Michio Kurihara

Michio Kurihara
Kurihara in 2010. Photo by Naomi Yang.
Background information
Birth Name	栗原ミチオ
Born	23 November 1961, Nishi Tama, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Musician
Genres	Psychedelic Rock, Experimental, Dream Pop, Shoegaze
Instrument(s)	Guitar
Years active	1984 - Present
Labels	Captain Trip Records, Southern Lord Records, Sub Pop, P.S.F. Records, Drag City, Pedal, Daymare Recordings, DiwPhalanx, Fangs Anal Satan
Associated acts	Ghost, Marble Sheep, White Heaven, The Stars, Boris, Ensemble Pearl, Onna, YBO², Há-Zá-Má, Cosmic Invention, Damon & Naomi

Michio Kurihara is a guitarist based out of Tokyo, Japan. Beginning his career in the mid 1980s, Kurihara is revered as "The premier guitarist of the Japanese underground psychedelic movement" by AllMusic and "The Seminal Psych Guitarist" by Pitchfork. Beginning his career with the likes of YBO², Marble Sheep and White Heaven, Kurihara would attain a worldwide recognition with Ghost, whose albums would be released by Drag City Records in the 1990s. Along with performing with several bands over the years, Kurihara would also be a recurring collaborator with American dream pop duo Damon & Naomi, along with the Japanese experimental band Boris.

Though his career would start in 1984, he would not contribute to any studio recordings until 1989 with a song on the first Ghost album and later the seminal White Heaven debut album Out. Upon joining Ghost he would contribute to several albums and later several albums with Damon & Naomi, who have praised Kurihara's ability to adjust to any musical style yet keep his own distinctive style. Kurihara would contribute to several albums with Boris (Including two albums under the moniker "Boris With Michio Kurihara") and later his own solo album Sunset Notes in 2005.

Biography

Early Years and Early Bands

Michio Kurihara was born on 23 November 1961, Nishi Tama, Tokyo, Japan. He grew up listening to classical music but would be heavily influenced by classic rock such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Rory Gallagher, Eric Clapton and The Doors among others. In particular "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by The Beatles would leave a major impression.

Kurihara began playing guitar at the age of fourteen, initially beginning with playing in cover bands while still in high school. Seeing the likes of Fushitsusha and Kansai No-Wave bands like SS and Aunt Sally left a major impression on him as well. Eventually he would secure a Gibson SG, which would be his guitar of choice.

Kurihara would first get involved with ONNA in the spring of 1983, a band founded by Keizo Miyanishi along with manga artist and illustrator Mafuyu Hiroki. Hiroki had just recorded and released the ‘Onna’ single. It seems that Miyanishi then wanted to start playing gigs seriously, but Hiroki was too busy with other stuff so he left the group. So then Miyanishi started looking for a guitarist to play these gigs with him, and he asked Kurihara through a friend. Kurihara would join after auditioning.

The line-up at the time was Keizo Miyanishi (vocals and guitar), Ken Matsutani (drums), and a bassist whose name I’ve forgotten. The sound was repetitive and heavy, but quite orthodox. This line-up played maybe five or six gigs during the summer and autumn of that year. This was the first time that Kurihara would meet Ken Matsutani (leader of Marble Sheep & The Rundown Sun’s Children, and proprieter of Captain Trip Records). But anyway, in the autumn Matsutani and the bassist decided to quit, so from late autumn till spring of the next year, Miyanishi and I gigged together as a duo. Some of the live recordings would see release as archival live albums, in particular 2001's Eros・Onnaの世界 and the 2009 compilation Onna released by Holy Mountain Records.

Next, in the spring of 1984 a new drummer in Yoshiki Uenoyama, who was still a teenage student, joined the group. They played several gigs together as a trio until that August. Because of the drummer, the sound had become much more easy to listen to, pop in a certain sense. But in the end, Miyanishi and Kurihara had an emotional falling out, and at the end of August 1984 the group split up.

YBO² (pronounced "Ibo Ibo") was a Japanese underground rock group started in 1984 by Kitamura Masashi – former editor of Fool's Mate magazine and founder of the Transrecords and SSE Communications labels – along with Michio Kurihara and Yoshiki Uenoyama who had both previously played in Onna. Kurihara was only in the band for the first six months. The band went through a number of line-up changes, the most famous line-up being Kitamura with Kazuyuki Kishino and Tatsuya Yoshida, before splitting in 1990. Kurihara contributed to very few recordings of this early era of YBO² and just as few recordings in the band's reunion era.

