Koenji. Yusuke Ogawa's jazz room, and the source of the WaJazz reissues.

Shop: Universounds
Address: 9
Town: Tokyo, Japan
Established: 2001
Formats: Vinyl, 7"
Crates: Jazz, Funk, Soul, Latin, World
Opening hours: Th-Tu 14:00-19:00

Yusuke Ogawa came to Tokyo from Sapporo at twenty and started collecting in the early nineties, drawn to rare groove. He opened Universounds in Nishi-Shinjuku in 2001 and later moved it to Koenji, five minutes from the station. It deals in jazz and second-hand rarities, and Ogawa is as much archivist as shopkeeper: more than two hundred and fifty reissues and compilations with his name on them, including the WaJazz series drawing on the Nippon Columbia and King Records vaults, plus the Wa-Jazz Disc Guide and Independent Black Jazz of America