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, nicknamed and , is a Japanese music artist and composer. In the fifth year of elementary school, Hirasawa took up the electric guitar, inspired by the surf and instrumental rock bands he heard on the radio and on TV, later joining his junior high school's band. In 1973 he formed Mandrake, a progressive rock band that incorporated elements from heavy metal and krautrock. One of the few Japanese progressive rock bands of its time, Mandrake achieved little success and released no albums during its lifetime. After discovering punk rock and working on synthesizer-heavy projects, Hirasawa felt that progressive rock became just entertainment and decided to reform the band as an electropunk unit.〔. ''Rocketbaby''. Retrieved February 11, 2010.〕 In January 1, 1979, Mandrake became the new wave/electronic rock band P-Model. Originally a commercially successful band—with the albums ''In a Model Room'' and ''Landsale'' considered hallmarks of Japanese technopop—they turned to decidedly uncommercial post-punk and experimental rock after Hirasawa went through an averse reaction to his fame. The band went through various lineups, all led by Hirasawa, and achieved some popularity on the Japanese independent music scene. The group released eight albums during this run, and kept operating until 1988, when Hirasawa decided to "freeze" it. Following P-Model's "freezing", Susumu Hirasawa started his solo career, releasing three albums from 1989 to 1991. Working outside of the restraints of a band, his early solo career was marked by a refusal to stick to any particular genre. In September 1991, P-Model was "defrosted", featuring a revamped lineup and a new techno sound. Hirasawa worked with the band while concurrently making side albums solo. The "defrosted" version of P-Model ended in October 1993, when it was put into "revision". Hirasawa relaunched his solo career in 1994 with the symphonic "second debut" ''Aurora'' and later that year launched a "revised" P-Model, with a completely different lineup and a beat-heavy electronica style. He kept working with this version of the band until 2000. Hirasawa has since released solo albums, some of which as the unit Kaku P-Model, effectively a solo continuation of P-Model.〔Morgan, Jonah. "(ANS Exclusive Interview: Berserk Soundtrack Composer Susumu Hirasawa )". ''Anime News Service''. Retrieved February 11, 2010.〕 Working with various units, side-projects and solo, Hirasawa has a "main" discography that consists of 34 albums. While Hirasawa is mostly remembered in Japan for the first two P-Model albums, he has achieved international recognition for his soundtrack work, particularly for the adaptations of the Kentaro Miura manga ''Berserk'' and the work of anime director Satoshi Kon. Both men have listened to Hirasawa's music while working, have been inspired by the themes of his works and directly requested that he compose music for their productions. ==Compositions and Performances== Hirasawa prefers to work without staying in one specific musical genre and avoiding trends and movements, which led to him attaining a "proudly solitary" image. As a Japanese musician making music in Japan, he dislikes being compared to western trends as incorporated by an empty Japanese pop culture:〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://kyrynyu.tumblr.com/post/133124371590/well-i-made-my-attempt-to-translate-this-interview )〕 "I dislike it when I hear someone describe (music ) as weird rock, or weird techno. Surely this genre is hard to be defined in the music scene, because it doesn’t meet the standard of Western music charts. Hence if a rock music critic attempts to judge me (my music ), all they come up with are ambient music, or music to do drugs. (Japanese music scene ) won’t help introduce terms such as New Age or Transpersonality. I want to let my music reach a broader societal role, being music born from Japanese culture, and I think this is why I want to connect to the world that doesn’t exist in the music scene".〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://kyrynyu.tumblr.com/post/133081801720/well-i-made-my-attempt-to-translate-this-interview )〕 His subject matter can be equally unusual. A constant source of inspiration for his music has come from Thailand. The concept behind his 1995 album ''Sim City'' was drawn from his experiences traveling there, and more specifically, from Thai transsexuals. Guest Thai vocalists participate throughout that and subsequent albums, including 1996's ''SIREN'', which was also a concept album based on Thailand. As for his lyrical inspiration, Hirasawa references the philosophies of yin and yang, his travels and the principles of nature vs. machines. Hirasawa has also been inspired by the works of Carl Jung, Hayao Kawai, Kenji Miyazawa, Kurt Vonnegut, Theodore