🎌 wamono sounds 🎌

What is Wamono (和モノ)?
Wamono literally means something like “Japanese-made” or “Japanese things.”

In music culture, Wamono is a Japanese term used by record collectors, DJs and music lovers to describe Japanese music and records, especially older and lesser-known sounds that are worth digging for.

It can include kayōkyoku, funk, soul, jazz, disco, folk, psychedelic music, library music, soundtracks, pop, traditional Japanese music, and much more.

So, Wamono is not really a genre.

It is more of a way of looking at Japanese music — discovering great sounds beyond the boundaries of their original genres, often through old records that were overlooked, forgotten, or simply never heard outside Japan.

For many collectors, the fun of Wamono is finding that Japan had its own unique versions of the sounds happening around the world, as well as completely original sounds that could only have come from Japan.

Wamono = Japanese music worth digging for