A one-off reunion of the original line-up in 2000 led to the reformation of the Kitamura, Kazuyuki, Tatsuya line-up with Masami Akita joining them for a while. However, this line-up didn't last long and soon Michio Kurihara was back in the band with Kitamura, Kishizawa Mitsumasa (Differance) and Morikawa Seiichiroh (ZOA). YBO² would go through further lineup changes and remain active until 2006, when Kitamura Masashi passed away aged 49 due to heart disease.

Kurihara would also be a contributor to Marble Sheep (Also known as Marble Sheep & The Run-Down Sun's Children), a psychedelic/kraut/space rock band founded by Ken Matsutani, formerly of White Heaven. Kurihara would contribute occasional live and studio guitar to a handful of releases though he was only in the band for a short time. He would leave the group in 1988, with Masaki Batoh (Ghost) replacing him.

Ghost

• For more details, feel free to view the Riffipedia page on Ghost.

Japanese psychedelic label P.S.F. Records signed Ghost in late 1989 and around the time of the recording sessions for the first album, Kurihara would perform guitar on "I've Been Flying". Ghost would see release in 1990. Kurihara had met bandleader Masaki Batoh in 1988, who replaced him in Marble Sheep. Kurihara would state that it would be the first time he ever recorded anything in a studio, just a few months before Out by White Heaven.

A live album recorded in two separate churches entitled Temple Stone was also released in 1994, with Kurihara performing as a guest. By 1994, Kurihara would officially join Ghost. By the end of 1995 the band would sign with United States indie label Drag City, remaining with them for the rest of their career. In the meantime the band would tour Europe, the USA and Japan. The band would also meet the dream pop duo Damon and Naomi, who they frequently toured with. By this point Kurihara would be a full-time contributor to the band.

Ghost and Damon & Naomi would tour together in 1995 and members of the Drag City label caught one of the shows. In turn this would lead to the band getting signed to the American label and re-issuing their earlier catalogue on the label. Ghost would release their third album Lama Rama Rabi in 1996 with the first two albums and live album being reissued by the label the following year. By 1997 Kurihara was performing with the band full-time. On 20 April 1999 the band would release two more albums at the same time in Snuffbox Imminence and Tune In, Tune On, Free Tibet. A collaborative album entitled Damon and Naomi with Ghost followed the next year, recorded in late 1999 going into 2000. Kurihara would notably contribute further to Damon & Naomi as a touring guitarist and studio collaborator.

The band would tour the USA in 2000, 2002 and 2006 which included headlining appearances at Terrastock (2002 recorded for Metamorphosis). In 2004 the band would release their sixth album in the form of Hypnotic Underworld. The band would have two releases in 2007: Their seventh (and final) studio album entitled In Stormy Nights and a live album befit to Ghost's experimental approach at live performances in Overture: Live in Nippon Yusen Soko 2006. While Ghost would tour Europe in 2007 and the United States in 2008 and 2009, the members of the band concentrated on other projects as the band's activity would slow going into the 2010s. The band also notably refused to tour the United States while George W. Bush was in office.

On 9 August 2014, Masaki Batoh announced that Ghost had disbanded.

White Heaven

In mid-1986, he was invited to join the White Heaven led by You Ishihara, whome Kurihara met in December 1985 considered in some quarters the most important band of Japan's psychedelic renaissance. Here Kurihara's guitar flourished, his fierce and commentary-rich lyricism often evoking John Cippolina of the Quicksilver Courier Service. He remained with White Heaven until 1991, going on to play with Henkyo Gakudan and others

The roots of Japanese neo-psych legends White Heaven date back to 1980. Originally dubbed Living End, the group was shaped from a series of jam sessions helmed by singer/guitarist You Ishihara, its sprawling, ever-revolving lineup of musicians eventually crystallizing in 1984 around You, guitarist Tetsuya Sakamoto, bassist Takayuki Nakagoshi, and drummer Ken Ishihara. After a handful of gigs, Living End added guitarist Ken Matsutani, and in late 1985 the quintet adopted the name White Heaven. Matsutani exited in mid-1986 to form his own outfit, Marble Sheep & the Rundown Sun's Children (Or Marble Sheep for short.).

