We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Tokyo Y​ō​kai

by the spectre collector

supported by
William Westwater
William Westwater thumbnail
William Westwater Oriental ominousness at it's finest with this new bleak and brilliant brood of songs by The Spectre Collector.
/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

1.
Dark Road To Yoshino Juro was driving down a dark road at night through a forest towards Yoshino. His car squealed to a stop when he saw a girl with long black hair, wearing a white dress standing in the middle of the road. She was facing the opposite direction, but she was clearly crying. “Are you ok?” Juro shouted out his car window. The girl turned around, wiping the tears from her face. In the car headlights, Juro saw that she had wiped her face off. He sped off and further on road saw the lantern of a soba seller by the side of the road. Juro stopped and explained to him what he had just seen. The soba seller said, “Was it something like this?” and he wiped his hands across his face and there was nothing there.
2.
Tokyo Yōkai 02:24
Tokyo Yōkai One night a drunken businessman takes a shortcut down a famously haunted alleyway in old Tokyo. It is haunted by the yōkai, the Slit-Mouthed Woman. Sliced from ear to ear and then killed by her husband, the poor hideous creature asks the same question of all those she meets: “Do you think I’m pretty?” On this night she stepped out of the dark shadows of the alley and stood before the businessman. His mouth went dry, and his heart raced as she asked the question - “Do you think I’m pretty?” He knew that if he said “No” she would kill him. So he answered, “Yes”. “Then I will make you as pretty as me,” said the Slit-Mouthed Woman and she carved him a new mouth that went from ear to ear.
3.
Strangling Ritual In The Kowai Mansion Six friends are standing in the main bedroom of the famously haunted Kowai Mansion in a forest outside Tokyo. They are there to exorcise the ghosts of the Kowai Family. Years before seven members of the family had been practising an occult ritual in the old house when something went wrong and all seven died creating seven angry ghosts. Now, lonely and depressed, Hiyori has agreed with her friends to offer her life in order to exorcise the ghosts and seal the spirit portal in the house. They commence the Strangling Ritual. Long pieces of wire are tied around Hiyori’s neck, ankles and wrists. The wires are then attached to each of the five friends. On cue they all run in different directions, tearing off Hiyori’s limbs. The wires, now covered in her blood, are placed over the portal to hell inside the house. This act exorcises the seven ghosts and seals the portal for the next 50 years. However, the Strangling Ritual has created another ghost, far worse. Within five days Hiyori’s spirit will track down her five friends and kill them all.
4.
Tokyo Horror Story Akio was down on his luck and sleeping rough on the backstreets of Tokyo in winter. He fell asleep in the snow on the doorstep of a house owned by a beautiful woman with long black hair. She carried him into her house, bathed and fed him and gave him fresh warm clothes. Later she took him to her bed. Unfortunately for Akio she was a half-woman half-spider yōkai and she sucked most of the blood from his body. In the morning, Akio opened his eyes and discovered that he was sleeping in an old abandoned house embracing an eight-legged skeleton shrouded in long black hair. Worse still, Akio woke with an extreme thirst for fresh blood.
5.
Driving The Dead Mr Ito drove a taxi in a coastal city in Miyagi Prefecture. One night, exactly a year after a tsunami killed over 3,000 people there, a young woman climbed into the back seat of Mr Ito’s cab. She was pale and her clothes were in ruins. She put her hand on Mr Ito’s shoulder and he felt his whole body go cold. “Have I died?” she asked him and then vanished. After that night passengers would often climb into Mr Ito’s cab and ask to be taken up into the mountains, only to disappear before reaching their destination. He knew they were yurei, restless spirits, as soon as they sat in his cab. These were the ones who had tried to escape to the mountains but the 10-metre tsunami waves washed them away while crossing the western bridge. And always Mr Ito turned off his meter; he felt it his duty to drive the dead to where they could find peace.
6.
The Haunted Tea House Sakura was hiking alone in the Yakusugi Forest on the island of Yakushima. Rain began to fall quite heavily when she saw an old abandoned tea house and took cover inside. She had walked a long way and was tired. She removed her backpack and using it as a pillow, fell asleep. Sakura’s dreams were bad. She dreamed of yōkai. She dreamed that the tea house was built over a great, wide pit - a doorway used by the ancient dead to travel between the underworld and our world. Worse still, Sakura’s dream was not a dream, for when she woke the yōkai were dragging her down to the underworld and feeding upon her. (Many hikers seek cover inside the old abandoned tea house. They never return to the trail.)
7.
The hungry gods Kenji ate a big breakfast before walking in the mountains. But after an hour he was overcome by extreme hunger. “I’m starving,” thought Kenji. “It is the hidarugami - the hungry gods causing this. I know it.” The hidarugami were yōkai, spirits of travellers who starved to death in the mountains. Exhausted, Kenji fell to the ground on the trail. “I feel the ghosts haunt me. They want to take me. They want me to be with them.” The hungry gods then appeared on the mountain trail before him. “No!” said Kenji. And he placed his little finger in his mouth and he ate it. This enraged the hungry gods, for if you eat - just something small - then a traveller may escape the ghosts. “Go, Kenji!” they cried. “You have been clever, this time.” And with that the hidarugami ate his remaining fingers. Trailing blood behind him, Kenji stumbled down from the mountain.

about

+++ See the YouTube vid for "Dark road to Yoshino" - www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnlGXPVK5CU

If you love a good ghost story, then look no further than the Japanese "yōkai".


Japan’s monsters, ghosts and other supernatural beings are known by many names: bakemono, chimimoryo, mamono, mononoke, obake, oni, yurei and most famously - "yōkai". They are spirits and entities whose behaviour can range from malevolent or mischievous to friendly, fortuitous, or helpful to humans.

The 7 tracks on this album cover 7 haunted stories of yōkai. Some are based on classic Japanese folk tales. The music includes drones, loops, found sounds, field recordings and music that, combined, offer a suitably disturbing flavour that provides a soundscape for each story.

credits

released December 21, 2023

Written, produced, performed:
the spectre collector

Mastering & design:
the spectre collector

Designed for headphones.
Recommended for fans of hauntology.

The album cover:
The artwork on the album cover is the famous painting titled simply “Yurei-zu”, meaning “Picture of Yurei”, by Meiji-era artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889). The painting is India ink on silk and was painted in 1870 – the third year of the Meiji period. Kyosai was known as the last great painter in the Japanese style.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

the spectre collector Australia

Strange & dark stories set to music. Haunted sonic atmospheres, field recordings & found sounds, homemade instruments & otherworldly technologies.

contact / help

Contact the spectre collector

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

the spectre collector recommends:

If you like the spectre collector, you may also like: