthesiser-based pop with Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO).

Ryuichi Sakamoto - 'Disintegration'

Despite coming from a thoroughly mainstream background, the members of YMO – in particular Hosono and Sakamoto – would go on to play a key role in the emerging punk and new qave movement, with Sakamoto producing Friction’s first album Atsureki as well as some early material by Osaka experimental musician Phew (real name Hiromi Moritani), formerly of atonal art-punk band, Aunt Sally.

Phew. Photo: James Hadfield

Hosono’s career as a producer, meanwhile, helped forge a new kind of synth-based Japanese avant-pop out of the new wave era. Through her work with Hosono, pop singer Miharu Koshi made a swift transition from inoffensive 1970s-style pop into sparse, icy, synth-led deadpan experimental pop. Hosono also produced Pizzicato Five’s 1985 debut Audrey Hepburn Complex and In Action EPs, which helped bridge the transition from new wave to the next generation of experimental pop, influenced by French pop, British indie-pop and 1960s movie soundtracks, which in the 1990s became known as Shibuya-kei.

Haruomi Hosono. Courtesy of Mike Nogami

' Suddenly pop was a legitimate arena for artists to play with experimental ideas in...'

While Sakamoto in particular gained huge acclaim as an experimental and ambient composer, YMO were never really considered either underground or truly avant-garde. What they did do, however, was open up a space in mainstream Japanese culture for leftfield musical ideas to filter through for the first time since the late ’60s.

Suddenly pop was a legitimate arena for artists to play with experimental ideas in, and the experimentation incubated in the 1970s underground began to manifest in a flood of playful, oddball releases skirting the fringes of pop, by artists such as The Plastics, Chakra, Mariah, Wha Ha Ha, Jun Togawa and more.

Some met with success at the time and others less so, but years later it provided a fertile ground for revival by crate-digging vinyl fanatics.

Musical collisions at high speed: the 1990s onwards

The Japanese experimental music that emerged from the 1970s and ’80s, provides most of the core building blocks for the underground scene of the 1990s and beyond.

It was really those ’90s children of the underground and avant-garde who formed the image of Japanese music that came to dominate the West’s imagination.Some artists who emerged from the ’70s underground like Keiji Haino are still active, prolific and evolving, while the ever-shifting line ups of Acid Mothers Temple continue the lineage of heavy Psychedelia pioneered by the likes of Flower Travellin’ Band and Les Rallizes Dénudés.

Keiji Haino. Photo: Kazuyuki Funaki

However, if there is one factor that unifies much of the post-’80s Japanese underground, it is an omnivorous approach to musical styles that in many ways reflects and expands upon the Drugstore mode of creative listening, taking delight in hurling together eclectic sounds or rhythms, whether to dissonant or complementary effect.

Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple). Photo: James Hadfield

Melt-Banana

Beginning his career with the improv band Ground Zero in the early ’90s, Yoshihide Otomo’s career has seen him take on almost every genre imaginable to awe-inspiring and influential effect.

Less well-known in their home country than overseas, Tokyo’s Melt-Banana have roots in punk but augment that with blast beats derived from grindcore acts like Napalm Death and a cosmic array of guitar textures, all within an increasingly electronic compositional framework. Meanwhile, Ruins combine almost Queen-like prog rock operatics with complex, tightly-controlled rhythmical structures. The Kansai scene in particular became notorious for energetic, wild and musically skittish new acts.

Boredoms emerged out of the blood, sweat and chaos of 1980s Osaka, creating a paranoid, impatient, hyperkinetic mashup of The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, no wave noise-rock and short stabs of bubblegum that ran from their 1988 debut Osorezan no Stooges Kyo to 1994’s Chocolate Synthesizer, before taking a cosmic turn into blissful, drawn-out cosmic jams, and eventually the ecstatic, tribal multi-drummer excess they later became notorious for.

