Ever since the 2001 release of the colossally essential 10-disc set Improvised Music from Japan, the label, distributor, website and journal that fall under the IMJ umbrella (and all sharing the name) have made for an essential clearinghouse for EAI, onkyo, lowercase, minimalist improvisation and experimental pop from the East. The annual-ish IMJ journal, which comes with at least one CD of music per issue, has been an especially valuable source of information on the ever-shifting Japanese scenes.

The recently released (or at least recently States-bound) 2009 issue of the journal takes as its focus the various experimental concert series and festivals in Japan. As such, much of it (printed in both Japanese and English) reads a bit like a report to shareholders � which in a certain sense maybe it is � or like a Lonely Planet Guide to Avant Nippon. In other words, it would be of great use to players or listeners looking to plan a trip around concert opportunities, but it's not the usual music read.

Still, a few pieces stand out, especially since the musicians are often the organizers. Otomo Yoshihide's views on nationalism in the context of pulling together the Asian Meeting Festival are quite interesting, as is an interview with Koichi Makagami about the Jazz Art Sengawa festival. That festival, like many covered in the book, is outside the country's musical metropolises and has to survive with small audiences: one of the Sengawa venues is made from screens set up on the sidewalk with room for only a few people inside; A new audience replaces the old one every five minutes. Likewise, Minol Umemoto says of audiences at the Yokohama Impromusica Fes' that "to them, even Han Bennink and the Italian Instabile Orchestra were baffling." Also noteworthy are Tomomi Adachi's description of his festival, aimed at reinterpreting the works of John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolfe, as well as Taku Sugimoto's entertaining take on the DIY mentality.

Still the reading is a little thin here (roughly 50 pages in each language, plus photos), but the modest price tag is more than made up for by the three audio discs included. There are few names here that are likely to be known to Western ears, which is actually the selling point. Among the highlights across the 31 tracks are Katsura Mouri's heavy turntable outbursts, Riuchi Daijo's delicately twisted acoustic guitar and a gorgeous extended tone work by the Segments String Quartet. The acoustic guitar/bass/drum trio Bon-no-Kubo strikes an interesting chord between European improv and East Asian melody while sisforsound hits a start-and-stop punk reminiscent of early Melt-Banana. Chihei Hatakeyama sculpts lush guitar-and-laptop drones similar to Fennesz, whereas Shinichi Isohata's tactile guitar drones are pulled from an archtop. Honorable Mentions also go to a trend of literal titling: Taichi Furudate's "from contact mic to contact mic," Satoshi Kanda's "Milk Bottle on Bass Guitar," Satoshi Yashiro's "Rolling up a 25-meter strip of hook-and-loop tape in a room" and Kanichiro Oda's "Pouring into Water (two liters of water poured from a PET bottle into a river)" all wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Like the text, the audio selection is a bit haphazard. It's more about covering the field than sequencing a listening program. But as a resource, it's an excellent addition to the IMJ library.