Venus Records

Tetsuo Hara knows that it’s not always possible to reconcile the two. The Japanese producer has worked for labels such as RCA Victor and Alfa Recordings, founded in 1969 (now a subsidiary of Sony Music Publishing Japan), and has experienced the challenge of reconciling sonic and musical perfection with emotion and the joy of playing on countless occasions. And the results did not always live up to his expectations.

In 1992 Tetsuo Hara founded his own company, Venus Records. Since then, the company, based near Tokyo, has stood for productions that give jazz back the liveliness and emotionality of the early 60s. The most important parameters for this are: Hara’s own „Hyper Magnum Sound“ based on 24-bit mastering and a pleasantly old-fashioned way of working. Venus Records always brings all the musicians into the studio at the same time for its productions, as was customary decades ago, and produces the stereo mix for the later release directly on site. The final fine-tuning takes place in their own studio in Japan.

The result is a sound that combines maximum presence with the greatest possible naturalness of the individual instruments, and that comes out of the speakers as directly and emotionally as if the listener were a guest in an exquisite recording studio. Hara only works with artists whose music he likes – especially jazz trios with piano, clarinet or saxophone, as well as outstanding vocalists from Italy, the USA and Japan. Tetsuo Hara and his team release no more than a dozen new productions per year in order to guarantee the necessary care in all stages of production. The portfolio is divided into four different sections: The „Master Piece Collection“ offers exquisite trio and quartet music by stars such as Enrico Rava, Archie Shepp and Steve Kuhn, as well as exquisite singer-songwriter and classical productions; analogue listeners will be tempted by LPs pressed on 180-gram vinyl; and those who prefer digital high-resolution discs will find what they are looking for in a wide range of CDs and SACDs.

The catalogue is rounded off by the acquisition of classics previously released by other companies – for example, a new edition of Art Pepper’s ‚Among Friends‘, a collection of jazz standards originally released by the Japanese Interplay label in 1978, to which Venus has added a bonus track (‚Blue Bossa Take 2‘). Common to all formats is the minimalist, elegant design of the covers and booklets. Perfect aesthetics meet Far Eastern purism – all discographic information is in Japanese, only the credits and track titles are in English. And, of course, every LP comes with an „obi“: the decorative sleeve printed with Japanese characters and wrapped around the left edge of the cover is not just a nice bonus for fans, but an indispensable part of an authentic Nippon pressing.

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