Boredoms - '111 Boadrum'

Meanwhile, Boredoms drummer Yoshimi’s own project OOIOO refuses to be pinned down to a consistent sound, veering from expansive to minimal, from complex rhythms to ambient soundscapes. Post-millennial acts from the region like Afrirampo have continued this free-roaming, noisy-yet-eclectic approach.Less confrontationally, the distinctly poppy Shibuya-kei scene that Pizzicato Five helped foster combined French pop, British ’80s indie guitar music, sampling influenced by De La Soul, Bossa Nova, and much more. Just as the Drugstore crowd in ’80s Kyoto built noise out of a kind of creative listening in a shared ‘free space’, Shibuya-kei artists like Keigo ‘Cornelius’ Oyamada built a new kind of pop out of a kind of creative listening drawn from crate-digging.

And like the music that grew under the influence of YMO, the Shibuya-kei boom allowed a rare and brief flirtation between avant-garde ideas and the pop culture mainstream.

' They’re there, more than ever, and making a noise...'

Nowadays, experimental music is firmly back in the underground, but nearly all these kinds of music co-exist, overlapping in time and space in tiny live venues, cafés and rehearsal rooms in all major Japanese cities from Sapporo in the northeast to Fukuoka in the southwest.

Artists small in audience, with careers which are more often than not short in lifespan, but they’re there, more than ever, and making a noise.

In a three part mini-series, we take a look into the record collections of three Japanese music enthusiasts, taking a journey of sonic discovery from 1970-2000, exploring the diverse tapestry sounds that have emerged from the country. Featuring interviews with Japan Blues' Howard Williams, Light in the Attic Records’s Yosuke Kitazawa and Ian F Martin.

Subscribe to our Contemporary Music podcast on iTunes , Acast and Spotify .

20 Jun-30 Sep A series of gigs featuring artists from Japanese underground scenes responsible for genre-defining music over the past 40 years. Book tickets

Listen to our Japanese Innovators playlist on Spotify

About Ian F Martin

Author of Quit Your Band! Musical Notes from the Japanese Underground , Ian F Martin is a Tokyo-based journalist, having relocated there from the UK several years ago. His blog, Clear and Refreshing and his Japan Times column document the local music scene. He also runs the indie/post-punk label, Call and Response Records and promotes gigs and parties throughout Japan.

Illustrations by Aleesha Nandhra

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

All Songs Considered

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

In 2023, experimental music mapped time and space

Viking's choice goes back to the future.

Lars Gotrich

Robin Hilton

Ruth Anderson and Annea Lockwood's Tête-à-tête , one of 2023's most intimate records, features field recordings of their voices that span decades. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Ruth Anderson and Annea Lockwood's Tête-à-tête , one of 2023's most intimate records, features field recordings of their voices that span decades.

"Time is never time at all," William Patrick Corgan Jr. once sang — and so did I, once, in a Halloween cover band, forever ago — about being lost in the moment, which is very much something one yawps over a swell of strings as a 20-something with everything to prove. So why did I feel every single moment of this year in my body, but couldn't tell you a thing about any of them?

In my 40th lap around the sun, time and space seemed to operate as a system of rubber bands — elastic memories and taut histories balled up into compacted feelings, their bounce trajectory unknown. The experimental music that spoke to me in 2023 did much the same, playing with concepts of simultaneity, recollection and liberation — not so much lost in a moment, but mapping how one got there and what was lost and found in doing so.

Viking's Choice, my weekly-ish mixtape and newsletter , continuously finds the links between seemingly disparate sounds. My year-end podcast with All Songs Considered host Robin Hilton, however, connects epic Japanese storytelling, soul-sampling powerviolence, ambient rap and beautiful noise through thematic webs of time and space. For some semblance of order, this episode is divided into four chapters. Listen to a mixtape featuring all of the featured music via BNDCMPR. —Lars Gotrich

Chapter 1: Histories lost and found

So much of history is forgotten or even intentionally erased by powers seeking control of the narrative. When the storytellers die, so do their stories. These albums re-contextualize a record label's storied catalog ( Matmos ' Return to Archive ), bring medieval epics into the future ( PoiL Ueda 's Yoshitsune ) and uncover a lost battle ( Mayssa Jallad 's Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels ).

Chapter 2: The past is ever present

We are in constant conversation with not only the past but also our past selves. On T​ê​te​-​à​-​t​ê​te , Ruth Anderson and Annea Lockwood give a surprisingly sweet and intimate set of musique concrète that prominently features their voices. On A New Tomorrow , LA hardcore band Zulu samples soul music legends as a source of comfort and encouragement.

Chapter 3: Memory is a mystical measure of time

Memory doesn't make sense, yet it gives us a sense of self. Yungwebster raps meditations over vaporous beats that speed and slow time while Liis Ring 's Homing leans into nostalgic haze.

Chapter 4: Where we're going, we don't need ____

We close the show with its raison d'être, helpfully provided by Sunwatchers : Music Is Victory over Time . Electronic collage artist Elysia Crampton , under the moniker Chuquimamani-Condori, and psychedelic party weirdos Sunwatchers both understand that not only must our music be free from boundaries, but also our people.

(This edition of All Songs Considered was edited and mixed by Tom Huizenga)

• Yungwebster
• Annea Lockwood
• Ruth Anderson
• Mayssa Jallad
• Elysia Crampton
• Sunwatchers

Japanese Experimental

Japanese Experimental music is a genre of music that combines traditional Japanese music with modern experimental techniques. It often incorporates elements of traditional Japanese instruments such as the koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi, as well as modern electronic instruments and sound manipulation. It is characterized by its use of improvisation, experimentation, and exploration of sound. It is often abstract and avant-garde in nature, and can range from ambient and drone-like soundscapes to more energetic and chaotic compositions.

Popular Songs

Top listeners, related genres.

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

Experimental Electronic Music

Breaking News

• Japanese ambient music :: Minimal environment and zen-inspired sonic sculptures

More in Features:

Through multiple evolutions along decades, with a refined combination of harmonies, a deep sense of space, a phenomenology of time and bright sonic manipulations based on acoustic timbres, Japanese artists invite the listener to enlightened and intuitive inner promenades.

The poetry of space

at dusk i often climb to the peak of kugami. deer bellow, their voices soaked up by piles of maple leaves lying undisturbed at the foot of the mountain. ~ Taigu Ryokan

F rom his genesis to his latest development at the digital era, ambient music defends the idea of spiritual comfort and oceanic feeling; in resonance with “ perfumed ” sounding atmosphere, as David Toop said when he relates to suggestive pleasures and aether talks. Ambient music is a state which inspires us a more dignified and magical views on our every day life. Whatever its declination into subcategory as house ambient, chill-out, downtempo, and dark ambient, the listener is irresistibly moved to the confines of a “ poetry of space ” ( Bachelard ) which come from distant electronic winds. The poetry of space and the aesthetic-ethical value of environment are central in the primordial philosophy of Japan where every life or mental movement can be the subject of an inward spiritual ecstasy, a reason to dive in a vast oceanic world, synonym of liberation and reflective peacefulness.

The poetical and existential relationship with space is traditionally governed by a practical science of milieu ( fudo ), a relational more than a substantial ontology also is careful to seasonal moves and a singular sense of situations which relate to human being interaction with nature as a whole. This ontology forged by antique principles is nowadays violently in construct with neoliberal symmetric urban ecology also established in modern Japan. In ambient music the sound artist is attentive to spiritual narratives and energies blooming in natural vastness, multilayered worlds more than to heavy formalistic rhetorics.

The “ oceanic call ” conceptualized in the Ukiyo, day dreaming and devotion/surrendering to the sovereign Nature heal the soul and maintain a slow heart pulse which is after all a quest for an inner harmony. In this regard Japanese ambient music has deep roots into cultural, philosophical idiosyncrasies. The musical adventure turns into a deep meditative estate where mental processes, consciousness flux are deeply activated while the body escapes from its materiality through an ascetic form of stillness.

Without going much into esoteric concepts the whole idea of Japanese ambient music assumes a coordination between internal and external spaces which might be effective through breath, silence and openness. In other words, music is understood as a ritualized vehicle to initiate a potential restored self, the musical experience goes through subtle and rich textures, radiant tone colors which evolve slowly, gradually, sometimes almost imperceptibly for the ordinary listening experience (this particularly noticeable in the lowercase sub-genre, where micro noises, micro rhythms are used as sinuous paintings, this was approached by the Onkyokei scene headed by Nakamura and other artisan of electroacoustic music researches.

The delicate regard on silence ::

The micro details are a component regarding Japanese faith in Nature and ordinary poetry, it is particularly eloquent in the brief haiku writing form, in Shinto beliefs, in foundational Zen treaties opened to silent meditation on the time which passes by Dôgen , chômei , Kenkô , Shônagun (et al) in impressionist descriptions of the hyper perceptive literary school ( Kawabata ), in the highly sensitive philosophical novels of Junichiro Tanizaki . The delicate regard on silence, slowly moving elements, the intangible inspired by non west traditional music and in particular Japan was evident in some pierces of New Yorkers innovating musical spirits and avant-garde personalities such as Henry Cowell or John Cage (even if his aleatoric method of composition was directly inspired by the Chinese Yi-King ).

The influence of Japanese ritual and traditional music on the imaginary landscapes forged by the minimalist and proto ambient music scene comes from Gagaku (oldest manifestation of Japanese music). Certainly gamelan sound ritualism and the raga Kirana popularized by La Monte Young in his luminous dreamily microtonal sound installations had a deep impact in the development of ambient music archetypes but the search of subliminal tranced out estate through repetition and acoustic vibrations we can find in Gagaku codified court music is also worth of consideration. Even modern days digital ambient artists such as Tim Hecker , Gabriel Saloman or Fabio Perletta found an interest in Japanese classical music for their sonic drone sculptures.

All in all ambient music made in Japan insists more than anywhere else on the enlighten properties of sound colors, sound symbolism with references to antique refinement and meditative beauty accessible in deep dreamily connection with Nature. The intention is to install an intuitive experience of spiritual sound ecology in the mind of the sound traveler and in the heart of the listener sensitive to poetical photographers of real and imaginary spaces marked by liminality. This music also helps us to be in contact with the melancholic beauty of things. Without being exhaustive, now let’s have a look on the beautifully crafted atmospheric / harmonic swells of Japanese minimal ambient through a handful of classical albums and new phonographic discoveries.

In itself ambient music from Japan takes its genesis from early minimalism. From this school of experimental and spiritual researches for higher state of consciousness and self/collective meditation we often refer to West composers notably American ones such as Terry Riley , Charlemagne Palestine , Phil Nyblock , La Monte Young , and Pauline Oliveros , but the sense of sonic manipulations and deep spacious drone patterns were also largely explored and carried on by visionary Japanese sound artists such as Yoshi Wada , the Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi (ex- Taj Mahal travelers). Their expanded, epic and otherworldly suspended mantras notably for long string chords and amplified technics will be an undeniable influence on generations to come. Their long form, avant-garde, and stellar improvisations were held mostly in the 70s. Among others and for an introductive experience which captures the everlasting acoustic / semi electronic power and slowly evolving tones of those Japanese pioneering spirits we can recommend the following releases:

The legendary Sub Rosa and thanks to a handful of reissues and a precious amount of sound archives also participated to make the early concrete-minimalist-challenging electronic music and post-Cage researches from Japan to be known for a wider audience. In a certain way we can also notice the presence of Tzadik (established by John Zorn ) for having signed foundational materials from Teiji Ito (known for his soundtracks for surreal, theatrical and experimental film maker Maya Deren ) and Oromo Yoshihide .

