Fukubukuro are special surprise gift bags sold at stores in Japan at the New Year. This fukubukuro CD is being released by the CD shop/label Ftarri to celebrate its fresh start for 2018. Each of the 5 tracks is a solo piece by a different musician. Shuta Hiraki is an electronics musician who creates mainly drone music. He released the CD Unicursal on Kyou Records in 2017. Radio ensembles Aiida, a solo project by A. Mizuki, presents unique performances using shortwave radios as “instruments.” Her 2017 CD In a Room (Radio of the Day
1) was released on VLZ Produkt. Leo Okagawa takes field recordings and concrete sounds and processes them electronically to create music. He released the CD-R The Notional Terrain on Glistening Examples in 2017. Beijing residents Zhu Wenbo and Zhao Cong have for several years been carrying out musical exchanges with Yan Jun, one of China’s leading experimental/improvisational musicians. Zhu Wenbo specializes in conceptual creative styles; his track on this CD is a composition consisting entirely of hand claps. Zhao Cong constructs works of music by amplifying the sounds produced by an array of small objects.