Forum - View topicSusumu Hirasawa.
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Waffitti
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Susumu Hirasawa is a musician, mostly focused on electronic music and progressive rock. He's known in Japan as the leader of P-MODEL, one of the three biggest electronic groups of the 70s (alongside Hikashu and Plastics), which helped define the Japanese electronic musical landscape; while he's known in The West for his work as composer for the works of Kentaro Miura and Satoshi Kon, both of which being (was in the latter's case) fans of his work.
Here's a bit about his career. He started out in 1973 with the Progressive/experimental group Mandrake; he also graduated college, won a Weekly Playboy synth contest and had his first release on a compilation, became a synth teacher for Yamaha & acquired connections; at around the same time, The Sex Pistols rose to fame, and he and his band mates saw the decline of prog rock, which they considered as turning too commercial and not speaking about sociopolitical issues, and drifted to making New Wave. Mandrake ended in 1978. In 1979, he formed the energetic New Wave band P-MODEL from the remains of Mandrake, and in August released the synth-heavy album IN A MODEL ROOM, which gave Hirasawa commercial acclaim and put him in the centre of the Japanese New Wave scene; unlike it's other KAFTWERK/XTC influenced members, P-MODEL was inspired by 999 and Métal Urbain. They continued in this style until 1981, when Hirasawa got tired of synth-pop and the music industry and made harsher, less synth-oriented albums, with heavy usage of Sampling, MIDI Guitar, Hand-Made Sampler, Tape Loops and Drum-generated White Noise; which led to audiences diminishing and live shows in small venues; members were changing constantly, slowly leading P-MODEL to be "The Susumu Hirasawa Band", specially after the departure of keyboardist Yasumi Tanaka, who wrote half of the band's songs and was a very close friend of Hirasawa, who led the band to more psychodelic style with the album ANOTHER GAME, which had it's release postponed by 4 months because the lyrics of the song ATOM-SIBERIA "encouraged discrimination" and had to be remade, alongside with record label kerfuffles, which led to P-MODEL leaving its label and creating ANOTHER ACT, a series of independently released flexi-singles; he also started an experimental group called Shun. In 1984, a Cassette Book side-project called SCUBA was released (through a different label); although it was a P-MODEL album, it was mostly a Hirasawa solo work (the only other P-MODEL member in this album is keyboardist Shunichi Miura); it marked the band's return to New Wave (although it was mid-80s New Wave instead of late-70s New Wave) and Hirasawa's return to his Robert Fripp-inspired style of Guitar Playing; it also featured bizarre lyrics (based on Jungian Philosophy) that could be interpreted through various means, which Hirasawa uses to this day. In 1985 the album KARKADOR was released (after Hirasawa managed to get another contract with a different label), it's gaudy cover (designed by Susumu's brother Yuichi) marked the return to poppy New Wave (continuing from SCUBA), it was heavily inspired by the dreams Hirasawa had at the time (although there are four compositions made by other members, only one didn't have Hirasawa involvement), it also continued Hirasawa's struggle against recording engineers, who didn't understand his vision; this struggle came to a head with the release of blandly produced and disjointed ONE PATTERN album; it was at the making of this album where the member-relationship of P-MODEL declined, which, together with troubled record label contract negotiations, led to P-MODEL being frozen (put on hiatus) in December of 1988; each member went their own ways, with Hirasawa deciding to start a solo career. Throughout 1989-1991, he released a trilogy of solo albums, defined by uncohesive bizarre experimentation with various genres and bad production; he also started his composing career (before this he made a few compositions for X-BOMBER and an entrance theme for pro-wrestler Riki Choshu that he disowned) with the Detonator ORGUN OVA series, where he started using his technique of refitting his songs to fit with the thing he's composing for, which he uses whenever he's asked to compose stuff (although he makes it more subtle now a days). In 1991, Hirasawa reformed P-MODEL as a techno band; although they changed genres, they still kept their energy and made fast and clever tunes, the production and engineering that Hirasawa had struggled with for years was finally good. This version of the band released 2 main albums, P-MODEL and big body, both being two sides of an equal concept, some that Hirasawa had done early on the band's lifetime; P-MODEL being poppier and big body being more like Hirasawa's solo works. It lasted until 1993, when Hirasawa put it in revision (changed the members around). While Hirasawa was working on P-MODEL, he made a few side thingies, like composing for a NHK nature documentary and making a folksy image album for a manga (or was it a light novel?) that nobody has ever heard about. In 