Starting from this preliminary statement and dedication to emblematic sound researchers who convey concrete music, processed acoustic timbres to their undulating sonic sounds sculptures we can now talk about the first wave of ambient music from Japanese underground and meditative subculture.

Among early Japanese venturing sound artists in the field of free-floating ambient music with now a whole architecture based on modern synth equipment and electronic devices we can name Hiroshi Yoshimura whose pioneering work and its specific sound (spiritual) ecologic qualities are distinguished as Kankyo Ongaku (Environmental music). His music is characterized by the use of simple repetitive motifs, acoustic elements, electronic droning chords, and various green field recordings for an embalming, calming and mellow result, sometimes including Japanese traditional music harmonies, sort of yoga of sounds, not really into hybrid new age philosophy but with roots in antique beliefs from Japanese cultural cradle. This approach opens the way to a generation of sound artists found of psych-acoustic effects, sonic explorations and elevated meditative moods.

Featured releases

Recent posts.

• Ümlaut :: An Auxiliary View (Audiobulb)
• C. Spencer Yeh :: The RCA Mark II (Primary Information) — 2017 flashback
• Mastrapa :: Fluidity Formations EP (Schematic)
• DoorHead :: 0pen22 EP (Not Yet Remembered)
• XXU & UXX :: [channel] (Katabatik)
• Jos Smolders :: Textuur 1 [number 1-9] (Moving Furniture)
• Second Seasons :: Density of Traction (Schematic)
• IDMf > Glitchpulse Records :: Retrospective
• REVANT :: MOSS EP (Self Released)

Digital::Nimbus (Radio)

Popular Tags

• listening party
• existing artist
• See all results

No matching results

Try a different filter or a new search keyword.

Search all Bandcamp artists, tracks, and albums

• artists PRO view site
• edit profile
• subscription subscription
• view collection
• showLinkedBands(!showLinkedBands())" data-test="linked-accounts-header">

Anthology Of Experimental Music From Japan

By various artists.

Digital Album Streaming + Download

Buy digital album   €8 eur  or more, send as gift  , 12 cds sound mapping collection.

Buy Now   €109.90 EUR or more  

Full digital discography.

Get all 106 Unexplained Sounds Group releases available on Bandcamp and save 50% .

Buy Digital Discography   €397 EUR or more ( 50% OFF )

Pan asia collection.

Limited Edition Compact Disc Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

Share / Embed

Shopping cart

Unexplained Sounds Group Italy

Global Network of Aural Disorientation curated by Raffaele Pezzella Subsidiaries: eighthtowerrecords.bandcamp.com reversealignment.bandcamp.com zerok.bandcamp.com therecognitiontest.bandcamp.com sonologyst.bandcamp.com Magazine: www.patreon.com/eighthtower ...   more

discography

contact / help

Contact Unexplained Sounds Group

Streaming and Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

Unexplained Sounds Group recommends:

The Necronomicon Pages by Various Artists

A dive in Lovecraft’s universe. From Dark to experimental and ritual ambient all at the highest level possible, for a unforgettable trip in madness and darkness. Unexplained Sounds Group

Witchcraft & Black Magic In The United Kingdom by Various Artists

A chilling collection of All Hallows’s Eve horrorphonia, a little something touched with a hauntologists bleakness and certainly ripe for companion listening with similar audio manifestations. Unexplained Sounds Group

Shortwave Spectrum by SONOLOGYST

Sonologyst is hard to label as one particular music style –except experimental or avant-garde, but that’s probably also a style or at least a different approach in dealing with music. Unexplained Sounds Group

If you like Anthology Of Experimental Music From Japan, you may also like:

The Dystopian World of J.G.Ballard by Various Artists

supported by 49 fans who also own “Anthology Of Experimental Music From Japan”

Great comeback by ZeroK, experimentation and science fiction in pure J.G. Ballard vision. This is ZeroK at its best, a real sea of oscillators. A favourite track is a tough choice, they all work perfectly together as perfect but different pieces of a puzzle (the fantastic cover portraits this perfectly). Marco Zonta

