Sublime Records and the dawn of Japanese techno (DJ Mag)

If you were to have descended the staircase of Tokyo’s Maniac Love in November 1993, you would have felt something electric in the air. The city’s nightlife was transforming, thrumming to the sounds of house and techno, and with its Master Blaster Sound System and minimal design, this newly-opened basement club would soon be the unofficial headquarters of a burgeoning scene.

“It felt so exciting to live here,” remembers Manabu Yamazaki, aka DJ Yama, the Aoyama district venue’s artistic director, and promoter of the weekly techno party, Sublime. By May 1994, he was at the helm of a new label, Sublime Records, which bottled and sold the energy that rippled from the Maniac Love dancefloor. It quickly became a driving force in the development of a distinctly Japanese take on the genre. “I think it was a combination of the tide of the times and my passion for music,” he says. “It was inevitable for me to start a label.” 

Three decades later, Sublime Records can stake a claim as one of the most significant imprints in modern Japanese music. Throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, it helped further the careers of key producers like Ken Ishii, Susumu Yokota and Rei Harakami, and built rock-solid connections between the Japanese scene and artists from North America and the UK. In June this year, alongside its parent company, Musicmine, it celebrated its 30th anniversary with a two-night party at the WWW venue in Shibuya featuring a who’s who of local DJs. In September, the two albums that started everything for the label, Ishii’s ‘Reference To Difference’ and Yokota’s ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’, were remastered and given deluxe vinyl reissues, much to the delight of record collectors across the globe.

Sublime Records’ evolution is one inextricably woven into that of Japanese techno itself. In celebration of its milestone anniversary, we caught up with its founders, affiliates and some devoted fans to help tell its story, and understand its enduring influence at home and abroad.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, box-fresh dance sounds from the US and UK were making their mark in Japan. Techno was fast becoming part of the soundscape within a cluster of progressive nightclubs located off Tokyo’s bustling streets: Gold, Cave, Blue, Mix and Space Lab Yellow. A diligent digger and DJ, Yamazaki had spent the ’80s rifling through the punk, jazz, hip-hop and ambient bins of the megacity’s record stores; before long, he was immersing himself in the high-tech soul of Detroit. “The music felt like an extension of acid, New York and Chicago house,” he says. “I naturally embraced and sympathised with it.” 

He wasn’t alone. Within this vibrant milieu, he crossed paths with a generation of experienced DJs who had started spinning in the R&B and disco era before branching out into new wave, electro, house and techno. These included DJ K.U.D.O, DJ Miku and DJ Wada, a significant figure in the local scene who would go on to become a resident at Sublime. 

Inevitably, this influx of new sounds influenced the electronic music being made in the city. Bolstered by the possibilities afforded by domestically produced Roland, KORG, Yamaha and AKAI equipment, Tokyo’s musicians veered in exciting new directions as they raced toward the future. One of the first clear signs of this came in 1991, when Hisa Ishioka, the New York-based Japanese music businessman who founded the BPM King Street Sounds and Nite Grooves labels, compiled ‘La Ronde’, a collection of early Japanese house productions that featured the likes of Manabu Nagayama, Toshihiko Mori and Sōichi Terada.

That same year, Virgin Japan released the late Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ninth solo album, ‘Heartbeat’, in which the visionary composer collaborated with the likes of Satoshi Tomiie (who co-produced ‘Tears’ with Frankie Knuckles) and Towa Tei of New York house and disco group Deee-Lite. Ducking and weaving between ambient pop and Chicago-style house, the album applied new aesthetics to Sakamoto’s signature electropop sensibilities, which he’d first engaged in as a member of the pioneering outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra in the late ‘70s. 

“There has been a deep-rooted electronic music culture in Japan since the times of Isao Tomita and Yellow Magic Orchestra,” explains Ken Ishii, whose debut album ‘Garden on the Palm’ was released via Belgian techno label R&S in 1993. “We already had so many different styles and artists in electronic music, even before the birth of house and techno. YMO, Hajime Tachibana and Masami Tsuchiya were big influences on me before I got to know house and techno. I guess lots of Japanese artists in my generation are similarly influenced by them, too.”