1994, after three bizarre solo albums and two frenzied techno P-MODEL albums, Hirasawa released AURORA, a long (longest he has ever made), reflective, subdued and thoughtful album filled with long, melodic compositions based around his voice, and this time, they flow and are focused, and continue with the good production from the P-MODEL albums. Also in 1994, he started the INTERACTIVE LIVE SHOW; where instead of a standard show, his would have a plot, which would be dictated by the audience; Hirasawa continued making them for every solo album of his; with the last one happening in January of this year. He also started the SYUN label, where he released side-albums and some of his friends works, the label's first release was OOPARTS, a compilation of all the songs he made with Shun in the 80s; which he revived as "Syun" and released an album in the same year. P-MODEL came back late in this year, with the lineup featuring Kenji Konishi, whose band 4-D mode1 had toured with P-MODEL during the ANOTHER ACT days, his friend Hajime Fukuma and Hirasawa Live Band drummer Wataru Kamiryo. In that same year, Hirasawa started traveling to Thailand, where he got heavily interested in the nation's (and also on the rest of Southeast Asia's) culture, got involved with the country's transsexuals, and his works from them on were influenced in some way by Thailand, starting with the 1995 album Sim City, where he featured transsexual Thai vocalists in his songs, and continued to build up the layers of instruments in his works; the album's story features Wiwat Tarasongop (a Thai transliteration of Susumu Hirasawa) and his adventures in a futuristic Thailand that is portrayed as a simulation city. Later in the year he released Fune, the first main Revised P-MODEL album (a remix of it was released months before the original), it's more like Hirasawa's solo works than anything with it's layered complexity; the album's story features the members of P-MODEL making a voyage through virtual space to unite space and technology. In 1996 he released Kun Mae on a Calculation, the last Shun/Syun album, and, like everything that Hirasawa made at the time, was influenced by Thailand and had Thai vocals; created the TESLAKITE label, which would release his Solo/P-MODEL stuff, starting with the solo album SIREN, which continued the Thai stuff; although Hirasawa did release two more works in the SYUN label: How about FUKO?, an experimental project with Konishi where they would send their work back and forth; and CONVEX AND CONCAVE, an album by the P-MODEL/DEVO tribuite band PEVO that was produced by Hirasawa (and featured a cover of a P-MODEL song), the label had one last release, but Hirasawa wasn't involved in it. In that year, P-MODEL started the story of the Unifix Project, where the members of P-MODEL would branch out and the story would play out in maxi singles and concerts that would be four solo act together. However, Wataru Kamiryo left P-MODEL in 1997 to pursue his solo career and Hirasawa & Konishi had to abort the project and rewrite it to be about founding out the Crisis of the LAYER-GREEN Protocol. The drummer was replaced by a Commodore AMIGA program created by Hirasawa. In 1997, Hirasawa issued the first Mandrake albums; continued the story of LAYER-GREEN through the internet, two maxi-singles and COLOR live shows, which eventually culminated in the album Electronic Tragedy/〜ENOLA. He was also offered a position as composer for an animated series based on a manga, whose creator was a fan of his work and would listen to it while making the manga, upon taking a look at the work, he noted that it felt restraint-less and touches similar themes that his work does, he also wasn't limited by requests from the creator or the company, and had to do berserker compositions to fit the series (although he was still refitting songs); he didn't do the opening or ending themes though. In 1998 he released the third and final main solo album influenced by Thailand: Technique of Relief. Unlike the last two, the Thai influence is mostly on the story's setting and occasional Thai singing, with Hirasawa returning to the themes of SCUBA. The album's story features the WWII POW soldier called Gardener KING, who was one of the Bridge Builders who participated in the building of the Thailand–Burma Railway, also known as the Bridge on River Kwai, escaped to prevent the World Sensory Cell, or “World Cell”, from recording the unnecessary deaths of those who perished during the construction of the bridge into its World Experience Logs and using them as the world’s mode of operation. After achieving his goal, the King aimlessly wandered the wastelands, and was picked up by the mysterious Quite-0. Quite-0 ordered the King to spend the rest of his life working for the good of others as a World Gardener. The Gardener King began to work on restoring the World Cell, which had been damaged in the war. The World Cell resumed its activities, awaiting maintenance that would be performed on it in fifty years. Those years passed by, and the time to perform maintenance on the World Cell draws ever nearer. However, the Gardener KING is under great stress from having worked too hard. In spite of his pains, the World Cell shuts down without waiting for maintenance. Consequently, a disease known as “Existence Paralysis” begins to spread throughout the world. It quickly infected the Gardener KING, and he collapsed. If the World Cell is not reactivated, then this Existence Paralysis may infect the entire world. The Gardener KING grows anxious about the state of its world view and sense of reality. That day, after suffering a second panic attack, he again fell down into the wastelands. The Gardener KING grows weak, and an irregular heartbeat is detected in his electro-cardiogram; getting near death from working non-stop. And so, the Bridge-Building Hirasawa (written as ヒラサワ), together with the “Rescue Bridge Guild” and the “Reinforcement Bridge Guild”, will repair the World Cell in the name of his grandfather who shut it down fifty years ago. It sounds bizarre, but it's awesome. In this album, Hirasawa perfectly blended Electronics with Symphonic in an insane level of epicness, with melodies that are beyond gorgeous and every song is a high point. Also, the story is greatly developed in the INTERACTIVE LIVE SHOW, which featured participation via internet. Unfortunately, this INTERACTIVE LIVE has never had a video release, although you can find it on YouTube. In 1999, Hirasawa deemed direct digital distribution viable, a dream that pinned for since the days of P-MODEL where his vision was held back by the music industry, terminated his contracts with Columbia and made the P-MODEL OR DIE project to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary; where he would release 3 live albums and a main album (that was created through the internet) through his P-PLANT website and then release them months later on CD through the MAGNET/biosphere/TESLAKITE label. The reaction of the music world was cold, and the only people who showed interest were PC enthusiasts. Besides that, Hirasawa created Chaos Union, a music management company to handle his stuff; appeared in one track of a Konishi/Roedelius (famous German electronic musician) project (which Roedelius remixed twice); made a soundtrack to a dramatic theme park attraction/play; wrote a song that appeared in a Yuko Miyamura (singer who did VA for BERSERK and collaborated with him a few times) album; made a soundtrack to the BERSERK Dreamcast video game, this time performing all the music, but not writing every piece (at least he got complete control over the opening and ending themes), there's also a lot of music that wasn't put in the soundtrack but can be ripped from the GD-ROM; and held internet events and three Solo shows (all normal) & nine P-MODEL shows (the last one got a video release). In 2000, he finished the P-MODEL OR DIE project with a cover contest, released a limited edition CD of new versions of older P-MODEL songs and then P-MODEL ended. He made Philosopher's Propeller, a solo album based on philosophy and Burma/Myanmar; it was also released through the internet (the second and last main Hirasawa album to have been done so), the CD and MP3 mixes have some slight differences; it's somewhat similar to Technique of Relief, albeit calmer; the INTERACTIVE LIVE SHOW of this album also develops a bit on the story of Technique of Relief. From this point on, Hirasawa releases a main album once very three years, instead of once a year. He also appeared in a Dutch compilation. In 2001, he started the Hirasawa Energy Works project, where he would work using solar power and rechargeable AA batteries; this generated SOLAR RAY, an album of his solo songs redone in the P-MODEL style, five MP3s (most reworking other projects of his), a 2-show tour were Hirasawa used custom-made samplers powered by kinetic energy and his studio being refitted to function on solar energy. At the same time, he remastered the entire P-MODEL catalogue and released it in a (now out of print) box set called Ashu-on [Sound Subspecies] in the solar system (although Hirasawa has announced that it will be re-issued, one day...). Satoshi Kon, a fan of his who included various references to Hirasawa in his film Perfect Blue and helped Hirasawa with the P-MODEL OR DIE project, asked him to make a soundtrack to a film of his called Millennium Actress, Hirasawa accepted; although Kon requested Hirasawa for certain songs to be refitted for the film (The Syun songs Landscape-1, Kun Mae#1 and Kun Mae#3) and for a song to be used unchanged (the Philosopher's Propeller song Rotation (LOTUS-2)). In 2003, Hirasawa released the main album BLUE LIMBO; it's based on the Iraq War; he also released one song from the album on his website for free to promote the album, a technique he still uses to this day. One day before BLUE LIMBO's release, he released one song from the album and a re-recording of an AURORA song for free to be used as ways to protest against the brutal forces in Iraq; BLUE LIMBO is also the last Hirasawa album to be made with Commodore AMIGA machines (he's a fanboy). In 2004, he decided to pay tribute to nine of his Transsexual Thai friends who died by making SWITCHED-ON LOTUS, a album that includes remakes of songs related to Thailand (mostly from Sim City & SIREN) and two new songs (one of them being a cover of a Thai folk song); composed the soundtrack to Kon's Paranoia Agent series (and released a bunch of unused alternate versions of the compositions in the soundtrack in his website for free), where he also reused old songs, this time only two (Gemini 2, the SOLAR RAY version of the SIREN song Gemini and Kingdom,) neither of them unchanged; the Geneon CD (also, Hirasawa was signed to Geneon's parent company in the early 90s, when it was called Pioneer LDC) adds the BLUE LIMBO song Grandfatherly Wind as a bonus, but it's not in the series, Hirasawa's Paranoia Agent stuff was made in the BLUE LIMBO style, so they kinda fit together. He also composed the boot jingle for AmigaOS 4.0, which was released for free the following year on the Japanese FAMIGA Forums. He also made a completely electronic album called Vistoron, released under the name Kaku P-MODEL, although it's only Hirasawa doing a style that's both equal and different from the later P-MODEL stuff. Another BERSERK video game was released this year, and this time Hirasawa made only one composition for the game, two versions of the composition were used as the opening and ending themes, they were released in the soundtrack CD and as MP3s in Hirasawa's website. In 2005, Hirasawa made ICE-9, a CD with songs created to showcase the ICE-9, the guitar designed by Hirasawa; he also held a standard live show (with talky bits) for the CD for members of his fan club. In 2006, he released the main album Byakkoya - White Tiger Field, Hirasawa took inspiration from Vietnam (and an oil field there), the Paprika soundtrack is in the same style as this album and features a re-written version of Byakkoya's title track. In 2007, Hirasawa released a compilation of soundtrack songs, started a series of semi-annual PHONON tours; went to Thailand, performed his bizarre World Inspection Tour, and made P-0, a video novel based on this tour that he released the following year. In 2008, he collaborated with the obscure Italian Death Metal/Noise artist Riccardo "InhVmaN" Brett and made Tetragrammaton: Two remixes of BERSERK songs and one BLUE LIMBO remix with a guy that kinda sorta sounds like Gollum singing on top of them. In 2009, Hirasawa released the main solo album Planet Roll Call, unlike his previous albums, Hirasawa took inspiration from Space instead of Asia, although it followed the theme of Dystopia that was present in the last two main albums. 2009 also marked the 30th anniversary of P-MODEL and the 10th anniversary of Hirasawa's solo career, which led Hirasawa to start the KANGEN SHUGI project, where Hirasawa would remake his older songs and fans could vote on what songs they wanted to be remade (although it left up to Hirasawa if he would redo a song or not), songs from the albums Potpourri and Fune were taken out of the poll due to a 10 track limit (SCUBA was also taken out, more on that later), and no Hirasawa solo song from Philosopher's Propeller onwards was remade (altough some non-main solo songs were redone but not included in the final product); the resulting albums were released in 2010. In 2011, Hirasawa released instrumental versions of certain songs on his website to serve as film score to be freely used by independent media and free-lance journalists delivering news via the Internet. There was also a new version of the SCUBA song released for free for a limited time on Hirasawa's website, but the lyrics were changed to criticize Japan's use of nuclear power, the government and the media; the post that was released with it claimed that it was created by an individual called "Stealth Man", who apparently knocked Hirasawa on the back of his head and hacked his computer to post this work; when distribution of the song ended, Hirasawa made a post on his website claiming that "Stealth Man" tried to attack him again, failed and escaped, leaving behing a CD with the BOAT instrumental, which Hirasawa posted on his website for free for a limited time. In 2012, the BERSERK films were released, and Hirasawa once again composed for the series, this time only making the theme song; he also remastered the first decade of his solo career (including all the Detonator ORGUN and BERSERK compositions except Aria), included the remaining KANGEN SHUGI songs and released it as the HALDYN DOME box set, released a compilation of essays about the Commodore AMIGA written through 98-03 online (with the Boot Jingle included), released the solo album The Secret of the Flowers of Phenomenon, which is more vocal based than other albums and the Japanese video release of the second BERSERK film had a live video of Aria from the latest PHONON tour (which was previously only available on recordings of the tour's live stream). tl;dr: Susumu Hirasawa is weird, but you probably already knew that. Recommendations IN A MODEL ROOM, ANOTHER GAME, SCUBA, KARKADOR, anything from the 90s (specially AURORA, Fune and Technique of Relief), Philosopher's Propeller, Planet Roll Call, any remake album His official website is http://www.noroom.susumuhirasawa.com/ and his store is http://www.teslakite.com/ (NOTE: Store only carries items released by Chaos Union) By The Way, I'm a fan of his work, in case you didn't notice. 
