DD Records: The remarkable story behind the 'chaotic, eccentric but heartfelt' Japanese DIY label

Brighton-based label Phantom Limb has quietly built a reputation for doing things differently. Founded by James Vella in 2017, the label initially focused on releasing new experimental music across a broad and intentionally vague spectrum, from ambient to avant-folk, abstract electronics to jazz to drone. Over time, its reissue wing has become equally important, offering space for overlooked records to resurface with care and context. 

For Vella, the appeal lies in unearthing music that couldn’t have existed under any other circumstances. “We’re drawn to records that feel like they belong entirely to a specific time and group of people,” he says. “Not just sonically, but in the way they were made and shared.”

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Disk Musik is a masterstroke in that regard. The compilation was originally released in 1985 as the final offering from the obscure Japanese cassette label DD Records, and it’s a gloriously odd, hyper-local artefact from a micro-scene that barely registered outside of its own social circle. In its original form, it was one of just a handful of DD. titles issued on vinyl, a rare format for a label that otherwise dealt in home-dubbed cassettes, Xeroxed artwork and tape-trader ephemera.

For years, Disk Musik hovered in the shadows of online collector forums and personal blogs, known mostly to specialists and completists. “It’s the kind of record you stumble into while chasing down something else,” Vella says. “But once you find it, it’s hard to forget.”

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The road to reissuing the album started with a different DD Records artist, K Yoshimatsu, whose work Phantom Limb revived in 2023. While researching his catalogue, Vella and his team came across Disk Musik and quickly realised they’d found something special.

“It’s an important document,” he explains. “It captures the last gasp of this completely DIY label that had somehow released over 200 tapes in five years. It’s chaotic, eccentric, but also incredibly heartfelt.” The label’s prolific output was matched by its total disinterest in outside validation. “There’s a real purity to it. Everything feels like it was made for the joy of making it, not for sales or press or even much of an audience.”

Founded by Tadashi Kamada while he was a student at the University of Yamanashi, DD Records functioned more like a mail-order club than a label in the traditional sense. Kamada’s ‘recycle circle’ connected a loose group of young experimentalists who shared home recordings and dubbed cassettes for each other by post.

“They were 20-year-olds making surrealist tape collages in their bedrooms,” Vella says. “And they just kept going.” The resulting catalogue spanned everything from jagged punk miniatures to woozy ambient experiments, often accompanied by photocopied covers made from anatomy textbooks, erotica or classical paintings. The music rarely left Japan. In fact, for much of its lifespan, DD Records had only one international stockist: a single store in the US.

That insularity is part of what makes Disk Musik so striking. The compilation brings together contributors who were mostly part of the DD Records inner circle; friends, collaborators and one-time projects that existed only briefly. Some of the names are traceable, like Kumio Kurachi – recording here under the name Kum – who contributes a deliberately shambolic acoustic track that feels equal parts campfire singalong and glam-pop parody. (If I had to pick a favourite track this would be it.)

Circadian Rhythm by Shela opens the record with gently chaotic vocals paired with what sounds like children’s instruments and detuned strings. One track veers into feedback-drenched sci-fi noise, another into murmured lo-fi folk. “It’s not a sampler in the usual sense,” says Vella. “It’s more like flipping through someone’s notebook. Some entries are fully formed, others are sketches. But they all feel genuine.”

Bringing the reissue together meant navigating the label’s long silence. Kamada has since vanished from public life; there are rumours of a career in medicine or consumer electronics, but nothing concrete. “We didn’t expect to find him, and we didn’t,” Vella says. “But we did reach a few key people.” Chief among them was Teruo Nakamura, one of DD Records’ visual artists and collaborators, who worked closely with Phantom Limb on licensing, artwork and liner notes. Kumio Kurachi and Keiichi Usami also contributed their insights and gave their blessing to the project.

“They were incredibly generous,” Vella says. “We sent them copies of the finished LP and got really warm responses. I think they were surprised and pleased to see the music getting attention again.”

The release has found an eager audience. Phantom Limb’s first pressing of Disk Musik sold out within days, and a second edition is already on the way. For Vella, the interest speaks to a growing appetite for reissues that dig a little deeper. “There’s so much value in these marginal histories,” he says. “They show how inventive people can be when no one’s watching.”

Disk Musik is out now.

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