Hauntology In UK by Various Artists

supported by 48 fans who also own “Anthology Of Experimental Music From Japan”

"An excellent compilation, the songs are subtle and carry a void of mystery, longing, and somehow hope. The alleys of the old city. The tinkle of snow under my boots and the beloved company of my little bottle of absinthe. My nights, long nights, cold nights, my land. That's what this compilation represents for me, remembrance and nostalgia." ~FF Felin Frost

I thought U thought I by St Celfer™

Always inventive, always challenging sound artist St. Celfer returns with another album of glitchy experiments to dazzle & fascinate. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 10, 2024

Bandcamp Daily    your guide to the world of Bandcamp

Unexplained Sounds Group is Devoted to Experimental Music From Around the World

Indonesian Avant-Garde Doom Duo Senyawa Forge Their Own Path (and Instruments)

The San Francisco Tape Music Center Was an Early Home to the Avant-Garde

On Bandcamp Radio

Cammie and Dobber Beverly from Oceans of Slumber talk about their towering new album.

Spotify is currently not available in your country.

Follow us online to find out when we launch., spotify gives you instant access to millions of songs – from old favorites to the latest hits. just hit play to stream anything you like..

Listen everywhere

Spotify works on your computer, mobile, tablet and TV.

Unlimited, ad-free music

No ads. No interruptions. Just music.

Download music & listen offline

Keep playing, even when you don't have a connection.

Premium sounds better

Get ready for incredible sound quality.

• Cover Stories
• Album Reviews
• Live Reviews
• crackaud.io
• ⌘R: The Best New Music

The September issue is here. Starring Knocked Loose, Dar Disku, Adam Curtis, Mermaid Chunky, Bruce LaBruce, Hannah Holland and more.

Contact General Enquiries: [email protected] Advertising: [email protected]

Family CC co Ground Work Simple Things Plinth Good Measure The Christmas Steps

Information Jobs Diversity Policy Privacy Policy Terms of service Cookie Notice Landmrk Data

An independent platform for contemporary culture

Design and build by Plinth

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

• Staff Picks
• Collections
• Experimental
• Deconstructed Club
• Chopped 'n' screwed
• Drum 'n' bass
• Raptor House
• Specialist Mix

7 essential Japanese ambient and new age records

• Vivian Yeung / 28.02.18

Trends in music can often indicate cultural shifts; a zeitgeist-y reflection of our surrounding socio-political climates and anxieties. It’s safe to say that, in recent years, tensions have increased; we’re living in a divisive era of American politics , people keep talking about millennial dread, and technology in art is often interlinked with the collapse of humanity. Far from being arbitrary patterns, a surge of interest in soothing, ambient sounds aligns with times of uncertainty.

Last year, ambient came back in a big way. A knock-on effect is the rediscovery of previously forgotten Japanese ambient music and new age records from the 80s. Long-buried works have been peeled from their original casings, uploaded onto YouTube and propelled into cult classics. Though many of these artists weren’t recognised for their works at the time of their making, diggers and online enthusiasts cite the 80s as a golden era for Japanese ambience, with YouTube algorithms spurring hundreds of thousands of views online and highly sought after rarities selling for several hundreds of pounds via Discogs. However, speaking to Vinyl Factory in a 2017 interview, pioneering composer Midori Takada said she “didn’t feel part of a mainstream movement”, working mainly with a small collective of like-minded artists, such as collaborator Satoshi Ashikawa.

Befitting our current era, the appeal of these ambient LPs from the 80s is their focus on enhancing, and shifting, existing environments. Rather than offering a reprieve in the form of an escape, many of these Japanese artists practised sound design as a way to complement or alter physical locations into spaces of serenity and stillness.

Ranging from Hiroshi Yoshimura’s environmental music to Midori Takada’s cult classic Through the Looking Glass , here are seven primers you should acquaint yourself with (if you haven’t already), as an introduction into Japanese ambient and new age records that, previously, were lost in obscurity.

