Aurora (Susumu Hirasawa album)

Aurora
Studio album by Susumu Hirasawa
Released February 25, 1994 (1994-02-25)
Recorded 1993
Studio
Genre
Length 60:11
Label Polydor K.K.
Producer
  • Susumu Hirasawa
  • Yūichi Kenjo (Executive)
Susumu Hirasawa chronology
Virtual Rabbit
(1991)		 AURORA
(1994)		 Sim City
(1995)

Aurora is Susumu Hirasawa's fourth solo album. The album introduces a new, deeper type of sound. Hirasawa has said that it can be considered his second solo debut.[1]

Overview

After releasing, promoting and touring Virtual Rabbit in 1991, Susumu Hirasawa focused on his work with the "Defrosted" P-Model lineup for 2 years. Hirasawa's solo output slowed down during this period, focusing mainly on soundtrack work, the occasional producer/guitarist guest spot for his associates, and few live performances, mostly on special events and festivals. Hirasawa performed two solo shows in 1993, the first one at the ERROR OF INFORMATION Wait (ERROR OF INFORMATION 待機 ERROR OF INFORMATION Taiki) show were P-Model underwent "kono ato revisION...", where Hirasawa performed 2 songs from the album: "Song of the Force" and "Love Song"; at the I3 Days'93 festival, Hirasawa performed 4 songs from the album: The aforementioned "Love Song", the title track, "Take the Wheel" and "Snow Blind".[2]

This album was created with Hirasawa ridding himself of the framework built through his first three solo albums, while it builds up on his previous solo work (most noticeably Virtual Rabbit) and on big body, and focusing on evoking a primordial landscape to the listener by simulating certain universal elements. The album's theme is defined in one way as healing an incomplete reality through the illogical nature of Jōmon-like myths and tales.[3] Instead of mixing and experimenting different styles, Hirasawa uses a symphonic style with emphasis on vocals and melody; it has songs with multiple parts, and is one of his longest albums.[4] Unlike his previous solo albums, Aurora doesn't feature guest musicians or have a story, due to Hirasawa's emphasis on song over sound. Reviews of the album referred to the it as "Ambient", which saddened him.[5]

Aurora employs the production techniques developed on P-Model and big body. For the arrangements, Hirasawa used an array of mostly MIDI-compatible equipment, with roles divided between everything. A Proteus/2 and an Akai S1100 did strings (the Proteus/2 was also used for percussion and the S1100 for voice sampling); a Korg M1 did brass, basslines and piano parts; a Roland JD-800 did modulation; a Roland R-8 (equipped with a SN-R8-10 - "Dance" PCM ROM sound card) did rhythms with the S1100. The computer program "Bars & Pipes Professional" (running on an Amiga 2500) was used to do the "Tangerine Delay" effect (named so after Tangerine Dream) and to sequence the MIDI in real time.[6] The album's booklet is adorned with Buddhist imagery, advertisements used the phrase "The Greatest Music of All" (至高の音楽 Shikou no Ongaku).[7]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Susumu Hirasawa. 

No. Title Length
1. "Stone Garden" (石の庭 Ishi no Niwa) 6:02
2. "Love Song"   7:02
3. "Aurora" (オーロラ Ōrora) 4:17
4. "Song of the Force" (力の唄 Chikara no Uta) 5:28
5. "Take the Wheel" (舵をとれ Kaji wo Tore) 4:32
6. "Snow Blind" (スノーブラインド Sunōburaindo) 6:40
7. "The Double of Wind" (風の分身 Kaze no Bunshin) 4:51
8. "In the Square" (広場で Hiroba de) 4:34
9. "Island Door (Paranesian Circle)" (トビラ島 (パラネシアン・サークル) Tobira Shima (Paraneshian Sākuru)) 13:29
10. "Ringing Bell" (呼んでるベル Yonderu Beru) 2:57

The titles of the songs are officially rendered out in all caps.

Track information

Stone Garden

The song's lyrics draw comparisons to St. Elmo's fire. This is the first song in the album to feature Hirasawa playing guitar, and the only one to feature electric guitar.

Love Song

Hirasawa has said that the song is about children on the battlefield. The song's stanzas start with sounds emphasized by Hirasawa while singing, following a slight pattern.[8]

Aurora

The sampled snare roll that opens the song was performed by P-Model drummer Yasuhiro Araki for the album One Pattern.[6]

Song of the Force

When premiered at the "ERROR OF INFORMATION Wait" show, it was titled "Fire Drill".

