Where Is the Love for Isao TOMITA?

http://www.isaotomita.org/images/photo/tomi24.jpg

In the 1970's, there were a ton of composers who "covered" classical works: Walter Carlos, Patrick Gleeson, Larry Fast, etc. As peculiar as it seems in retrospect, the choice to record the music of established classical composers most likely wasn't a choice at all: synthesizer composers garndered virtually zero record company interest in recording their own compositions.

Despite a somewhat odd aesthetic, no one took to it with the craftsmanship and innovation of Japan's Isao Tomita. Armed with a Moog III, a Mellotron, a few effects pedals and multitrack recorders, Tomita released a string of albums in the 1970's that are nothing short of masterclasses in electronic orchestration. He would spend DAYS patching a single voice -- only to record 10 parts using that sound in unison, with slightly different filter or resonance settings for variation.

Tomita took a lot of criticism in his day, but he chose his subjects well -- Stravinsky and Debussy were among the many composers whose harmonies and orchestrations were well-suited to the Tomita treatment. And he wasn't without a sense of humor -- just listen to his 1978 rendition of "Star Wars" or his version of Holst's "The Planets," (aka The Tomita Planets), with its space travel theme.

What say ILM of this analog maestro?

Have been curious for a while...what's a good place to start? I'm guessing he went digital in the 80s and started to suck (didn't they all?).

a lot of the love for Tomita is on this thread:

TOMITA

SOME love is on that thread. Not enough love.

there is plenty of love on that thread. second to the music on any tomita album is the cool and endless list of gear he used to achieve whatever grandiosity he was creating.

Ok, fine. A lot of love. But we need more discussion about him.

FWIW, I actually quite like the phase-heavy arrangements that Jon said "repelled" him in that other thread. And I can't imagine anyone did more labor-intensive synthwork than him.

This is pretty sick:

Also, I wanna hear this:

"Sound Creature
double lp May, 1977 RCA RVC 7564/5 out of print, no CD

A rare a 2 LP set where Tomita explains with step by step sound examples and Japanese text how he goes about recording his albums. This album contains some alternate binaural mixes and an exclusive original suite of synthesized pieces One Night On The Milky Way Railroad. It begins with a track by track build up example of a short segment of Daphnis et Chloe which was released some years later in completed form.

Never released on CD despite a bootleg with a somewhat convincing cover) Apparently by the era of CDs it seems to have been mutually decided the 1970s technology explained had changed too drastically in the years since the original release. Interestingly by the late 90s popular concensus has turned to more appreciation of Analog Synthesis often citing it as simply sounding better than digital technology."

http://www.artskool.biz/jem/itc.html

^^^huh never heard of that. must be one of the few 70s Tomita LPs I don't have (wife is a huge fan)

Happiness to an 8 year-old: parents who cranked up the "Mars" rocket launch until the house's windows vibrated. That track's encoded on my DNA.

Love this man. I owe much of my love of synths to him.

I'd love to hear that. Bermuda Triangle is the most eccentric album (and that site gives me a new reason to like it: Japanese cover art was done by Tadanori Yokoo). There's that one moment on "The Dawn At Bermuda" where his silly whistle patch glides into a high note, sustains it, then gets briefly punctuated by one second of computer program / time code noise played back at the same pitch. Then the whistle goon plunges right back into the cheese orchestra. I love that bit.

still searching for his 1968 space-jazz arrangements of Bach for Kinji Fukasaku’s Black Lizard. I can find message board posts talking about a CD that compiles the score for that with "Blind Beast" but can't find it for sale. I'd drop too much money on that.

I'm a fan of labor intensive music but when things like this come out of it, it reminds me I'm also a fan of nitrous

Bermuda Triangle has some of the greatest song titles.

Naive & Milton: I have founda being made of sound!

Wow, I just listened and followed along to the Daphnis and Chloe -- and while nothing he did there surprises--it's basically a tedious process of layering and using echo to deepen the stereo field--it's done exceptionally well. It's just incredible to me imagining him doing that for, like, every line in a forty-minute classical work. It really does boggle the mind.

Thanks for posting, Jay Vee!

Not that I'm complaining exactly, but it's too bad that download only comes with explanations of the first piece and a little of the second. It's pretty great stuff!

