With no other catalog to speak of, no bandcamp presence, and his affiliated label Zigoku-Record having this cassette as their only release I’m restricted in what I can share about Masaki on the Mic. Masaki’s social media is littered with flyers, a few live shots and records, all of which I enjoy, but as I have no knowledge of the Japanese language or scene in general I’ve struggled to get a proper understanding of his positioning.
Lost Tapes 048 dropped as a limited Cassette Store Day release for Japan only. Amidst all the unnecessary reissues that plagues it’s European and American counterparts, the Japanese release list for the day produced a number of beat tapes from unfamiliar artists and labels, including a number of debut releases.
The event seems to serve a slightly different purpose for that particular market. Rather than 
greedily rolling out more Dilla re-releases it actually offers a brief spotlight on new music whose exposure may be limited by preferred format.
While were talking about preferred format let’s talk beat tapes. I’ve expressed this many times before but it bears repeating that some stuff just sounds better on cassette. I don’t know why, but lo-fi beat tapes are chief among them, though live mixes are worth shouting at too. It all comes down to what the artist is recording for. Is Madvillainy going to sound better on tape than record? Hell no. But the Raw Fruits series always will, because Ras G was making a beat tape. More and more artists are recording and mastering to tape. Some of it’s so rough and raw that I’d dread to hear it on wax. But on a cassette? Shit just works.
Lost Tapes… is raw; straight from machine to tape raw. Nine of the fourteen tracks are instrumental workings with rugged drum kits. The vocal parts compliment the lo-fi production with crackling loops and, much like the Aquadab and MC A tape that Bokeh blessed us with, there’s still a tonne of appeal and flow for me to dig despite none of it being in english.
Unfortunately there’s no real free streaming service to preview this on besides the stores that still have some stock. Limited to 50 copies, last seen at Jetset Records. The best we can share at this stage is a couple of 30 second joints off with some trippy videos.