Take the Wheel

To make this song, Hirasawa used the Amiga program SuperJAM!,[11] whose "Bartok" style he modified by inputing data from his own songs, irreversibly turning its patterns and variations into "Hirasawa" style ones.[12] The lyrics feature Italian/Neapolitan terms ("Amore mio" and "’O sole mio"), and references to the butterfly effect & the hourai talismans.[13]

Snow Blind

Uses vocals from the P-Model song "Oh Mama!" (from One Pattern) played backwards in its beginning. The lyrics mention "a blizzard giant", this is a reference to Blizzard, a series of Amiga accelerator boards designed by Phase5.[14] This song has multiple parts, heavily uses repetition and mentions Buddhist themes.

The Double of Wind

Features constant repetition of the word "Abracadabra", verbs in their infinitive forms and possibly has Buddhist themes.

In the Square

This is the second and last song in the album to feature Hirasawa playing guitar, and the only one to feature acoustic guitar; it also has an abrupt end.

Island Door (Paranesian Circle)

Hirasawa's longest solo composition (his longest songs overall are the experimental piece "Deranged Door" by Mandrake; and "Parallel Motives II", a remix of "Parallel Motives" by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, David Bickley and Alex Paterson), it's a tribute piece to/created trying to imitate the style of Tangerine Dream. It's the only song on the album that Hirasawa made that is an outright attempt to make electronic music, he didn't consider it a success.[5] It can only be bought digitally if the entire album is purchased. The song's lyrics reference the Primera and The Peach Blossom Spring.

Ringing Bell

Uses more electronic sounds than most songs in the album, it's also the only track to feature analog synth; it references the Orochi.

Personnel

Release history

Date Label(s) Format Catalog Notes
February 25, 1994 Polydor K.K. CD POCH-1328
July 1, 2005 Universal Music Japan, Universal Sigma Digital Download none
February 29, 2012 Chaos Union, Teslakite CD CHTE-0057 Remastered by Masanori Chinzei. Disc 4 of the HALDYN DOME box set.
November 5, 2014 Universal Music Japan SHM-CD UPCY-6930 Part of Universal's "Project Archetype" (supervised by Osamu Takeuchi & Kasiko Takahasi). Remastered by Kenji Yoshino (supervised by Chinzei) with both original liner notes and new ones.[16]

Interactive Live Show

The Aurora Legend
Interactive Live Show concert by Susumu Hirasawa
Location Yodogawa, Osaka, Osaka
Naka, Nagoya, Aichi
Udagawa, Shibuya, Tokyo
Venue Osaka Postal Savings Hall
CLUB DIAMOND HALL
Shibuya Public Hall
Associated album AURORA
Date(s) March 10, 11, 21
Susumu Hirasawa concert chronology

AURORA TOUR 1994 INTERACTIVE LIVE The Aurora Legend (AURORA TOUR 1994 INTERACTIVE LIVE オーロラ伝説 AURORA TOUR 1994 INTERACTIVE LIVE Ōrora Densetsu) was the first Interactive Live Show played by Hirasawa; his Interactive Live Shows have stories and allow the audience to choose where the stories will go during certain "Hot Points" that occur in between songs, always tied to Hirasawa's newest main solo album. The story follows the information-warrior Hirasawa (ヒラサワ) and his journey to save the Aurora Princess (オーロラ姫 Ōrora Hime), who governed the operations of a world that transcends time, from Binary Descartes (バイナリー・デカルト Bainarī Dekaruto), whose capturing of the Aurora Princess caused her world to fall into ruin.[17]

Hirasawa performed all shows solo, with the exception of certain Hot Points that featured Jun Togawa playing the role of the Mother of Navajo (マザー･オブ･ナバホ Mazā obu Nabaho) (Togawa also sang backing vocals through "video phone" on "Clear Mountain Top" and "Cowboy and Indian" and came on stage during encores for "Haldyn Hotel" and "Cowboy and Indian"); song sequences were played using customized Amiga programs, while Hirasawa sang, played guitar (two Talbos, one of them golden, and two black acoustic Yairi Guitars) & synth (a Roland JD-800), and operated the "Tubular Hertz" (チューブラ・ヘルツ Chūbura Herutsu), a device named after Tubular Bells, consisting of a structure with a shape between a pipe organ and a set of tubular bells connected to a synthesizer keyboard (a Casio FZ-1) that could play (and hold down) notes by pulling one of its ten tubes.[18] A screen separated Hirasawa from the audience, and CG animation and text was played through it; during the Hot Points, the screen would display two doors, the audience would then choose which one to open by passing around a spherical "Balloon Sensor", an inflatable balloon connected to a sampler, that would play samples when touched, the audience would then open the door by moving the balloon under one of the doors.

The songs, CG and sensor were controlled using the Amiga authoring system SCALA (in 1992, Hirasawa experimented with Amiga through the Hi-Res show, were songs and movies were controlled by one Amiga running the authoring system ShowMaker), various Amigas and 20 operators were necessary to run the show.

Unlike later concerts, this one was not officially recorded, however, photographs were taken (and later included in the "Music Industrial Wastes" book) and bootleg recordings were made, four of these photographs and samples of a recording were released on the Kangen Shugi website.[19]

Besides playing songs from AURORA, Hirasawa also played songs from his first three solo albums (Water in Time and Space, The Ghost in Science and Virtual Rabbit) and "Frozen Beach'94", a new version of "Frozen Beach" that, while it retained the lyrics of earlier versions, it had different music, a new version of "YOHKO Mitsurugi" from Detonator Orgun 1; a different version of this arrangement, simply titled "FROZEN BEACH", was released a year later on the SCUBA RECYCLE album. Hirasawa also played two other iterations of the INTERACTIVE LIVE SHOW in 1994: TOKYO Paranesian (TOKYOパラネシアン TOKYO Paraneshian), which featured a full backing band and was the first INTERACTIVE LIVE SHOW to have a video release, and the one show only Adios Jay (performed at the "I3 DAYS'94" festival with drummer Wataru Kamiryo), made in dedication to the then recently deceased "Father of the Amiga", Jay Miner.

References

  1. ↑ Hirasawa, Susumu (2012). "Disc 01－07". Haldyn Dome (PDF file included on Data Disc) (in Japanese). Chaos Union, TESLAKITE. p. 37. CHTE-0057.
  2. ↑ "平沢進 Live Data". MODEROOM. Fascination, inc.
  3. ↑ Inoue, Mako (March 1994). 目を閉じて犬になり、雲になり・・・・・・ [Close Your Eyes, Then You Become a Dog, or Cloud......]. Rockin'on Japan (in Japanese). Vol. 82 (Rockin'on Holdings). Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  4. ↑ "Aurora". Rate Your Music. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  5. 1 2 Noda, Tsutomu (June 1994). 新たなる普遍性を求めて － 平沢進の旅は続く [Seeking the New Universality － Susumu Hirasawa’s Journey Continues]. Remix (in Japanese). No. 36 (Autobahn). Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  6. 1 2 Kikuchi, Eiji (April 1994). アーティスト研究　平沢進 [Artist Study － Susumu Hirasawa]. Sound & Recording Magazine (in Japanese). Vol. 4 (Rittor Music). ISSN 1344-6398.
  7. ↑ "Ad for the release of Aurora". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  8. ↑ "Ravu Songu / Love Song". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  9. ↑ Hirasawa, Susumu. "Free Distribution Against the Carnage". nowar. Chaos Union.
  10. ↑ "the scene in Perfect Blue where CHAM’s new single makes the charts". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  11. ↑ "平沢進 - "舵をとれ" / Hirasawa Susumu - "Take the Wheel"". 音の帯〜Phonon Belt.
  12. ↑ "Interview　平沢進". Keyboard Magazine (in Japanese). Vol. 10 (Rittor Music). October 1998. ISSN 1344-6371.
  13. ↑ "Kaji wo Tore / Take the Wheel". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  14. ↑ Miyoshi, Shinji. "Keywords "Amiga" in his works". SUSUMU HIRASAWA/the Most Innovative Musician. FAMIGA. Archived from the original on September 19, 2000.
  15. ↑ Hirasawa confesses about what he calls "transgressive tuning" of his acoustic guitar Susumu Hirasawa on Twitter. 20 January 2011. Retrieved 11 February 2013.
  16. ↑ Takeuchi, Osamu. "wilsonic works 41". wilsonic journal. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
  17. ↑ "Susumu Hirasawa Aurora Tour 1994". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  18. ↑ 平沢進Live鑑賞記録 1991-
  19. ↑ "わずか3分岐点のインタラ - 過去情報". The Aggregated Past KANGENSHUGI 8760 HOURS. Chaos Union.

External links

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