Tomita

Artist: Ken Martin
P: 2020
This is a tribute Album to Isao Tomita which I have been working on over the last 4 years in between other projects.
The project was something I wanted to do when he was alive, but on his passing a while ago I was determined to complete this project.
This is my interpretation of the Genius Tomita who has inspired many people over the years with his innovations on Classical Electronic Music
We could never replace what Tomita achieved but I hope that my contribution to him is appreciated.

Artist: Tomita
P: 1994
Tomita takes a slightly supporting role on this Kodo album with a theme of Extratrestrial visitation to the plains of Nasca. Its one of his sadly too seldom 1990s synth albums. A mix of classical synth pieces, new compositions and acoustic ethnic music and instruments.

Artist: Tomita
P: 1988 / 2007
Rematered japan version.
Live concert in Battery Park near the Hudson River, New York USA.
All arranged by Isao Tomita unless otherwise indicated.
Isao Tomita and the Plasma Symphony Orchestra
The concert comes with live soloists. Includes 7 pieces from previous albums- some with new arrangements and live soloists.

Artist: Tomita
P: 1978 / 1991
Rematered japan version.
By far the most dramatic release by Isao. Lots of dark rumblings and alien voices take you on a journey of foreboding. Difficult to find, but worth the ride. This is Tomita's BEST album, no doubt about it at all. He really had his studio and techniques together in top form for this one. It does have a very 'teary-eyed' feeling about it, like ache and longing. But that is the nature of Prokofiev's pieces and Tomita really fleshed that out. It's interesting to note that John Williams later used the same Prokofiev-like themes in his score for E.T: The Extraterrestial, another 'UFO-space' theme.

Artist: Tomita
P: 1975 / 2006
LTD remastert mini LP Cover Version Japan import.
The present disc has less grandiose aims, being a well-balanced selection of, to quote the original liner notes, "Virtuoso electronic performances of Debussy's beautiful tone paintings." It's easy to scoff at the concept behind Tomita's approach--take some of the most poetic music around and give it the consistency of aural cotton wool--yet there's no denying the skill with which he translates Debussy's soundworld, preserving the harmonic interest of the piano originals and bringing out many subtleties of texture.
Inevitably the slower numbers come off best--"Clair de Lune" or "Reverie" could easily become chill-out favorites.
"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," however, is not so much a travesty as a vaporization of the orchestral masterpiece.
A mixed bag, but with enough musical interest to make Tomita's "sound clouds" of more than just curiosity value.

Here the last copy!

Artist: Tomita
P: 1978 / 2007
This is my fifth album. In the past I made music for jingles or soundtracks for movies and television drama series, and I made them in collaboration with others. However, I have made these five albums in the current series all by myself. The reason is that in the case of synthesizer music it is extremely difficult to write a description of the original sound.
Even if one did do this it would require an enormous amount of paper if all the necessary details were to be noted down, and if a programmer were to try to assemble the sounds according to such directions there is no assurance that the original conception of the music could be realized.
I often use the analogy of an artist's palette to explain about synthesizer music. First, an idea comes to my mind, and in order to express that idea in reality I use the synthesizer.
This is almost like a painter who mixes his own colors on his palette using paints of some original colors in order to express the images he has in his mind.
I try to create certain four-dimensional images in space, and I imagine in my mind a hall that can hold about 1,000 people. Therefore, space is integral and becomes the basis for my sound images in this collection.