As this new era for Tokyo nightlife bubbled upwards and outwards, Yamazaki realised he had bigger visions than just DJing; he wanted to help open things up even further. “It was an era rich in diversity and uniqueness,” he remembers. First, he started a weekly ambient event at Space Lab Yellow, an influential nightclub near the Roppongi district. By December 1993, he had shifted his focus towards Maniac Love, where he organised two weekly nights: Sublime on Saturdays and the chillout party White Room on Mondays. “There was a really strong community there,” explains the Paris-born, Tokyo-raised DJ, producer and label owner Alex Prat, aka Alex from Tokyo. “Later on, a lot of international DJs would play unannounced following their main gig at another big club.” 

Maniac Love increasingly became the place to be, and among its regulars were Ishii and Susumu Yokota. Like Ishii, Yokota had made inroads into the European techno scene that year with the release of his debut LP, ‘The Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection’, on Sven Väth’s Harthouse. Emboldened by these idiosyncratic trailblazers who were putting their local scene on the map internationally, Yamazaki was motivated to turn Sublime into a record label. 

Everything fell into place when he crossed paths with the music businessman Hideoki Amano, who was then on the verge of founding his own independent music company, Musicmine. “My meeting with Yama felt destined,” Amano remembers. “Back then, there was a surge of techno releases gaining momentum globally. The energy reminded me of the punk scene. It was the dawn of a new musical era.”

In May 1994, Sublime Records became Musicmine’s first imprint, and was inaugurated with two 7” singles from Ishii and Yokota. A month later, ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ and ‘Reference To Difference’ were released. “Launching Sublime Records felt more like an extension of the party than a business,” Yamazaki says, reflecting on the natural transition from DJing with Yokota and Ishii at Maniac Love to pressing and packaging their music.

The feeling was mutual. Having first met Yamazaki in the ambient listening room at Gold in 1993, Ishii was impressed by his knowledge and passion. When Yamazaki approached him about releasing on Sublime Records, there was no hesitation. “Yama and his partners seemed to be the only people here who knew exactly what was going on in the international techno scene,” Ishii explains. “They also had a clear vision for what they could build in the country.” 

EPs from Yoshihiro Sawasaki and R.E.A.L.M. followed, as well as further releases from Ishii and Yokota. Between Sawasaki’s glistening rhythmic ambience, R.E.A.L.M’s buoyant techno, and Ishii and Yokota’s dialled-in dancefloor sensibilities, the stage was set for Sublime Records to rise.

In Susumu Yokota, Yamazaki and Amano found a post-punk-era graphic designer, photographer and former economist who had remade himself as an electronic musician. Having spent part of the ’80s recording lo-fi guitar and organ-driven ambient tracks in his humble home studio – which you can hear in his ‘Image 1983–1998’ compilation album – he soon set about exploring the possibilities of techno and acid-drenched electronica. His first 12” EP, ‘Brainthump’, was released under the Tenshin alias in 1992 via the German label No Respect Records. 

The No Respect connection, and his later link with Harthouse, reputedly came after some DJs brought DAT tapes of Yokota’s music from Japan to Goa, where the psychedelic party scene was thriving and European DJs were increasingly present. The story goes that a friend of Yokota’s called Toby Izui, aka DJ Toby, showed Sven Väth the tracks that would become his first album. He also introduced Yokota to Yamazaki and Amano. “Toby showed me some footage of an early Love Parade [in Berlin],” Yamazaki remembers. “In the video, there was a Japanese person dancing. It was Susumu Yokota.”

The Berlin-based intermedia artist Ayako Kataoka Blasser, who was close with Yokota in the ‘90s, remembers him as a gentle, down-to-earth minimalist who lived simply. Later in the decade, they went on a road trip through the American Southwest. “Driving through the Grand Canyon made a huge impression on him, so he wrote a track inspired by the experience,” she says. “To me, he was like a living piece of art.”