I totally love TOMITA's stuff. I guess my favorite record is "Firebird", a really incredible pair of arrangements there, such over-the-top music on every level. Kind of impossible to imagine, frankly. My copy of "The Planets" has a killer four panel foldout poster. Every thrift store in the land used to have at least two copies of "Snowflakes are Dancing", but there's more to him than that record. "Kosmos" is pretty weird, and "Bermuda Triangle" seconded/thirded.

xpost Oh, that's a bummer. I haven't listened yet but was hoping for several full-on explanation. I'm nerdy like that. I did look at the .gif files reprinting the sleevenotes ( I'm guessing?) with step-by-step explanations of how the sounds were devised and I love how many sounds have a specific visual association (i.e. "The portrait of a small bird singing").

The explanation of how he gets the vocal sound on Gollywog's Cakewalk is pretty great. And yes, totally nerdy like that. But isn't all of it?

I only have Snowflakes... but it's great.

There's that one moment on "The Dawn At Bermuda" where his silly whistle patch glides into a high note, sustains it, then gets briefly punctuated by one second of computer program / time code noise played back at the same pitch. Then the whistle goon plunges right back into the cheese orchestra. I love that bit.

That is a very cool moment. At www.isaotomita.net, they have this entry for The Bermuda Triangle:

"The computer encoded signals found on this album are in a format known as TARBEL. Using this system, messages may be encoded in a recording via audio signals. The TARBEL format was used as a way to save data onto an audio cassette recorder in the mid to late 1970s before the IBM PC and hard disk drives. The sound is familiar to anyone who has used an old tape interface (lots of 'piii's and 'gaaa's!) and can be decoded with a computer programmed to recognise the TARBEL system."

And Tomita's sleeve notes say this:

"A Coded Message

Each side of this record contains coded data in the form of certain sound effects. The message can be recovered if the electrical signal from the record is interfaced with the input of a micro computer programmed to the TARBEL System."

Revive!

Many of my MP3s of the man were destroyed in the Great Crash of 2010 (including, alas, most of Sound Creature) but I am enjoying some time digging thru the remains.

Great interview in RA from a few years back with Tomita and Hideki Matsutake, who programmed for him and YMO (in addition to his own music done under the Logic System moniker):

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1586&comments=2

still looking for a copy of Tomita's 'Black Lizard' / 'Blind Beast' soundtrack CD. in the meantime, someone's uploaded a VHS transfer of Black Lizard to youtube -- Rampo + Mishima + Tomita -- highest possible recommendation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCV2_3AgPlU

http://sp.columbia.jp/artist-info/tomita/info.html

Aww RIP. Gotta go dig out Firebird.

Ah, shit. This news is sadder to me than Prince leaving us tbh. RIP, maestro.

RIP. Changed the way i thought about synthesizers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Tomita#2001-present:_Later_years

In 1984, Tomita released Canon of the Three Stars, which featured classical pieces renamed for astronomical objects. For example, the title piece is his version of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. He credits himself with "The Plasma Symphony Orchestra", which was a computer synthesizer process using the wave forms of electromagnetic emanations from various stars and constellations for the sonic textures of this album.

Tomita has performed a number of outdoor "Sound Cloud" concerts, with speakers surrounding the audience in a "cloud of sound". He gave a big concert in 1984 at the annual contemporary music Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria called "Mind of the Universe", mixing tracks live in a glass pyramid suspended over an audience of 80,000 people. He performed another concert in New York two years later to celebrate the Statue of Liberty centennial ("Back to the Earth") as well as one in Sydney in 1988 for Australia's bicentennial. The Australian performance was part of a A$7 million gift from Japan to New South Wales, which included the largest fireworks display up to that time, six fixed sound and lighting systems — one of those on a moored barge in the centre of a bay, the other flown in by Chinook helicopter — for the relevant parts of the show. A fleet of barges with Japanese cultural performances, including kabuki fire drumming, passed by at various times. His most recent Sound Cloud event was in Nagoya, Japan in 1997 featuring guest performances by The Manhattan Transfer, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, and Rick Wakeman.

It was going so well up to The Manhattan Transfer

Ugh, RIP

RIP, he was one of the most innovative users of synths back in the day. What a sad spring for musical trailblazers this has been...

I urge everyone to listen to Holst, Debussy, and Rimsky-Korsakov albums from the early 70s, some of the shit on them still sounds fresh and innovative today, like out of an Aphex Twin album or something. Those three albums have been recently reissued in Japan as 4.0 surround SACDs; they were originally quadraphonic LPs, so they were made for surround sound to begin with. The SACDs are a bit pricey, but if you have proper surround speakers, they sound amazing!

A few years ago I saw Lindstrom and Prins Thomas in London. Prins DJing, Lindstrom playing live. Prins 'handed over' to Lindstrom by playing Tomita's version of Clair de Lune and it sounded incredible over the Corsica Studios Soundsystem. RIP.