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Now highly regarded as an ambient pioneer, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s musical trajectory began via the craft of soundtracking fashion runways and train stations. With an output of 12 albums over a two decade career, this landmark LP perfectly encapsulates Yoshimura’s philosophy of creating a dialogue between sounds and spatial environments. Green is an example of Japanese minimalism at its finest, with the melding of natural sounds – via birds, running water and crickets – to the artificiality of arpeggiating synths and soft, minimal notes deployed to poignant effect. The result is a soundscape of light, soothing textures for listeners to sink into.

Haruomi Hosono

Alongside Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, Haruomi Hosono is best known as a co-founder of the famed electropop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra. A highly influential artist who first began making music in the psychedelic rock group Apryl Fool, in 2003 HMV Japan ranked Hosono as the 44th most vital composer in the country. Diverging from the harder sounds of psych rock, Watering a Flower sees Hosono weave a more meditative soundscape, filled with hypnotic refrains. Buoyant synth lines on Growth  segue into the calmness of Muji Original BGM , which employs warm, glowing synths that reverberate through the dense fabric of the track. Comprised of three songs, Watering a Flower was commissioned as background music for Muji’s flagship store in Tokyo. Only one track was used at the time, and the cassette has since become a rarity buried in the sands of time.

Mkwaju Ensemble

The short-lived Japanese trio, made up of percussionists Junko Arase, Midori Takada and Yoji Sadanari, crafted their vision into just two albums in 1981, named Mkwaju and Ki-Motion . Experimentations with layered African rhythms, bamboo percussion and marimbas form the backbone of each LP. Released via the Japanese imprint Better Days, Ki-Motion is fleshed out with more meditative tracks than its predecessor, employing gloomy marimbas and glittering textures that are woven into a tapestry of playful ambience. There’s still room for the group’s more chaotic experimentations though, with charged rhythms propelling the album out of its gentler, sombre moments into clashing, near-cacophonous excursions.

Midori Takada

A cult ambient album that was never released on CD until 2017, its reissue was engineered by Brooklyn label Palto Flats and Swiss imprint We Release Whatever the Fuck We Want. After the retirement of Mkaju Ensemble, the group’s distinct mix of sounds naturally evolved past their short-lived existence, threading through Takada’s solo debut Through the Looking Glass in 1983. Bunkering down in her studio for two days, the album was created entirely on analogue tape and it sees Takada explore a range of instruments, from marimbas to gongs, cowbells and rattles, combining her experimentations with non-Western rhythms. Bird sounds were imitated through ocarinas and, after failing to craft her desired sonics through sake bottles, Takada began experimenting with Coca-Cola glasses. Using a painterly approach, the pioneer visualised sound design as brush strokes on a sonic canvas, producing four ambient designs that close with the charged curveball,  Catastrophe Σ . A mystical output, the classic follows her DIY approach in manipulating accessible objects into musical components.  “Everything that exists on this earth has a sound,” she once said . “Even if humans don’t call it an instrument, on this earth, there exists a significant vibrancy.”

Satoshi Ashikawa

Another compelling obscurity, Still Way  contains the only available recordings ever made by Ashikawa, and it’s the second instalment of his three-part Wave Notation series. Fellow contemporary Midori Takada has been credited as a percussionist, having contributed to the album’s enchanting quality with the vibraphone and harp. In the liner notes, Ashikawa wrote about how daily life in Japan was “inundated with sound” and the album exercises his ethos of employing sound to psychologically aid listeners in gaining individualistic control over their hearing. It was Ashikawa’s way of finding a “conscious attitude” to sound, allowing him to filter out background noise that he deemed to be excessive. To create this focus,  Still Way  captures his mastery of intertwining clear, tinkering harps with minor key piano melodies and the horn to create soporific designs.

