Name: Straight from the Throat
Brand: Kazuki Tomokawa

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

BF027lp

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Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2022-05-13

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Secre­tly

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

769791978881

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Kazuki Tomokawa

Genre US

Asian

Label US

Blank Forms

Kazuki Tomokawa is a prolific Japanese folk singer, songwriter, poet, essayist, actor, betting tipster and artist. He was born on February 16, 1950 in Akita prefecture. Since releasing his first single on Toshiba in 1974, Kazuki has become known for his powerful songwriting abilities. His songs have been covered by various artists over the years. From 1993 onwards, he has released albums through P.S.F. Records.

With a diverse range of talents and creative pursuits, Kazuki Tomokawa has made a significant impact on the music industry and beyond. As an accomplished singer-songwriter and poet, his works resonate with audiences across Japan and beyond.

Throughout his career spanning several decades, Kazuki's unique blend of folk music has captivated listeners with its emotional depth and raw authenticity. His thought-provoking lyrics touch upon various themes such as love, life struggles, and social commentary.

In the 1970s, Kazuki Tomokawa catapulted into Tokyo’s avant-garde scene with his cathartic and utterly electrifying performances. Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa’s second album, released in July 1976 by Harvest Records, finds the musician in his truest form: as the “screaming philosopher” he would come to be called—cynical but fair, cheeky and melancholic, and looking at the world with truth-seeking eyes.

In Straight from the Throat, Tomokawa shrieks and shouts and wallows with ritualistic abandon—his avant-folk stylings are cosmic and, at times, well to ground-shaking rock. He speaks of adolescence, passing hearses, and wedding chapel cars in a poem to his younger brother, Tomoharu, and watches ice melt on the Mitane River with spring’s turn. Tomokawa’s sound is, as Kiichi Takahara would later dub it, “I-music”: revelatory and deeply intimate songs that turn to the everyday and the interior. They are portraits of a man in search of meaning, who is taking stubborn control of his life by doing so. As he croons in “The Spring Is Here Again Song,” “I’ll drink till I’ve had my fill / And fall in love until I die.”

Straight from the Throat

Music US