Aurora (Susumu Hirasawa album)

AURORA
Studio album by Susumu Hirasawa
Released February 25, 1994
Recorded
Genre Electronica
Experimental
Progressive rock
Symphonic rock
Ambient
Length 60:11
Label Polydor K.K.
Producer Susumu Hirasawa
Yūichi Kenjo
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.

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 this album: "Fire Drill", which would later turn out to be "SONG OF THE FORCE", and "LOVE SONG"; at the "I3DAYS'93" festival, Hirasawa performed 4 songs from this album: The aforementioned "LOVE SONG", the title track, "TAKE THE WHEEL" and "SNOW BLIND".[1]

This album was created with Hirasawa ridding himself of the framework built through his first three solo albums and focusing on evoking a primordial landscape to the listener by simulating certain universal elements, having a greater emphasis on song over sound and no guest musicians, being more reflexive, thoughtful and subdued than previous works, although it builds up on Hirasawa's previous work on his solo career (most noticeably Virtual Rabbit) and on big body. 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 Hirasawa's longest albums; unlike Hirasawa's previous albums, this one doesn't have a story, due to Hirasawa's emphasis on song over sound.

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.[2]

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).[3]

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

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.[4]

AURORA

The sampled snare roll that opens the song was performed by P-MODEL drummer Yasuhiro Araki for the album ONE PATTERN.[2]

SONG OF THE FORCE
TAKE THE WHEEL

Hirasawa uses Italian/Neapolitan terms in the lyrics of this song ("Amore mio" and "’O sole mio"); he also references the butterfly effect and the hourai talismans.[6]

SNOW BLIND

Uses vocals from the P-MODEL song OH MAMA! from the album 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.[7] 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 song overall is the Experimental piece "Deranged Door", by Mandrake, a band created by Hirasawa; although "Parallel Motives II", a remix of "Parallel Motives" by Hans-Joachim Roedelius, David Bickley and Alex Paterson, is longer than both "ISLAND DOOR" and "Deranged Door"); it's a tribute piece to/created trying to imitate the style of Tangerine Dream. It's the only song on the album that 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. CD 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.[9]

Interactive Live Show

The Aurora Legend
Tour by Susumu Hirasawa
Associated album AURORA
Start date 10 March 1994
End date 21 March 1994
Shows 3
Susumu Hirasawa concert chronology
Hi-Res
(1992)
The Aurora Legend
(1994)
TOKYO Paranesian
(1994)

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.[10]

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", a device consisting of a pipe organ-like structure connected to a synthesizer keyboard (a Casio FZ-1) that could play (and hold down) notes by pulling the iron tubes. 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.[11]

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. 1.0 1.1 "平沢進 Live Data". MODEROOM. Fascination, inc.
  2. 2.0 2.1 アーティスト研究 平沢進 [Artist Study - Susumu Hirasawa]. Sound & Recording Magazine (in Japanese) (Rittor Music) 4: 19. April 1994.
  3. "Ad for the release of Aurora". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  4. "Ravu Songu / Love Song". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  5. Hirasawa, Susumu. "Free Distribution Against the Carnage". nowar. Chaos Union.
  6. "Kaji wo Tore / Take the Wheel". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  7. Miyoshi, Shinji. "Keywords "Amiga" in his works". SUSUMU HIRASAWA/the Most Innovative Musician. FAMIGA.
  8. Takeuchi, Osamu. "wilsonic works 41". wilsonic journal. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
  9. "Susumu Hirasawa Aurora Tour 1994". Hirasawa Lyrics.
  10. "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