The titles alone do not suggest a unity of the sound concept I have created in my mind. Let me explain:
"Star Wars" Main Title is from the American space-fantasy movie being shown widely throughout the world. I have used a rhythm box in making the arrangement of the music. Towards the end of the title music there comes a famous melody that a robot carries in a strange way. Is it the true melody?
Space Fantasy begins with heavy, deep sound expressing the shaking of the earth. Then the dawn, and from beyond comes a Pegasus waving its wings. I have tied all of these images into a fantasy.
Pacific 231 - the Pacific is the large steam locomotive, made some 60 years ago, that had two pairs of front wheels, three pairs of power wheels and one pair of rear wheels. In my childhood I felt that an electric train would go only for a short distance but a steam engine would be for a long distance and therefore would carry me to faraway spaces. I have tried to recapture and recreate such a scene before my memories of a steam engine become diluted and disappear.
When one listens to The Unanswered Question after having heard Pacific 231, one may feel that he is being pulled away from the earth into a space without gravity. One should imagine he is listening through speakers drifting in the airless space. He must then imagine experiencing sound without the air through which it is transmitted!!
Solvejg's Song depicts the pure and innocent heart of a woman who is left alone in a mountain cottage in Norway and waits patiently and faithfully for the return of her lover, Peer Gynt. She sings the song while working her spinning wheel. Time and space are woven into this haunting melody. It predicts the return of her unfaithful lover to find her still waiting - still spinning.
The image I have created in Aranjuez may differ from that which the original music intends. Whenever I hear this piece I imagine a picture, taken by a pilot in the late 1920s, of the Nasca Lines, which etch the desert in southern Peru. It is not an artistic picture. It looks like a symbol for a signal. Nearby there is something that looks like a runway of an airfield built in ancient times. Space travelers? Another unanswered question.
Hora Staccato - micro computers are being used readily nowadays, and we will soon find ourselves in an age where such computers will order most aspects of existence. Good or evil? Micro computers were used extensively in the making of this cheerful piece to suggest that there is hope that civilization will not be destroyed by its own technology.
The Sea Named "Solaris" - for this piece I was inspired by the Russian science fiction movie "Solaris". The planet "Solaris" consists entirely of a sea of plasma that is a living creature with its own power of reasoning. Men from the earth make a space station on Solaris, and send people there to make observations. The sea of Solaris extracts memories from the sleeping earthmen's brains and reincarnate loved ones from their past. I did not try to express the planet Solaris itself but a certain state of a human mind that might be created by the happenings there. The cherished memories are depicted by Bach's Invention, and the eternal longing is expressed by Bach's chorale I Call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ.

Isao Tomita

Artist: Tomita
P: 1979/ 2007
Rematered japan version.
Subtitled 'The Ravel Album', this album was also released in the USA as 'Boléro' with different packaging and a different running order.
A 7" and 12" single of 'Bolero' (the tune) was released in the UK by popular demand in the light of the success of the movie "10" starring Bo Derek and Dudley Moore.
It actually hit the Top 75!
Tomita says that this is his favourite album. It was presented to his daughter on her marriage. His daughter's name and that of her fianceé were written using grass in the picture of 'Daphnis et Chloé'

Artist: Tomita
P: 1984 / 1991
Electronic interpretations of works by various classical composers including Villa-Lobos, Albinoni, Bach, Rachmaninoff, and Pachelbel. The bird like twittering heard on the opening track, 'Dawn Chorus', is an actual recording of the sound generated by radio waves from space entering the earth's magnetosphere at dawn.
Here the Japan version by BMG.

Artist: Tomita
P: 1997
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.

Artist: Tomita
P: 2017
The passing of Isao Tomita is something that saddened me when I heard, and I have set out to collect, in one form or another, his albums. Dr. Coppelius was one which I was unsure of getting, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hatsune Miku, the Vocaloid, has been used by Tomita to create a great swan song for what has been and should be remembered as an illustrious career. For fans of Tomita's most well known work, I feel that this is a great piece to listen to, as it uses the modern technology of today to create something; that I feel, is a modern classic.
Isao Tomita has been gone from us since May of 2016. I’m actually surprised that we’ve not seen any remasters or expansions by RCA. A BOX even. I think that his works contributed heavily to the beautiful ’70s, before sound and style upended (not unappealingly, mind you). But we didn’t get a representative set of refreshed Tomita music. But, we are getting something, Tomita fans.

On March 22, via Nippon Columbia, the first Tomita set since his death is being released. The new album is being called Dr. Coppelius, and is a live presentation of his composed symphony. It is the premiere of the symphony, played live at the 12th Bunkamura Orchard Hall by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. This symphony played live on November 11/12 in 2016. The symphony was conducted by Kazumasa Watanabe, with electronic parts performed by Aiko Hikari.

Dr Coppelius, of course, while an original work, is not a studio work. I have hope that it will be eventually done, and released as a studio work attributed to Tomita, for the enjoyment of his fans.