Taku Sugimoto - Opposite (1998)

By popular request, I give you... even more Taku Sugimoto (杉本拓)! (For the other ones, check links in the previous post, and let me know if anything needs to be reuploaded.)
Considered by many to be his masterpiece, released on that ephemeral HatHut offshoot Hat Noir, this was a one-time edition of 2000 copies, which you'd think is quite a lot for this artist, but this album has become surprisingly rare over the years. Oh, I just noticed I tagged this as 1997, but it was actually released in 1998; please correct that when you download it, and before you start spreading it on, lest the Schwebeablaut good name of properly tagged files be forever sullied.
Sugimoto's most listenable album, consisting of 25 tracks of meditative solo guitar (some electric, some acoustic), is yours for the taking - don't dawdle!
320kbps.
New link.

Taku Sugimoto - Myshkin Musicu for Electric Guitar (1996)

Hello, and welcome back to the most erratically updated music blog out there!
Did you notice? I just re-upped the first album ever posted here, and probably also the best one! So go there first if you missed out the first time around.
Now, I have awoken from my slumber to bring you yet another old and rare (very rare this time) album by the one and only Taku Sugimoto (杉本拓).

This one is highly sought after in certain circles, but has proved very elusive. It's taken me years to stumble on a physical copy myself! We have brought you Flagments of Paradise (1997), we have brought you Italia (2001), hell we even brought you Mon.goose (1999) – but today we travel back even further in time for Myshkin Musicu, an enigmatic disc released on Sugimoto's own Slub Music, consisting mostly of solo guitar, but also featuring a 10 minute improvisation starring Kevin Drumm, Tetuzi Akiyama, Brent Gutzeit and some other fine folks.

Excerpt from Sámuel Gyarmathi's perennial classic
Grammatical Proof of the Affinity of the Hungarian Language With Languages of Fennic Origin.

What's the relation to the town of Мышкин in Russia? Does Sugimoto-san speak Hungarian? Can anyone really claim to be able to decipher the track titles on the insert? Many questions to which you won't find any answers here.
New link!
320kbps.

John Cage - Three Dances For Prepared Piano (1999)

I can't find a decent cover scan of this one. What we have here is a Japanese release from 1999 on Musik Keller (I think), a recital by two pianists: Satoshi Inagaki (稲垣聡) and Ken-ichi Nakagawa (中川賢一; a more traditional way to translate his first name would be Ken'ichi). Only 22 of the 58 minutes are John Cage, to be honest, despite the inordinate size of his name on the cover and spine.
Like I said, no cover scan, but I did provide scans of the rest of the booklet (it's practically all in Japanese though). The tracklist as it appears there is as follows:

In other words, apart from the Cage, there is 'La Théorie', which is the first string quartet by Belgian composer Walter Hus (only here it is somehow performed by the two pianists); there is an improvised 'Super Battle Duo!!!', and it all ends with a performance of Erik Satie's 'Je te veux', again with a generous extra helping of punctuation marks.
320kbps.
Here.

John Cage - Music For Trombone (1992)

Next up, 'Music For Trombone', released on Etcetera in 1992. The trombone is wielded by James Fulkerson, piano and percussion are courtesy of Frank Denyer. You may remember both from The Barton Workshop. On the menu this time:
1. Ryoanji (1985) for bass trombone and percussion obligato
2. Solo for Sliding Trombone from Piano Concert (1957-58) combined with Fontana Mix (1958)
3. Two⁵ (1991) for trombone and piano
I added scans of the liner notes, the ones in English anyway.
320kbps.
Here.

John Cage - Three Constructions (1989)

I'm a week late to the party, but I thought I'd join in anyway and celebrate John Cage's 100th birthday by sharing some randomly chosen (of course) albums. First up: The Donald Knaack Percussion Ensemble and Jay Clayton, "Three Constructions", released in 1989 on Tomato.
Tracklist:
1. First Construction (in Metal)
2. A Flower
3. Second Construction
4. Forever and Sunsmell
5. Third Construction
Enjoy in his honour.
320kbps.
Here.

Kan Mikami - Daiyonshishuu - Spirit of Aomori 2010.12.4 (2010)

As promised, here's the second of two obscure Kan Mikami (三上寛) albums I dug up and saw fit to disseminate. This one is as weird as the 'Jumping Beans' 12-versions-of-the-same-song one. "第４詩集: Spirit Of Aomori 2010.12.4" is an odd bag. I haven't had the time yet to sit down with the booklet and try to figure out what it's all about, but it seems to be part of a series that celebrates several regions of Japan and their shinkansen lines (in this case Aomori, the very northernmost region of Japan's main island Honshū, where Mikami is from), and at at the same time a tribute to Shūji Terayama (寺山修司), who is probably best known as the director of such '70s movies as トマトケッチャップ皇帝 ('Emperor Tomato Ketchup'), 書を捨てよ町へ出よう ('Throw Away Your Books, Go Out Into the Streets!'), and 田園に死す ('Death in the Country', aka 'Pastoral Hide and Seek'; this one is amazing by the way, and Mikami is in it!); and also as the founder of experimental musical theater group 天井桟敷 (Tenjō Sajiki), well known for their collaborations with J・A・シーザー (J.A. Seazer). When I find out more about what this is really all about, I'll update this post. Anyway, what you get here is some well-known Mikami songs, newly recorded, some unknown songs, and some snippets of interviews and other talk. An odd mishmash, but somehow very enjoyable and certainly worthy of being rescued from oblivion.
Released in 2010 by H.I.T.
Get it.
320kbps.

Kan Mikami - Jumping Beans (2003)

So anyway, when I said 'new posts in the near future', I meant '4 months from now' (apparently). Yes, I've been hibernating, but so what. There's plenty of bloggers still out there, somehow, despite the persistent threat that all their shared files can be deleted without warning at any time. I'm not going to go over older posts myself, I imagine a lot of the links are dead, maybe all of them... If there's anything you would like to see re-upped, ask, and I'll see what I can do... only that Kazuki Tomokawa DVD rip, which seems to be in demand, I don't know... where do people upload files of that size these days? It's been up here for many months, can I pass the torch to anyone else?
Anyway, if I have awoken (however briefly?) from my slumber, it is because I've stumbled upon something I realize I can't leave unshared. Not one, but two albums by one of my favourite artists of all time, that have been out for 2 (the other one) and 9 (nine!) years, respectively - and I hadn't the foggiest notion they even existed! How did that happen?
I don't know, but something tells me I'm not alone in this, so here they come.
First let me remind you that the very first post ever on this blog was a (stunning) Kan Mikami album, so this Mikami-induced resurrection seems fitting. If you don't have that one yet, go get that first. There was also that weird split live album with David Peel, for completists only. Now, first up, here is something entitled ジャンピング　ビーンズ, or 'Jumping Beans'. This mysterious 29-minute CD was released by a label called スファイロス (Sufairosu, presumably to be read Sfairos (Σφαῖρος?)). It contains 12 versions of one and the same track (!) - good thing it's a track you won't find on any other Mikami album, and that it's pretty damn great. Sufficient variation makes for a fine listening experience. The track is entitled 闇に浮く ('Yami ni uku', '(I?) Float in Darkness'). The music and fierce growls are by Mikami but the lyrics are credited to one ラロカ・デ・ラ・カーサ (Laroca de la Casa?). The whole thing seems to have something to do with some piece of theatre, presumably about airborne vegetables. OK, so the origins of this little curio remain shrouded in darkness, but at least now we can all listen to it. The other Mikami obscurity is coming up soon (really!).
Enjoy!
320kbps.