Kurihara would be invited to join the band in the middle of 1986. Eventually the band would issue their first album Electric Cool Acid a self-released cassette documenting a live appearance in Tokyo. A series of lineup changes plagued White Heaven over the next few years. After recording in November 1990, the band finally issued its first official LP, the P.S.F. label release Out, released in April 1991. the lineup consisted of You on vocals, Michio on guitar, Ken on drums, and Naohiro Yoshimoto on bass. Out has since been regarded as a seminal album in the then-developing Japanese neo-psychedelia scene.

In an interview with Black Editions Group, Kurihara would speak at length about Out:

“	I didn’t listen to much music by other musicians around the time of the Out sessions, because I wanted to focus entirely on our own recordings. But I had my own personal reference points when it came to what sorts of sounds I thought were ideal - early Tim Buckley and early Doors, the first Blue Cheer record, and the first Quicksilver Messenger Service album, for example. I think Out was a combination of songs they’d written before I joined the group, and songs that we wrote after I joined. I think they were all pretty much finished by the time we entered the studio, though. We had three days to complete the recording, and one day to mix. It was the band’s first proper full album, and I at least definitely felt the pressure. I also remember how far the commute was to the studio. The studio was in Higashijujo, in Kitaku, and I lived way on the west side of Tokyo. For the recordings, I used a Greco SG Custom copy (I didn’t own a Gibson SG yet), a 1968 Fender Twin Reverb (with a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker), a Shin-ei FY-6 fuzz pedal, a Pearl Cry Fuzz pedal, a Maxon ZEEQ (power EQ) pedal, and a DeArmond Weeper Wah pedal. I also used a Roger Mayer Fuzz Face (the blue rocket type), but just on the last song, “Out.” I think I also used a Roland RE-201 Space Echo on the outro to “Fallin’ Stars End.” The Maxon ZEEQ is both a power booster and a 3-band EQ, but you can adjust the High/Mid/Low sections of the EQ, so I used it kind of like a full-range booster. At the time, it was an important pedal to me. Except for the Maxon ZEEQ, this is all gear I continue to use to this day. As an aside, when we played live I used a Hiwatt Custom 100 head with a four 12” cabinet in combination with the Fender amp I mentioned earlier. I liked dialing in the mids and highs on the Fender, the mids and lows on the Hiwatt, and mixing the two sets of sounds. But we didn’t need that kind of volume for the studio recording, so I just used the Fender. Live, I also used a late-period Vox Tone Bender, but I remember not being able to get a good sound out of it during the Out sessions, so I don’t think I ended up using it on the album. ​I think Nakamura’s collection was still pretty small at that point. If I remember correctly, his collection really took off sometime in the mid-90s… I was pretty surprised by how muddy the final mixes sounded. I thought the album would have the same kind of warmth and depth that lots of the records from the late ’60s did… [laughs] [On Out's reception outside Japan] I was shocked that this sort of music appealed to lots of people outside Japan. In the years since Out was released, each time I’ve toured overseas, with Damon and Naomi for example, I’ve had many audience members approach me after a show and tell me “I loved Out when it was released. Thanks so much for coming.” I first had these sorts of exchanges in America, but over the years I’ve also had them in England and throughout Europe. It may be a relatively small number of fans in the grand scheme of things, but I remember being constantly surprised that there were folks listening to White Heaven all over the world. These encounters always made me happy, and grateful that I pursued music, but at the same time I was always a bit puzzled by how these fans ended up listening to White Heaven of all groups.	”
	— Michio Kurihara, Black Editions Group

Michio and Naohiro both exited soon after the sessions wrapped, Kurihara leaving in February 1991 before the album's release. With new guitarist Souchirou Nakamura and bassist Kouji Samura signing on for the second White Heaven LP, 1993's Strange Bedfellow. Michio returned to the roster in August 1993, in time for 1994's Next to Nothing, with bassist Koji Shimura replacing Kouji for the follow-up single, Threshold of the Pain. After issuing an expanded Electric Cool Acid, White Heaven toured Europe in October 1995.

Upon returning to Japan, Kouji returned to the lineup, this time replacing Ken on drums, with Chiyo Kamekawa assuming bass duties for what would prove to be the group's final LP in 1997's Levitation. White Heaven would perform their last show on 23 September 1997 and break up by the end of the year. You Ishihara would begin performing solo while Michio would concentrate further with Ghost. In late 1999 You, Michio, and Chiyo would essentially reunite in a new band known as The Stars.

The Stars

The Stars are an acid rock band that would be founded in November 1999 by Kurihara, You Ishihara and Chiyo Kamekawa, all of whom previously played in White Heaven. The band would play their first show with drummer Yasuyuki Watanabe on 7 November 1999 at MANDALA-2. Ken Ishihara would join on drums in 2000 as the band would perform sporadic shows, eventually releasing a three-song single entitled Today on 25 January 2001. Yasonobu Arakawa would join the band in the Summer of 2001 as the band began to perform more shows.

Eventually the band would record an album's worth of material, releasing Will via Pedal Records in 2004. A second album in Perfect Place To Hideaway the next year to critical praise. The band would only play sporadic shows and would remain active until 2009, when You Ishihara would announce that The Stars had disbanded.

Pedal Records would release an archival live album entitled Live in Kyoto 2006, recorded in November 2006 and released in 2020.

Damon & Naomi

Kurihara's relationship with the indie pop duo Damon & Naomi in 2000. Prior to that, Damon & Naomi would release their third album Playback Singers in 1998. The album included the song "Awake in a Muddle", written by Masaki Batoh of the psychedelic rock band Ghost, which marked the beginning of the ongoing relationship between the duo and the Japanese band. The album also included a cover of the Tom Rapp (Pearls Before Swine) song "Translucent Carriages", which the duo had performed with Rapp when he came out of retirement for the first Terrastock music festival, in 1997.

In 2000, they cemented the relationship with Ghost by releasing the collaborative album Damon & Naomi with Ghost on 5 September, recorded once again at the duo's Kali studios and attaining largely positive reviews. The tour in support of the album featured Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara. On 23 April 2002, the Live in San Sebastian album was released, which had been recorded in May 2001 with Kurihara; the album was released with an additional DVD featuring a video tour diary by Yang. Ghost singer-guitarist Masaki Batoh's post-Ghost band The Silence would cover Damon & Naomi's "Little Red Record Company" on their second album Hark The Silence. In 2002 Kurihara would tour with Damon & Naomi through South America.

Damon & Naomi have both spoken highly of Kurihara's guitar style. Damon Krukowhski would state the following of Michio: "He works really hard to adjust himself to whoever he's playing with. There's a whole process that he's going through to shape the sound. I've heard him say in interviews that he's not a technical player, but he's so skilled. I think he means that he doesn't play for technique's sake. He doesn't assert himself that way. The playing comes out of an emotional core." Naomi Yang would follow up on this sentiment, stating "He's such a sensitive player, always listening and adjusting and enhancing whatever is happening at that moment with the music. Yet despite his accommodations for whomever he's playing with, when you hear that guitar tone, that special touch – you know it's Kurihara. His sound is unmistakable."

On Valentine's Day 2005, Damon & Naomi's fifth studio album, The Earth Is Blue, was released on their own |20|20|20 label, the duo having amicably terminated their relationship with Sub Pop. The album again featured Kurihara on guitar as well as the avant-garde brass section of Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey of Nmperign, along with attaining largely positive reception. The supporting tour featured all the guest musicians and one of the Japanese dates of the tour was videotaped and released as a limited-edition DVD at the end of 2005. Kurihara would remain active as a touring musician for the duo until 2006, his last contributions at the time being as a guest in session for the band's next album. The band's sixth studio album Within These Walls was released on 25 September 2007, also on their own |20|20|20 label and recieving positive reception. Damon & Naomi would tour Japan in 2008.

Kurihara and fellow Ghost guitarist Masaki Batoh contributed to Damon & Naomi’s next album in False Beats and True Hearts, released 9 May 2011. In 2019 Damon & Naomi would tour Japan to record their next album at Peace Music, reuniting with Kurihara for the recording sessions. A Sky Record would see release on 6 August 2021 to positive reception.

Boris

• For more details, feel free to view the Riffipedia page on Boris.

Kurihara would begin collaborating with the Japanese experimental band Boris in 2006, recording several songs between January and July that year. Kurihara would state that "we were sending tracks back and forth and overdubbing parts, so we had never actually played together in the same room.". Rainbow would be announced in the Fall and ultimately released on CD circa 23 December 2006 via Pedal Records. The North American CD (Which would have a different closing track) would see release on 22 May 2007 and the vinyl edition (Both standard and special edition) would see release in June of 2007. A release party for the album would be hosted at Shimokitazawa Shelter on 4 February 2007, which would be recorded and multi-tracked.

