Isao Tomita

This was the most controversial Tomita album, where he uses Holst's spectacular, mystical suite The Planets as a launching pad for what amounts to a simulated spaceship trip through the solar system. Hence the title The Tomita Planets, which did not deter the Holst estate from trying (unsuccessfully) to pull this recording off the market at the time. When Tomita sticks to what Holst wrote, he follows every turn and bend of the score, save for a big cut in the last part of Jupiter and an eviscerated Uranus that nearly disappears altogether. Moreover, the music - especially Venus - often does lend itself to an electronic space flight fantasy, with Tomita's arsenal of phase-shifting, flanging, pitch-bending, envelope following and reversing choral effects and more on full display…

This anthology, which tries to sum up Isao Tomita's recordings for the Red Seal Label, actually managed to give a fairly complete panorama of his work. Tomita can be thought of as the precursor of ambient music - but unlike people who think that ambient is a sustained 23 minute sine wave, here music has Direction. Granted, most of the stuff is synthesized renditions of "impressionistic" classical works, but the imaginative use Isao makes of his array of synths (most of this stuff was recorded in the early 70's, so we're talking about modular synths mainly - long before computer programming was available). The sonic pallete fits perfectly, and he makes good use of repetitive arpeggiator sequences to get a pulse going - and then he works his magic, specially in the arranging department. A truly unique - and sadly underestimated - artist.

Perhaps Tomita at his most experimental, in which large sections of Prokofiev orchestral works are combined with loads of marvellous synthesizer effects.
Pioneering Japanese composer and synthesizer expert Isao Tomita bridged the gap between note-by-note classical/electronic LPs like Switched-On Bach and the more futuristic, user-friendly interfaces developed in the 1970s. After creating one of the first personal recording studios with an array of top synthesizer gear in the early '70s, Tomita applied his visions for space-age synthesizer music to his favorite modern composers - Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel - though his recordings steered a course far beyond the sterile academics of Wendy Carlos and other synthesists.

One of the more satisfying classical/synthesizer debuts, Snowflakes Are Dancing works on its own terms as a piece of music. As well, the album succeeds as an interpretation of several Debussy compositions (including Clair de lune and Arabesque No. 1). Debussy's atmospheric compositions are naturals to receive the Tomita treatment and despite a few moments of interstellar cheesiness worthy of Star Hustler, Tomita's debut is an intriguing proto-synthesizer-pop record.

Equipped with a warehouse of component Moog equipment, four phase shifters, a Roland space echo unit, a sitar, and other period electronic gear, Tomita re-enters the Russian classical repertoire with his take on Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (1919 version). As unique as Tomita's idiom was (and still is), this transcription is rather conservative for him, not as startling nor as playful as those of Debussy and Mussorgsky on his first two RCA albums. The by-now-familiar drifting, spacy, phasey Tomita treatment works best on the slower numbers in the suite, like "The Round of the Princesses," the "Berceuse," and the disembodied majesty of the opening of the "Finale." But the "Dance of the Firebird" and "Infernal Dance" aren't nearly as dynamic or colorful as any of Stravinsky's orchestral versions…

Live recording from 23rd November 2012 at Tokyo Opera City Hall of Tomita's latest orchestral work ( Ihatov is a fictional place created by poet/author Kenji Miyazawa derived from his native Iwate prefecture). Featuring about 300 musicians; The Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, a chamber chorus, a junior high school choir, and lead 'vocaloid' by digital female star Hatsune Miku, a synthesizer application who appears as an animated projection. Behind this extraordinary spectacle was Isao Tomita, who composed the symphony and cleverly incorporated the vocaloid into an orchestral work for the first time. Now 80 years old, Orchestra Ihatov has been billed as Tomita's magnum opus, expressing the 'psychedelic' and colourful world of Miyazawa's literature, that Tomita has been a fan of since he was a child. The two worlds of Tomita, the orchestral and electronic combining with spectacular results.

Originally released in 1975, follow up to Snowflakes are Dancing. Versions of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Carefully and painstakingly constructed with a bigger sound than before. Comes with bonus track of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and J.S. Bach's The Sea Named Solaris.

At dawn when everyone is fast asleep and everything is still innumerable corpuscles come from faraway stars in the cosmos or from the sun. When they enter the magnetosphere of the earth, the strange music like birds' twittering begins. Astronomers call it "Dawn Chorus". But it lasts only for a brief moment, and fades out, as the sun rises. As the sound recorded at the Radio Observatory in Hiraiso, Ibaragi Pref., was excellent and audible in the original form, it was used at the beginning of this album without any modifications. This is Tomita's ninth album after two and a half years of silence. Based on popular pieces of Baroque and masterpieces of Villa-Lobos, a great Brazilian composer, this album was made from materials including waves from various stars in the cosmos like light curves supplied with kind cooperation of NASA, Tokyo Astronomical Observatory…

Okhotsk Genso is a new track composed by Tomita, inspired by a ficticious letter written by the sister of poet/author Kenji Miyazawa to Miyazawa, who inspired his latest original work, Symphony Ihatov. Tracks 2-7 were previously on Daphnis et Chloe (although three tracks from the orginal Daphnis et Chloe are not included) and tracks 8-12, were previously on the double album, Sound Creature released in 1977, and are released onto CD for the first time. Sound Creature originally demonstrated how Tomita created his works by stripping the sound down and through sound and illustrations in the booklet how the final version came into being.