Sturgeon, George Orwell, Frank Herbert, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Nikola Tesla. Starting with Mandrake's last years, Hirasawa has favored guitars designed specifically by Japanese instrument manufacturers (there was a movement in the early 80s were electric guitar makers moved away from mass-producing copies of foreign guitars and into original designs), most notably Tōkai Gakki's Talbo aluminum guitars, which he has said is due to him being attracted to the Talbo's unique material and design. After Tokai discontinued production and customer support for the Talbo due to financial difficulties in the mid 90s, Hirasawa requested Fernandes Guitars in 1994 to make him a guitar of his design called ''PHOTON'', a Talbo-shaped guitar with a wooden body.〔https://twitter.com/hirasawa/status/430322301607768065〕 In 2004, Hirasawa requested TALBO Secret FACTORY, a manufacturer of Talbos created in 1996 by the IKEBE music store with HISASHI and CAP-iNA, musicians who also liked the Talbo and wanted to continue to use it, to build a Talbo of his own design, called ''ICE-9'' (named after the material of the same name from Kurt Vonnegut's novel ''Cat's Cradle''), which Hirasawa used to make an album to showcase it. Hirasawa has continued to work with the TALBO Secret FACTORY, requesting the conversion of one of his older Tōkai models into the ''ASTRO'' in 2011, adopting the HISASHI designed ''EVO 0101Z'' in 2012, and asking for the renewal of the ''PHOTON'' after two decades of usage. Hirasawa has used Amiga computers extensively in his work, starting out with CG production in 1987, and later on using applications such as Say, SCALA, Bars & Pipes, SuperJAM! and OctaMED in the production of his music; he stopped using Amigas with the ''LIMBO-54'' shows of 2003 and the ''Byakkoya''/''Paprika'' albums of 2006. Before then gradually transitioning to Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu, using programs such as Delay Lama, Vocaloids, Bars'n'Pipes (an unofficial continuation of the Amiga program), Cakewalk Sonar and Synth1. When choosing string tones Hirasawa aims to find ones with unstable pitches and a "dark sound", which he finds harmonious, such as the Mellotron, Kurzweil synths and EASTWEST's line of Symphonic sounds. One of the factors that set him apart from other Japanese electronic artists is ever-changing production techniques. For 2001's ''SOLAR RAY'' album, his recording studio was outfitted to be powered completely by a photovoltaic system of 2 solar panels.〔 Since then, Hirasawa's works have been recorded with solar energy, although he has since added 2 more panels to his studio. To reduce pollution, Hirasawa also transitioned to working exclusively with software synthesizers. For every "main" solo album he releases, Hirasawa stages an accompanying interactive live performances. They merge computer graphics with his music to tell interactive stories, and involve heavy use of computers, particularly Amiga systems, motion capture cameras and video projectors. The flow of each live show is determined by audience participation; for example, ''Interactive Live Show 2000 Philosopher's Propeller'' was formatted as a maze, and the audience was allowed to choose which path to follow. Sometimes, audience participation plays a part in the performed music, as it did in ''Interactive Live Show 2000''. He provided the phone numbers to four cellular phones during one song, and the audience was allowed to call the numbers to have him play the corresponding ringtone. This provided an improvised harmony between the background music and the ringing phones. Hirasawa's live music is based on samples he activates with various hand-crafted sampler machines, pre-recorded tracks without vocals, and no regular backup performers. For the ''Solar Live'' concerts, he used solar power and a power-generating wheel, inspired by bicycles, to power his electronic equipment. DVDs are available of his innovative award-winning live performances via his website (and ordering through (TESLAKITE )). A disliker of "tribes" of musicians,〔 Hirasawa has worked since 1989 to decrease the amount of performers around himself. Most of his solo albums from 1992 onwards feature no guest performers, replaced a drummer with a virtual equivalent,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040611130919/http://www32.ocn.ne.jp/~ghost/amiga/tainaco/lab-1.htm )〕 and relinquished a live backing band for solo shows in 1994. Aside from guest performers (mostly singers) brought for special shows, Hirasawa has worked with backing instrumentalists in limited duo and trio lineups from 1997–2000 and from 2012 to the present day. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Susumu Hirasawa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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