And yes, the main cast from K-ON! was named after members of P-MODEL. No, Hirasawa's work has never sounded like Domestic (J-Pops), he came before it existed (though he kinda sorta influenced it with ART MANIA...). |
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Waffitti
Posts: 55 |
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Today (or yesterday if one were to follow the exact time zone) is his birthday [he turns/turned 59].
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11446 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Good to see there's someone else out there that really enjoys his work. I've been a fan ever since hearing his score for Berserk back when the series came out, and I've never gotten tired of hearing a single one of his compositions for anything ever since.
My favorite anime score of his at the moment is Paprika for its surreal, "whacked out" ability to really add to the film's themes of dreams and twisted reality. And a lot of his work in general has this cool, kind of mystical "etherealism" that puts itself miles above other kinds of progressive electronica that I've heard. |
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Waffitti
Posts: 55 |
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Out of all Susumu Hirasawa soundtracks, I would say that my favorite is Lagnacure Legend, an obscure PlayStation game from 2000 whose opening theme was done by Hirasawa (nothing else from the game was done by him), he also did soundtrack work for various other non-BERSERK/Satoshi Kon works (list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susumu_Hirasawa#Soundtracks).
The BERSERK stuff is quite special, being nothing like Hirasawa's other works (a lot of his works is completely different from each other, but you get my point); specially the anime and Dreamcast soundtracks, with Hirasawa clearly recycling his works while still putting an original spin on the material (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserk_%28manga%29#Music). The Kon stuff is good, but it's generally made in the style of whatever main solo album Hirasawa made around the same time (Millenium Actress & Philosopher's Propeller, BLUE LIMBO & Paranoia Agent, Byakkoya - White Tiger Field & Paprika); I can't wait for Dreaming Machine to be released and listen to Hirasawa's work on it (I wonder if Kon gave it that name so that Hirasawa would make a new version of his Dreaming Machine song from 1990...). One thing about Hirasawa that Anime Fans generally forget is, unlike others, Hirasawa is a musician first, composer second; unlike staright composers like Yoko Kanno, you can't go out and hire Hirasawa to compose for you; he has to like what you do, it has to be similar to what Hirasawa does, something that can get him making music naturally, he has turned down offers to be a composer (which isn't hard to imagine since the first thing Japan in general think when they think of Hirasawa is THIS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzNyK4fuW7c), both Hirasawa and Kon were inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, and all three have similar styles of storytelling (Hirasawa has always been more of a Prog guy), BERSERK touches on similar themes that Hirasawa has touched (Miura has worked on BERSERK chapters while listening to Hirasawa's songs), and he likes to use the "BERSERK" style (which requires Hirasawa to "de-censor" himself). One thing that differentiates Hirasawa from other Progressive/Electronic musicians is that Hirasawa is on a different plane from them, being impossible to be properly put in an existing genre, combining various influences and styles over the years (listen to his first three solo albums and their bizarre mix of style experimentation). I'd say the oddest Hirasawa works were the ones made before Yasumi Tanaka left for the world of Textiles and Crafts, Hirasawa's first work where he sounds like the Hirasawa that we know and love is the 1983 album 不許可曲集/Fu Kyoka Kyoku Shū/Disallowed Song Collection, that is unfortunately hard to find due to limited releases (originally released in CS/K7 form, reissued in 1988 in CS/K7 form once again [this time with an 8-page long booklet where Hirasawa explains the origin/songs/equipment of the album, reissued in 1988 in CD format [all those releases were only available for sale to members of Hirasawa's Fan Club], and one last time in 2002 in the box set 太陽系亞種音/Ashu-on [Sound Subspecies] in the solar system, which is out of print [it should be noted that there is one song in the original release which Hirasawa re-recorded later on and replaced with a re-recording of another song {both were included in the Ashu-on box set}]), although you can find some songs on YouTube/Nico Nico Douga (search for the kanji/kana name). If counting by main releases, the first album is ANOTHER GAME, but still listen to his stuff before that, if only for curiosity's sake. If you're interested, here's a Video of Kon and Hirasawa working together on photography for the Music Industrial Wastes〜P-MODEL OR DIE project (made before Milennium Actress, in 1999) http://8760.susumuhirasawa.com/modules/ooparts/index.php?fct=photo&p=176 (before you say it: Yes, those are Commodore AMIGAs and a Power Glove, Hirasawa used them in his shows in the 90s). |
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walkplanknow
Posts: 3 |
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I honestly didn't finish reading all of that....I don't know if anyone did.
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