Leaning heavily into neo-psychedelia and shoegaze, Rainbow would attain positive reception from numerous publications such as Pitchfork, Brainwashed Magazine, Stylus Magazine and Pop Matters just to name a few.

In a 2007 interview with The Austin Chronicle, Atsuo would state the following of Michio: "I don't consider Kurihara's instrument to be a guitar. The way he plays it destroys that idea. I hear it as a special kind of noise. It's not as though Boris had a third guitarist; it was as if we had this whole other entity in the group. Boris' sound is a series of steps. It has a roughness to it. With Kurihara, though, it's like he sends sine waves through the music, smoothing out some of the rough edges. He adds another dimension to the music that it didn't have before. He has his own sensibilities, and he brings in ideas and sounds that weren't even imaginable to the band."

Kurihara would join Boris as a second guitarist, performing Boris originals, selections from Rainbow and selections from his solo album Sunset Notes among other songs such as a cover of "Flower Sun Rain" by PYG. Kurihara would contribute guitar to three songs on the band's breakout album Smile: "Flower, Sun, Rain", "My Neighbour Satan" and "You Were Holding An Umbrella". Smile would attain positive reception and peaked at #20 on the Heatseekers Charts upon it's North American release with Southern Lord Records. Kurihara would remain the touring guitarist in support of Smile, appearing on numerous live and archival releases throughout the years.

A second Boris with Michio Kurihara album in Cloud Chamber would see release on 23 December 2008 via Pedal Records. Unlike the neo-psychedelia of "Rainbow", Cloud Chamber's sound would be based more in abstract drone and noise. While some reception for this record would be positive, many reviewers would garner a negative reception towards Cloud Chamber. Critical reception on Cloud Chamber is largely mixed, often negative.

Kurihara would remain a touring guitarist and studio contributor to several of the band's releases until 2012, to which he would depart for personal reasons. In an interview with NYD Collection, Boris would state that the band would not perform certain songs from Smile, Heavy Rocks 2011, New Album and Attention Please as "those tracks were made with the premise of you [Michio] being there. In our mind you [Michio] were a member of the band, so we put together the arrangements that way."

On 22 September 2018 Kurihara would perform with the band for the first time in over six years at the UFO Club as a guest on "Rainbow" and "Untitled". Michio would play a full set with the band on 29 December 2018 at FEVER. The same day Pedal Records would release a live LP entitled Futomeido, chronicling seven songs from the 2007 release party. Kurihara would also appear as a guest for select Boris concerts in 2019 and 2020.

Other Projects

• Kurihara would be involved with a psychedelic rock band known as Há-Zá-Má whom were active between the late 1980s to roughly 2000. Beyond the fact the band released two cassette demos and two albums (1995's Há-Zá-Má and 1999's Once Upon A Time) very little is known of this project.

• Masaki Batoh and Michio Kurihara would found a psychedelic supergroup in Cosmic Invention with Okano Futoshi (Subvert Blaze) in 1997. The trio, along with other collaborators, would record an album at Ogikubo Kumin Centre and release Help Your Satori Mind in 1997 via The Now Sound. Drag City would re-release the album on vinyl and digital on 17 August 2018, with an unreleased jam as a bonus track.

Kurihara would lend guitar playing to both of You Ishihara's solo albums: Passivité (Released 1 June 1997) and Formula (Released 12 February 2020).

• Kurihara would be a side guitarist for Overhang Party in 1999, performing as a live guitarist. Overhang Party would notably perform a handful of shows with Major Stars. Selected recordings from 1999 would appear on the 2000 compilation Otherside Of.

• From November 2004 - January 2005 Kurihara would record his first solo album at Peace Music after the label convinced him to compose a solo album. He would work with the backing band of You Ishihara (White Heaven, The Stars), Souichirou Nakamura (White Heaven), Ichiro Shibata (Shigam, Yura Yura Teikoku) and Ai Aso. Sunset Notes would see release in 2005 to positive reviews from several publications such as AllMusic, Kurihara would perform some of the songs from this album with Boris at select shows. 20-20-20 would re-issue the album on 5 December 2007. Sunset Notes would be issues on vinyl in 2018 via Pedal Records.

• Kurihara would also be the guitarist for Ai Aso's third album The Chamomile Pool, released in 2007 via Pedal Records.

