P-Model/Susumu Hirasawa appriciation station

Cant see it on amazon uk or ebay.

Most original P-Model albums still cost a fortune but there's quite a bunch of solo stuff for £20-£30. I can do that but not too often. Happy to see Ash Crow is all the Berserk soundtracks in one.

Is it really true that Japanese music sellers are selling common stuff at scalper prices? If I went to big stores in japan, would all this stuff be so expensive?

One look at Hirasawa on CD Japan looks like an average of about $25 for a CD, not scalping but pretty high.

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/person/700102636?s_ssid=e36c625cd73da8f416

you can get some of them on Japan iTunes but their selection is pretty spotty. ultimately you're going to have to pay $25-30 for the CDs. sadly the Ashu-on P-Model boxset is no longer available, because that was actually a pretty decent value (about $15 a disc I think, many of which had 2 albums on them)

What is this tribut album by Vidra

Actually, it's a single

pretty cool. I wonder how well the lyrics are translated.

here's an interesting cover - an 80's P-Model tune covered in the style of 90's P-Model, it works pretty well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s9tAmbTHIg

by the way, it's his birthday today. 66 years old

Happy birthday Mr Hirasawa

https://www.discogs.com/Susumu-Hirasawa-Town-0-Phase-5-%E5%BA%AD%E5%B8%ABKing/release/14342441

just alerted to the existence of this. even though $20 is kind of ridiculous to pay for a 7 inch I believe this is the only Hirasawa thing you can get on vinyl outside of the original P-Model LPs (which have never been repressed and are $60-$100 to import to the US, if you can find them at all)

checking in on his RYM page, it looks like Technique of Relief has been bolded which is pretty cool. seems like people are rallying around that one as a starting point, it's got 600 ratings which is pretty awesome. only a few years ago I think it was well below 100.

Even though that last KAKU P-Model album was nearly on my ballot in 2018 (too low!), it's somehow only just now that I've first listened to Susumu Hirasawa's solo(...ish) stuff. Technique of Relief is some densely-layered hypnotism! Needs more unpacking, but that opening track is pure gold.

last time I listened to it I was struck by how much it seemed to incorporate a lot of Mike Oldfield's ideas. it's kind of in the same subgenre as Ommadawn. obviously I prefer Hirasawa's stuff way more but I'd surprised if that wasn't a big influence on him back then

still think "The Man From Narcissus Space" is one of the prettiest songs ever written. still gives me the chills

Returning to Technique of Relief after a few weeks feels like emerging into an actual paradise. It's some of the best music I've ever heard.

Is that this one?
https://www.discogs.com/Susumu-Hirasawa-%E6%95%91%E6%B8%88%E3%81%AE%E6%8A%80%E6%B3%95/master/429724

It is! Just the best synthpop album of all time.

someone hearing it based on that description alone would be mighty confused, though. I've described it as "really great, powerful New Age music" but somehow that doesn't interest people (plus, I think that applies much more to Philosopher's Propellor)

in other news - a little birdy told me the Berserk soundtrack is getting repressed as a 2xLP set, just in case you were considering dropping $300 for one of the 2019 versions that sold out in ten seconds

look who keeps popping up over and over:

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time/g:electropop/exc:live,archival/

has it happened? have they become aware?

new album today (on Bandcamp!) and it's really excellent. real proggy in spots, a bunch of these songs are mini-epics. vocals and guitars kinda remind me of Yes. also he covers Klaus Nomi's "Cold Song" in the most grandiose way possible.

God it’s so so good. The number of ideas he crams into every song is astounding. Landing is a real highlight. Possible AOTY.

yeah between this and the last Kaku P-Model album he seems to be at another creative high point

these clips from his 24th Mandala performance are great...apparently he's playing with a band again? way more interesting than the last 25 years of shows where 75% of it was just prerecorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRFvgpV6U3s

HAHAHAH yes put me in the poor house baby

https://columbia.jp/artist-info/hirasawa/info/76147.html

dude killed it at Fuji Rock. maybe the single best performance of his I've ever seen, even if the guitar pedal started wildly malfunctioning during "Solid Air"

just checked out Technique of Relief after seeing the very high rym rating and being familiar with Hirasawa's lovely Berserk OST already. I wouldn't say I love ToF but it has a charming, beautiful messiness and I want to check out more! I was also surprised that I already knew one of the ToF tracks from waayyy back in the Napster days, where someone had mistakenly labelled it as a Berserk song haha

that should be ToR in both places, obv

The guitar solo on Chevron sounds like Fripp guesting on a '70s Eno vocal record.

Like probably most people on the internet, I first heard of him because of the Satoshi Kon soundtracks, and began to wonder about exploring further because of Frogbs. I've been poking around here and there for a month or two, feeling more "okay this is interesting but..." than really won over. But this week something shifted and now everything is starting to sound angelic. Been listening a lot to selections from Beacon and Big Body, and Kakeari Pop on repeat. All that has been awesome enough, but last night I heard The Iron Cutting Song, and now there's clearly no going back.

in a DJ set I played "Nice Nice Very Nice" and some people thought that was Fripp as well. I do think he might be a lapsed progressive rock dork - P-Model did evolve out of a prog band, after all - if you look for them you can find all sorts of King Crimson/Mike Oldfield influences on his albums. parts of the latest one even sound like Yes to me.

it has been awesome seeing his actual albums start to get attention. always found it a bit frustrating how much praise there was for Paprika and the Berserk stuff...reading some of those reviews all I could think was "an actual Hirasawa LP would take your head off"