A Copyright Dispute Forced Jonáš Gruska to Remake an Album. The Result Redefined the Original.

Inside an Akihabara pachinko parlour, amid the controlled chaos of clattering steel and electronic fanfares, Jonáš Gruska made a quiet discovery: beneath the gamblers’ barrage lay an accidental drone, an eerie and strangely serene hum born from repetition and addiction. He captured it covertly, knowing recording there was forbidden. That act became the album Juggler / ジャグラ, released originally as a literal document of a hidden sonic architecture.

Then came the copyright dispute. A machine manufacturer objected, forcing Gruska to substantially rework the material for a 2026 reissue. The transformation did not damage the project; it gave it new weight. The reissue drifts further from the pachinko floor, trading claustrophobia for something dreamlike. The opening resonant remix pulls the source into ethereal ambient territory, while guest artists dismantle it further. Lénok turns fragments into an incantatory lullaby on “Tokyo dr4ft.” MSHR’s contribution reduces the field recordings to a gurgle of hiss and crumpled texture, barely recognisable. Takako Minekawa brings the most grounded piece, threading the sounds through Akihabara’s layered history of electronics and hidden alleys.

The closing track — a sculpture by mw — articulates the album’s central tension. Glitches and loops dominate until, gradually, the untreated original recordings surface from beneath the processing, as if reality were resurfacing through layers of reinterpretation. The copyright challenge became part of the work, not an obstacle to it. The listening experience shifts from what was recorded to how it is perceived: not gambling technology, but accidental composition. Field recording here is less evidence than invitation, and the album, against expectation, remains immersive and strange.