• Kurihara would collaborate with Atsuo Mizuno (Boris), Bill Herzog (Earth, Jesse Sykes) and Stephen O'Malley (Sunn O))), Burning Witch, Khanate, etc.) to form a one-off studio project known as Ensemble Pearl. This quartet would release their eponymous album via Daymare Recordings on 19 March 2013 to positive reception. Stephen O'Malley has stated that this album is the closest there would be to a sequel to the 2006 Sunn O))) & Boris collaboration Altar.

• Kurihara notably performed live with the likes of Mani Neumeier and Damon & Naomi in 2018, prior to rejoining Boris for the guest appearance and special "Boris with Michio Kurihara" performance later that year.

Bands

• Onna - Guitar (1983 - 1984)
• YBO² - Guitar (1984, 2000 - 2006)
• White Heaven - Guitar (1986 - 1991, 1993 - 1997)
• Marble Sheep - Guitar (1987 - 1988)
• Ghost - Guitar (1989, 1994, 1995 - 2014)
• Há-Zá-Má - Guitar (1988 - 2000)
• Cosmic Invention - Guitar (1997)
• Overhang Party - Guitar (1999)
• The Stars - Guitar (1999 - 2009)
• Damon & Naomi - Guitar (2000 - Present)
• Boris - Guitar (2006 - 2012, 2018, 2019, 2020)
• Ensemble Pearl - Guitar (2012 - 2013)

Selected Discography

Solo Releases

• Sunset Notes (2005, Pedal Records)

With White Heaven

• Electric Cool Acid (Studio Album) (1988, Self-Released)
• Out (Studio Album) (1991, P.S.F. Records)
• Threshold of the Pain b/w 4 Hours (in the Afternoon) (7" Single) (1994, H.G. Fact)
• Next To Nothing (Studio Album) (1994, Noon Disk)
• Levitation (Studio Album) (1997, The Now Sound)

With Ghost

• Ghost (Guitar on "I've Been Flying") (1990, P.S.F. Records)
• Temple Stone (Guitar on "Giant's Chant") (1994, P.S.F. Records)
• Moungod Air Cave / Guru In The Echo (7" Single; Guitar on "Guru in The Echo") (1995, The Now Sound)
• Lama Rabi Rabi (1996, Drag City)
• Tune In, Turn On, Free Tibet (1999, Drag City)
• Snuffbox Immanence (1999, Drag City)
• Damon & Naomi with Ghost (collaborative album with Damon & Naomi) (2000, Sub Pop; Drag City)
• Hypnotic Underworld (2004, Drag City)
• In Stormy Nights (2007, Drag City)
• Overture: Live In Nippon Yusen Soko 2006 (Live Album) (2008, Drag City)
• Live In Providence 2006 (Live Album) (2017, Super Fuji Discs)
• Heavy Chamber Works '98 (Compilation) (2018, Ghost Future Archives)

With Damon & Naomi

• It's All Over Now, Baby Blue / Yoo Doo Right (7" Single) (1999, Grimsey Records)
• Damon & Naomi with Ghost (Collaborative Album with Ghost) (2000, Sub Pop; Drag City)
• Song To The Siren (Live Album / DVD) (2002, Sub Pop)
• The Earth Is Blue (Studio Album) (2005, 20|20|20)
• Monday, January 19th, 2004 At Kichijoji Manda-la 2, Tokyo (Live Album) (2005, Self-Released)
• Shibuya O-Nest, Tokyo Japan, June 24, 2005 (Live Album) (2005, Self-Released)
• Within These Walls (Studio Album) (2007, 20|20|20)
• Shibuya O-Nest Tokyo, Japan 2008 (Live Album) (2008, Self-Released)
• White Christmas (CD Single) (2008, Self-Released)
• The Sub Pop Years (Compilation; Selected Tracks) (2009, 20|20|20)
• False Beats and True Hearts (Studio Album) (2011, 20|20|20)
• Walking Backwards / The World's Strongest Man (7" Single) (2011, The Great Pop Supplement)
• Spirit Of Love (B-Sides, Bonuses, And Soundtracks) (Compilation; Selected Tracks) (2016, 20|20|20)
• Everything Quieter Than Everything Else (Live Album) (2017, Ghost Future Archives)
• A Sky Record (Studio Album) (2021, 20|20|20)

