Vanity Records

This week, we take another look into the rich and elusive history of the Japanese Underground with Vanity Records. Founded in Kyoto by music journalist and editor of ROCK MAGAZINE Yuzuru Agi in 1978, Vanity Records focused primarily on early electronic minimalism, post-punk oddities, deviant new-wave and granular noise synthesis in a time where Japan’s music landscape was saturated by west-coast pop influence and surf rock kitsch.

From it’s inception in ‘78 to the label’s culmination in ‘82, Vanity Records released a modest 11 LP’s, 3 7 inches, 6 cassettes, and a handful of promotional Flexi disks which were all released in limited runs of between three and five hundred.

This mix highlights the scope and vision of Yuzuru Agi’s curation and features tracks from Aunt Sally, Mad Tea Party, Tolerance, R.N.A. Organism, Morio Agata, and more.

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