is the debut studio album by Japanese musician

Susumu Hirasawa is a Japanese musician and composer. He is well known for his work for the films of director Satoshi Kon and the animated adaptations of the Berserk (manga), ''Berserk'' manga series, alongside his work as a solo artist and as a member of P-Mode ...

, released on September 1, 1989 via Polydor K.K. It is his first album and first musical material since the hiatus of the band

P-Model P-Model (also typeset as P-MODEL and P. Model) was a Japanese electronic rock band started in 1979 by members of the defunct progressive rock band Mandrake. The band has experienced many lineup revisions over the years but frontman Susumu Hir ...

Background

In December 1988, Hirasawa decided to put his

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experiment ...

/ new wave band

on hiatus after spending two years being unable to arrange a recording deal, feeling that the group's continued existence was taking a mental and emotional toll on him. The following year, he was signed to

Polydor Polydor Limited, also known as Polydor Records, is a British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in ...

, where he recorded ''Water in Time and Space''.

Composition

''Water in Time and Space'' is half a self-cover album: With the band being put on hold, P-Model's ''Monster'' album was not recorded. However, Hirasawa could not afford to discard three of its songs and salvaged them for the album instead. Two songs from lo-fi cassette only releases ('' Scuba'' and ''Charity Original Tape'') were also rearranged for the album, with Hirasawa wanting a better form for the former and the latter being a guideline for the style of ''Water in Time and Space''. To prepare for the songwriting of new material, Hirasawa re-recorded "Happening by the Windowsill" by his former

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

band Mandrake as an étude. ''Water in Time and Space'' features a large variety of styles, such as

march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

, orchestral,

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk horror ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Fo ...

, influenced by

Jungian Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their s ...

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

and

Andean The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long and wide (widest between 18°S ...

themes. The album has no particular total concept, unlike most of Hirasawa's solo output. Free from the constraints of P-Model and the band's nervous energy, the album is comparatively light and brisk. Though created with heavy use of digital devices, it is one of Hirasawa's least electronic works, with prominent use of acoustic tones throughout. In the manner of P-Model's 1986 album '' One Pattern'', Hirasawa also put emphasis on sampling, with such sounds as bird chirping and coin rolling being used as rhythmic backing.

Production

''Water in Time and Space'' is built around the

Korg M1 The Korg M1 is a synthesizer and music workstation manufactured by Korg from 1988 to 1995. It is one of the bestselling synthesizers in history, selling an estimated 250,000 units. The M1 was widely used in popular music and stock music in the ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

synthesizer, whose expansive, organic-sounding palette completely replaces the digital tones from the Casio synths used by the P-Model in their later years. The M1's built-in sequencer and its large memory bank led to a shift in Hirasawa's production style; with the M1, he could record parts of songs that were not completed in studio at home, being more equipped to make music by himself and less dependent on labels. Still, some equipment from ''One Pattern'' and ''Monster'' was carried over, as well as the mechanical lo-fi sound of the former album, setting up the general production style of Hirasawa's first solo phase. The chief engineer of the album is Yoshiaki Kondo, who worked on '' Karkador'' and ''One Pattern'', this being the first project where Hirasawa got his long-sought services unaltered. Besides electronics, Hirasawa also performed with

plucked string instrument Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the string (music), strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to ...

s and percussion instruments. Only two tracks were performed by Hirasawa completely solo, while others feature a variety of guest performers, such as

session musician A session musician (also known as studio musician or backing musician) is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a reco ...

s for parts he could not play by himself and friends from the underground new wave scene. For songs that required choral backing, Hirasawa would get whoever was present during recording and form an impromptu choir.

Track listing

Personnel

– vocals, classical guitar, electric guitar, bass,

crumhorn The crumhorn is a double reed , double reed instrument of the woodwind family, most commonly used during the Renaissance music, Renaissance period. In modern times, particularly since the 1960s, there has been a revival of interest in early mu ...

(on "Haldyn Hotel"),

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

, percussion, synthesizers,

drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...

, sampler, sequencer, Ozonotech Computer ("Say" program – Computer Voice on "Dune"), programming,

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

s, production ;additional musicians * – crumhorn (credited as "Krumme Horn") on "Haldyn Hotel" * Akiro "Kamio" Arishima, Masahiro Furukawa & Hisayuki Makanae – backing vocals on "Haldyn Hotel" * (also listed under special thanks as "Akimoto-kun") – backing vocals on "Haldyn Hotel" and "Coyote" * Section – violins, cellos, violas and double basses on "Root of Spirit" * – percussion on "Coyote", drums on "Frozen Beach" and "Venus" * Kazumi "Keralino 'Kera' Sandorovich" Kobayashi – backing vocals and Coyote Voice on "Coyote" * Jun Togawa (courtesy of Teichiku Records) – backing vocals on "No Workshop" * Kayo "Kokubo" Matsumoto – acoustic piano on "Water in Time and Space" * Tsuneo Imahori – bass on "Skeleton Coast Park" * –

min'yō , ''Nihon min'yō'', Japanese ''min'yō'' or Japanese folk music is a genre of traditional Music of Japan, Japanese music. Characteristics Styles Many ''min'yō'' are connected to forms of work or to specific trades and were originally su ...

styled vocal on "Skeleton Coast Park" ;technical * Yoshiaki Kondo (Gok Sound) –

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

& mixing engineer * Shinichi Tomita, Nobuhiko Matsufuji, Atsushi Hattori (Mix); Masanori Ihara (Gold Rush Studio); Yoshikatsu Takatori (Sound Inn) – second engineers ;visuals * Kiyoshi Inagaki –

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

* Mado & Vincent – photography * Akemi Tsujitani, Michiko Aoki – styling * Kazunori Yoshida – hair & makeup ;operations * Octave ** Mitsuo Nagano – artist management ** Megumi Watase – desk * Mitsuru Hirose – publicity coordination * Office Moving – concert coordination * Polydor Records. ** Kazuyoshi Aoki – A&R ** Osamu Takeuchi – backing vocals on "Haldyn Hotel" and "Coyote" (credited as "Michäel Saturnus"), assistant ;Thanks *Yasumasa Mishima, Yumiko Ohno, Masaya Abe, Mezame no Sato, Kei Fukuchi, Kazumi Sawaki, AC Unit, Ice Grey, Nobuyoshi Matsubara, Akira Ito,

Aria In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air (music), air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrument (music), instrumental or orchestral accompan ...

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

, Signifie

Release history

* "Haldyn Hotel", "Root of Spirit", "Coyote", "Frozen Beach" and "Venus" are included on the ''ADVANCED ROCK 3'' promotional sampler. * "Solar Ray (SPECTRUM 2 TYPE)" is the B-Side to the "World Turbine" single. * "Haldyn Hotel ractal Terrain Track is the B-Side to the "Bandiria Travellers hysical Navigation Version single. * "Venus" is included on '' Detonator Orgun 2''; "Water in Time and Space (Full Size)" and "Root of Spirit" are on the ''Detonator Orgun 3'' soundtrack album. * "Haldyn Hotel ractal Terrain Track, "Root of Spirit", "Skeleton Coast Park" and "Venus" are included on the ''Root of Spirit～ESSENCE OF HIRASAWA SOLO WORKS～'' compilation. * "Haldyn Hotel" (and "Fractal Terrain Track"), "Root of Spirit", "Solar Ray (SPECTRUM 2 TYPE)", "Frozen Beach", "Water in Time and Space (Full Size)" and "Venus" are included on the ''

Archetype The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...

, 1989–1995 Polydor years of Hirasawa'' compilation.

References

;Bibliography * .