Takuro Okada - The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line (Silver Vinyl) Vinyl LP

Fittingly for Takuro Okada’s first collection released outside his native Japan, the album’s title evokes the vastness of an unseen world—one that exists just beyond the reach of the senses. Growing up in Fussa, Tokyo, home to the Yokota U.S. Air Force base, Okada was immersed in a collision of cultures that shaped his musical sensibilities as a guitarist, producer, and bandleader. He spent his formative years performing for American military audiences in the clubs along Fussa’s storied “Bar Row,” while at home he experimented with recording techniques, refining his craft as a producer.

This release draws from an extensive archive of recordings accumulated over the past decade. While Okada’s previous projects have featured collaborators such as Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, and Carlos Niño, this collection highlights him primarily as a solo artist, centering on his principal instrument—the guitar. Across these tracks, Okada reveals a rare ability to coax strange and beautiful tones from the instrument, traversing ambient, Americana, psychedelic, and otherworldly textures. The result is a vivid testament to his range and vision: a body of work unified by a singular approach to sound, unmistakably that of Takuro Okada.