JUMA - Selected Works 2LP

Limited edition of 250 copies on double vinyl housed in gatefold sleeve.

Highly recommended.

First appearance of K. Yoshimatsu's recorded output on the vinyl format.

"There are so many entries in the modern-day reissue game – some good, some bad and some ugly – and I feel comfortable in saying that this Juma retrospective is essentially the best possible outcome that comes from the practice. Selected Works curates tracks from an impossibly rare discography (cassettes originally made-to-order?) of an artist that sounds fresh and intriguing by today’s standards, let alone 1981 when it was initially released. It’s not like you can just plop down $250 for an original – the originals are so rare as to be practically non-existent – so this varied and expansive double LP collection is a treasure to behold, reminiscent of Vinyl On Demand’s finest moments. From what I can gather, Juma was a project run by Koushirou Toshimatsu and friends, released exclusively on the DD Records label, and it investigated all the hot styles of today nearly 40 years earlier: warped synth excursions, free noise, aquatic ambient pop, outsider minimal-wave, and so on. Very much on par with what Vanity Records was releasing at the time (both stylistically and quality-wise), yet relegated to home-dubbed cassettes instead of glossy vinyl LPs. I’m crazy about the longer, noisier tracks (imagine if Maurizio Bianchi jammed with Kaoru Abe, Aube and Klaus Schulze!), but I’m intrigued by the soft pop-rock cuts that also appear here under the Juma name. Bitter Lake has done a fine job reissuing underground Japanese music thus far, but Selected Works is unquestionably at the top of the stack." - YGR