It’s easy to picture Yokota having a similar experience while gazing at the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Houkusai’s 19th-century woodblock print Fine Wind, Clear Morning, which depicts a red Mount Fuji set against blue, cloud-adorned skies. Over 160 years after Houkusai printed the evocative image as part of his storied Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, Yokota-san used it as a reference while he was drawing and designing the artwork for ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’, bathing it in technonaturalistic psychedelia.

Across ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’, Yokota wove references to Japanese folklore and lush field recordings through the futuristic aesthetics of acid house and Detroit techno, courtesy of his newly purchased Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser and a sampler. Unfolding with the logic of a waking dream, the album evokes the rich traditions, ambience and grandeur of Japan’s ancient past (‘Tanuki’, ‘Meijijingu’) and the fantastical possibilities of a utopian future (‘Saboten’, ‘Akafuji’). Since its release, it’s become a cult classic among record collectors and an algorithmic hit on YouTube, notching over 1.6 million plays and eliciting countless awe-struck comments from listeners: “Somewhere, in 1994, someone sat down and listened to this album, with zero prior knowledge or expectation, and they ascended into space. Some say they’re still there…” Like the storied stratovolcano that adorns the album’s cover and gives it its name, it’s iconic. 

Over the following decades, Yokota released a staggering amount of music under an ever-expanding array of aliases, including the Sublime Records-signed projects Prism and Ringo. Two big hitters from his catalogue include ‘Zen’, the acid techno album he dropped in 1994 under his Ebi alias, and ‘Sakura’, a hyperreal ambient masterpiece he released under his own name in 1999.

Tragically, in 2015, Yokota passed away at the age of 54 following a long period of undisclosed health issues. The Xi’an-born, Toronto-based producer, DJ and pianist Ciel, who recorded a deep-dive DJ mix special on Yokota for Rinse FM at the beginning of 2024, describes him as one of the most influential and inspiring artists in the world. “The way he can do so many different styles, and they all still sound like him, that’s the vibe I’m going for with my music,” she says. 

Yokota’s counterpoint, Ishii, was a university student who caught the techno bug and couldn’t shake it. He took Sublime Records into outer space with an experimental style that fused techno and ambient with influences drawn from British IDM in the mode of Warp Records’ ‘Artificial Intelligence’. “When we met Ken [Ishii], he had a mysterious aura of a true bedroom techno genius,” Amano remembers. “He was more like a tech engineer – a shy young man – than a musician. It was as if he knew of magical powers of creating experimental music that were inconceivable by other artists.” Decades on, Ishii is as active as ever, and has grown into a comfortable and outgoing entertainer who remembers his roots vividly.

Thinking back to producing ‘Reference To Difference’ on a basic hardware set-up in a tiny, one-room apartment, Ishii recalls feeling like he was bridging the gap between early electronic music, ’70s/’80s Japanese technopop, and the new school of the ’90s. “I was a big fan of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk when I was a kid, but the music didn’t sound like something I’d make myself,” he says. “The birth of Detroit techno blew my mind. The way you produce techno didn’t seem as complicated or expensive as YMO, but the music had serious raw energy that made people dance.”

Opening with the gentle earworm melodies and restrained clockwork drum programming of ‘Into The Inside’, ‘Reference To Difference’ unfolds in a subtle but surefooted manner. By the time ‘Non Essentia’ hits the speakers, the momentum created by Ishii’s asymmetrical drums and angular synthesiser figures is practically levitational. When he switches things up into a technopop-meets-breaks mode on ‘Interjection’, his energy and idiosyncratic sonic character are equally undeniable.

Viewed through the rearview mirror of history, both of these albums culminated in a defining moment for Sublime Records, Musicmine and Japanese independent music in general. “The sales success garnered by these albums encouraged subsequent releases by other artists from our label,” Amano says. “Without them, you could argue that we might not have been able to spend 30 years releasing Japanese music that emphasised quality.”