Yasuaki Shimizu

Re-pressed by Palto Flats and WRWTFWW in 2017, Kakashi deviates from the other chosen LPs in this list, taking the form of a brilliant jazz, ambient and new age fusion that touches upon new wave and dub sounds. As the bandleader of Japanese group Mariah, the multi-hyphenate is also an esteemed saxophonist and prolific collaborator, having worked with famed composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, DJ Towa Tei and commercial titans such as Honda. His output with Mariah later saw him bring his explorative approach to the table, drawing upon a medley of border-crossing influences; and it’s this wide-ranging palette that dominates Kakashi , with jazz, pop and saxophone experimentations percolating through his solo work.

Last year, ambient enthusiast Spencer Doran, of Portland duo Visible Cloaks, teamed up with Maxwell August Croy of Root Strata to launch the label Empire of Signs with a reissue of Yoshimura’s debut LP Music for Nine Post Cards . With a minimal setup of a keyboard and Fender Rhodes, the LP began organically when Yoshimura peered out of his window one afternoon, and saw “images of the movement of clouds, the shade of a tree in summer time, the sound of rain”. Later, at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Yoshimura began creating sounds inspired by the space. Originally released to soundtrack the institution, a demand for his sounds culminated in a vinyl release in 1982. Built upon a foundation of nine short refrains, each track blossoms and unfolds to the gradual movement of clouds Yoshimura saw outside his window that day. In the liner notes of the original release, he wrote, “I will be happy if, when you enjoy this album, the surrounding scenery can be seen in a slightly different light.”

Connect with Crack Magazine

More from Crack Magazine

Nídia and Valentina

Angel D’lite

London-based rave purveyor Angel D’lite provides a snippet of what it’s like to see her in peak time form, as she blends hedonistic, high-octane 90s deep digs with keyed up, euphoric rave tracks.

“An amazing talent, a beautiful soul and a mischievous glint”: Danielle Moore , remembered

Following the sudden passing of the beloved Crazy P vocalist, four of her friends and collaborators reflect on an extraordinary, empathetic artist and person.

In Photos: Kalorama Madrid

The Lisbon festival mainstay Meo Kalorama brought their acclaimed festivities to Spain for the inaugural Madrid version from 29-31 August at IFEMA Madrid.

RALLY 2024 through five key performances

Still relatively small and only in its sophomore year, the festival has quickly cemented itself as one of the best day parties in London.

In Photos: FWB FEST 2024

The Friends With Benefits-produced festival returned to California between 1-4 August for its third edition, headlined by A. G. Cook.

Japanese Experimental

A genre that pushes the boundaries of traditional music, incorporating avant-garde elements and unconventional instruments. It often features dissonant sounds, unexpected time signatures, and unpredictable structures, creating a unique and challenging listening experience. It has gained a cult following among fans of experimental music around the world.

Artists in genre Japanese Experimental

Similar genres to Japanese Experimental

• Japanese Idm
• Fourth World
• Japanese New Wave
• Japanese Indie Pop

Playlists showcasing Japanese Experimental music

Some of the musicalyst users who listen to japanese experimental music.

• Genre Finder

Top and Trending japanese experimental Songs

Top 54 japanese experimental tracks, ranked by relevance to this genre and popularity on Spotify. See also japanese experimental overview. This list is updated weekly.

Satanicpornocultshop

Yasuaki Shimizu

Yosi Horikawa

Eiko Ishibashi

Daisuke Tanabe

Otomo Yoshihide

Asa-Chang & Junray

Maher Shalal Hash Baz

Midori Takada

Limited Express (has Gone?)

Toiret Status

Masumi Hara

DUB-Russell

Toshimaru Nakamura

Taku Sugimoto

FUJI||||||||||TA

Tomoko Sauvage

Contagious Orgasm

Pale Cocoon

Ruins Alone

Akio Suzuki

Kukangendai

Masaki Batoh

Narco-lepsy

Eisuke Oooka

Nobuko Hori

A Taut Line

Viviankrist