With Há-Zá-Má

• Há-Zá-Má (Demo) (1994, 工房路久)
• II (Demo) (1995, 工房路久)
• ‎Há-Zá-Má (Studio Album) (1995, Captain Trip Records)
• Once Upon A Time (Studio Album) (1999, Captain Trip Records)

With The Stars

• Today (Maxi Single) (2001, P.S.F. Records)
• Will (Studio Album) (2004, Pedal Records)
• Perfect Place To Hideaway (Studio Album) (2005, Pedal Records)
• Live in Kyoto 2006 (Studio Album) (2020, Pedal Records)

With Boris

• Rainbow (Boris with Michio Kurihara) (2006, Pedal Records; 2007, Drag City)
• Smile (Guitar on three songs) (2008, DiwPhalanx; Southern Lord Records)
• Smile -Live At Wolf Creek- (Live Album) (2008, DiwPhalanx, Daymare)
• Cloud Chamber (Boris with Michio Kurihara) (2008, Pedal Records)
• Smile Live In Prague (Live Album) (2009, Self-Released)
• Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 4 (7" Single; Guitar on "Seasons") (2009, Southern Lord Records)
• Variations (Compilation; Guitar on selected tracks) (2010, DiwPhalanx)
• BXI (Collaborative EP with Ian Astbury; Guitar on two songs) (2010, Southern Lord Records)
• Live In Japan: "Smile" World Tour Final (Live DVD) (2011, Southern Lord Records)
• Attention Please (Guitar on "Attention Please") (2011, Sargent House)
• Heavy Rocks (Guitar on three songs) (2011, Sargent House)
• Präparat (Guitar on two songs) (2013, Daymare Recordings)
• The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked Extra (Guitar on two songs) (2014, Taiga Records)
• Crossing Waltz (Live Album; Recorded 2011) (2016, Fangs Anal Satan)
• Futomeido (Boris With Michio Kurihara; Live Album; Recorded 2007) (2018, Pedal Records)
• Hope Japan Tour 2011 (Live Album; Recorded 2011) (2021, Fangs Anal Satan)
• Tokyo Wonder Land (Live Album; Recorded 2009) (2021, Fangs Anal Satan)

Selected Other Releases

• Marble Sheep - NY Antiknock, October 17, 1987 (Live Album) (1988, Self-Released)
• Marble Sheep - Old From New Heads (Studio Album) (1993, Captain Trip Records)
• You Ishihara - Passivité (Studio Album) (1997, Creativeman Disc)
• Cosmic Invention - Help Your Satori Mind (Studio Album) (1997, The Now Sound)
• YBO² - 大蜩琳 = Daejohw-Ling (Studio Album) (2000, Fractured Sister's Secrets)
• Overhang Party - Otherside Of (Compilation; Selected Tracks) (2000, Pataphysique)
• Onna - Eros・Onnaの世界 (Compilation; Recorded 1983) (2001, Bloody Butterfly)
• Yura Yura Teikoku – III (Studio Album; Guitar on two songs) (2001, MIDI Inc.)
• Yura Yura Teikoku – 1998-2004 (Compilation; Selected Tracks) (2004, MIDI Inc.)
• Ai Aso - The Chamomile Pool (Studio Album) (2007, Pedal Records)
• Ai Aso - The Chamomile Pool DVD (Live DVD) (2007, archiveDVD)
• Ai Aso / Wata - She's So Heavy (Split 7"; Guitar on "Angel") (2007, DiwPhalanx Records)
• Onna - Onna (Compilation; Tracks 6 - 9; Recorded 1983) (2009, Holy Mountain Records)
• Ensemble Pearl - Ensemble Pearl (Studio Album) (2013, Daymare Recordings)
• Fujikake Masataka – Universe, Red & Blue (Studio Album) (2014, FullDesign)
• You Ishihara - formula (Studio Album) (2020, zelone records)

External Links

• Discogs
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Sunset Notes on Bandcamp
• Out by White Heaven on Bandcamp
• Discography Page
• Archived White Heaven Page
• List of White Heaven Shows 1985 - 1997
• List of The Stars live shows 1999 - 2004
• Kurihara's Favorite Solos
• !0 Classic Kurihara Cuts
• Blind Promise on NPR
• Interview via Black Editions Group
• Early Interview with Terrascope
• Interview via NYD Collection
• Interview via Austin Chronicle
• Interview via The Wooden Scapegoat