“These records are more than just albums,” Yamazaki adds. “These are works of significant cultural value within Japan’s musical history.”

From the jump, Ishii and Yokota’s generation had both a clear reverence for their US techno inspirations and a desire to harness the potential of Japanese kankyō ongaku (ambient/environmental/new age music) into something new. Having grown up in a culture that emphasised the atmosphere of listening cafés and bars (jazz kissas), Yokota, Ishii and their contemporaries quickly landed on a concept of techno that was as much for listening as it was for dancing. “Although their influences were clear and admitted, you’ve got to appreciate how quickly Japanese electronic music sounded like nothing else,” says Hugo Lascoux, the Paris-based producer and DJ better known as Hugo LX. “The music had this spacious, sometimes purposely out-of-the-pocket sound design and a relentless will to tell a story.” 

With a background in France’s storied hip-hop and house scenes, Lascoux lived and worked in Japan in the early 2010s. On arrival, he was struck by the sound of the country’s countercultural music communities and the ethos that underscored them. “People say that [state of the art] technology served as the tools to write their stories, but that isn’t the full picture,” he says. “Japanese creatives always took the time to incorporate their roots, traditions and clear artefacts of the past in their music.”

The Tokyo techno scene’s purple patch continued with the July 1994 opening of the Shinjuku club Liquid Room, where Jeff Mills would later record his first commercially available mix. Meanwhile, record stores like Cisco, DMR, Manhattan, Technique, Mr Bongo Tokyo and Barong were stocking more and more techno releases, stacking North American and European records alongside those from Sublime and contemporaneous Japanese labels like Transonic, Frogman Records, SYZYGY RECORDS and Trema Records. 

While browsing in these locales, customers could pour over copies of new specialty club music magazines like Remix, Groove, Loud and Ele-king to find out about the hottest upcoming parties and releases. “The interaction between artists, clubs, labels, record shops, fashion, and other creative outlets fostered a cutting-edge, underground culture,” Yamazaki says. “Energetic and powerful activities were happening everywhere.”

To balance the staggering popularity of compact discs in Japan in the ’90s with the vinyl demands of DJ culture, Sublime Records released well-packaged CD albums as well as 12” singles and EPs. These were adorned with photography and graphics created by Katsuhiko Kimura, the same designer who crafted the visual language for Yamazaki’s events at Space Lab Yellow and Maniac Love. “We placed key slogans like ‘new electronic attitude’ and ‘pure techno experience’ on some of the releases to express a new attitude towards techno music,” Yamazaki says.

Aspiring to have the same sonic heft as their Midwestern heroes, Sublime Records arranged to have their early 12” singles mastered and pressed through the legendary techno engineer Ron Murphy at the National Sound Corporation in Detroit. “This allowed us to distribute our titles globally, a major milestone in the early days,” Yamazaki enthuses. “As a result, we were covered by the international media.”

Thanks to their contacts at the National Sound Corporation, Amano and Yamazaki befriended the Cleveland, Ohio-born techno artist Dan Curtin, who released several EPs and his 1996 album ‘Deception’ through Sublime Records. “His records were already a staple in my collection,” Yamazaki continues. “I always felt his music aligned perfectly with Sublime’s vision.” 

“I think Dan Curtin’s music makes so much sense in the Sublime Records world,” observes Ciel. “A lot of his music has a similar kind of unexpected and psychedelic quality. When I say that, I mean it sounds very exploratory and not so constrained by the limitations of the genre form. He sounds like someone who understands music very deeply.” 

Curtin also recorded with the Japanese producer Tatsuro Hayashi under the Purveyors Of Fine Funk alias, releasing EPs mostly via Peacefrog Records. Yamazaki and Amano later hired Hayashi to manage Sublime Records’ overseas distribution and promotion from New York. “This partnership played a key role in Sublime’s early achievements,” Amano says. In 1998, Hayashi helped tie Japan and the Midwest closer together by contributing to the production of ‘Eleven Phases’, a compilation of Detroit tracks that Sublime Records released on CD and vinyl.

During the second half of the ’90s, Sublime Records continued to release music from Yokota, Ishii, Curtin and Sawasaki, as well as fellow Japanese artists like Co-Fusion (the duo of DJ Wada and Heigo Tani) and friends from abroad such as Max Brennan and the pioneering London breakbeat outfit, 4hero. They also opened the Reel Musiq and Machinegun sub-labels to accommodate signees including the big beat slanted Captain Funk. “When we launched Sublime Records, we had a clear vision focused on IDM, techno and ambient music,” Amano elaborates. “However, as the techno scene evolved, with trance being the dominant style at the time, as well as the emergence of hard techno and more floor-oriented hits constantly being released, our label’s approach gradually became more adaptable.”

In 1996, Sublime Records received a demo tape in the mail from the late Rei Harakami, a young experimental filmmaker, illustrator, and musician living in Kyoto. Struck by his sonic imagineering, they invited him to record for the label. “After that, he started producing his debut album, ‘Unrest’, which we released in 1998,” Amano remembers. Over 12 intricately detailed tracks, Harakami collapsed the machine beats of techno and IDM into an impressionistic ambient electronica soundworld.

Casting his mind’s eye back to the late ’90s, Yamazaki remembers Sublime Records hosting 2,000 to 3,000-person events in Tokyo. “We were also invited to Sónar in Barcelona and went on tour in the UK, Germany and beyond,” he recalls. Alongside these European developments, their domestic audience continued to expand, leading to Ishii, Yokota and their peers performing to 10,000-strong audiences at Japanese techno festivals and raves, including Rainbow 2000, Electraglide, METAMORPHOSE and WIRE.

As the 21st century dawned, the label’s sonic sensibilities drifted back towards ambient and IDM. A key driving force here was Harakami, who, after ‘Unrest,’ recorded seven increasingly vivid and dreamlike albums for the label. In the process, he captured the tempo and tone of life on the island nation. “Japanese producers were the ultimate products of their environment,” notes Lascoux. The French philosopher Roland Barthes famously dubbed Japan The Empire of Signs, but from Lascoux’s perspective, you could just as easily call it The Empire of Sounds. “Spend one day in any Japanese city, and you’ll hear a myriad of noises exclusive to this territory, from pedestrian crossing warnings to the local train station carillon,” he says.

Just over a decade later, in 2011, Sublime Records entered turbulent waters after Harakami died at the age of 40 from a brain haemorrhage. Between this loss, the rapid erosion of physical music sales, and the rise of social media, it felt like the end of an era. “It was also a time of trial and error,” Amano admits. “While we tried to adapt to the rise of EDM and minimal house, we were also figuring out how to promote IDM and electronica in a world that was moving away from albums and towards track-based promotion. As a result, we temporarily halted new releases.”

Throughout the 2010s, an increasing number of international listeners  – tipped off by tastemaking DJs or the YouTube algorithm – began to discover the magic of Japanese city pop, jazz, kankyō ongaku, techno and house. Gradually, Sublime started to receive licensing requests from newer European labels, foreshadowing a revival in vinyl sales. It was this resurgence in interest that ultimately led to their decision to reissue ‘Acid Mt. Fuji’ and ‘Reference To Difference’ and re-engage. This time around, however, they’ll be doing things differently.

“I feel like the role of labels has changed in the 2020s – each label’s branding has become more distinct,” Amano muses. “Going forward, we’ll be redefining our legacy through reissues and proposing new ideas from emerging artists. In a way, I see us presenting music to the world like curators in the art world.” 

“It’s not just about producing music, releasing CDs or organising events,” Yamazaki adds. “We want to actively support the creation of new culture by launching projects that respond to the needs of the young creators brewing in the underground scene. We hope to build new business models, expand into projects beyond music, and provide support that aligns with what the next generation is looking for.”