''Aurora'' is

Susumu Hirasawa is a Japanese musician and composer. In the fifth year of elementary school, Hirasawa took up the electric guitar, inspired by the surf and instrumental rock bands he heard on the radio and on TV, later joining his junior high school's band. ...

's fourth solo album.

Overview

His first main solo album in three years following a period where focus was directed on the Defrosted

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 Hiras ...

, ''Aurora'', which Hirasawa has said can be considered a second solo debut, is a turning point in his career. Unlike the previous solo albums, ''Aurora'' doesn't feature guest musicians, with almost all instrumentation handled by MIDI-compatible devices. The music was composed with the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks was a software company in the United States. The company produced several digital audio products for the Amiga, including Bars & Pipes, a sequencer described by Sound on Sound as "the ultimate in Amiga sequencing", and S ...

programs Bars & Pipes Professional, which he started using for "more natural orchestration", and SuperJAM!, whose " Bartok" style he modified by inputting data from his own songs, irreversibly turning its patterns and variations into "Hirasawa" style ones. ''Aurora'' was created to appeal to the instinctual side of the listener as opposed to the logical, in likeness to tales and

myths Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

, emphasizing vocals and melody. The songs were written so that the album would lack any inherent story or concept, inviting the listener to create their own reading. However, as he wrote the lyrics out, seven of the album's ten songs ended up having to do with , which accidentally created undertones of a story about two people. Hirasawa wanted to avoid that if at all possible, but felt that was just the way the language worked and left it as is. Many words representing natural phenomena were included in an attempt to resolve complaints about the lyrics being opaque. Hirasawa chose words that were easy to understand and had a large impact, the word ''Aurora'' came from this decision as well. The album's booklet is adorned with

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

imagery. Advertisements for ''Aurora'' used the phrase .

Track listing

*The official translations of the titles of the songs are stylized in all uppercase letters. *"Snow Blind" contains a sample of "Oh Mama!" by

, from the album ''

One Pattern ''One Pattern'' (stylized as ''ONE PATTERN'') is a 1986 album by P-Model and the last before the band's hiatus in 1988. Background After the end of the supporting tour for ''Karkador'', P-Model was left without a bassist and a keyboardist. Fron ...

''.

Personnel

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

( Talbo),

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

(

Yairi Yairi is the surname name of three Japanese luthiers associated with quality handmade acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, reson ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s (

E-mu Proteus The E-mu Systems, E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems in the late twentieth century. History E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable E-mu Emulat ...

/2,

Korg MS-20 The Korg MS-20 is a patchable semi-modular monophonic analog synthesizer which Korg released in 1978 and which was in production until 1983. It was part of Korg's MS series of instruments, which also included the single oscillator MS-10, the ke ...

Korg M1 The Korg M1 is a synthesizer and music workstation manufactured by Korg from 1988 to 1995. According to ''Sound on Sound'', it is one of the bestselling synthesizers, selling an estimated 250,000 units. Development Korg's chief engineer, Junichi ...

Roland JD-800 The Roland JD-800 is a digital synthesizer that was manufactured between 1991 and 1996. It features many knobs and sliders for patch editing and performance control — features that some manufacturers, including Roland, had been omitting in the n ...

sampler Sampler may refer to: * Sampler (signal), a digital signal processing device that converts a continuous signal to a discrete signal * Sampler (needlework), a handstitched piece of embroidery used to demonstrate skill in needlework * Sampler (surna ...

(

Akai S1100 Akai ( ja, 赤井, ) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946. Grande Holdings in Hong Kong purchased the Akai brand, and now distributes various electronic produc ...

), drum machine (

Roland R-8 The R-8 Human Rhythm Composer is an electronic drum machine introduced in 1989 by Roland Corporation, using PCM voices. The R-8 features velocity- and pressure-sensitive trigger pads, and the ability to create loops of beats. The device has e ...

with DANCE card),

(

2500 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on eac ...

sequencer Sequencer may refer to: Technology * Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically * DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...

(Bars&Pipes Professional), programming,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

;technical *Masanori Chinzei -

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, ...

, mixing *Motohiro Yamada (Eggs Shep Studio), Harumi Ōta (MIX), Tsutomu Okada (MIX) - assistant engineering *Masao Nakazato (Onkio Haus) - mastering ;visuals *Kiyoshi Inagaki (d.d.t.) -

art direction Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the visi ...

, design *Hideki Namai -

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

*Akemi Tsujitani - styling *Kazunori Yoshida - hair & make-up ;operations *Roppei Iwagami (Pre-Octave) -

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

*I₃ Promotion **Yūichi Kenjo - co-production **Masami Fujii - publicity coordination **Koosuke Mogi -

artist management A talent manager (also known as an artist manager, band manager or music manager) is an individual who guides the professional career of entertainer, artists in the entertainment industry. The responsibility of the talent manager is to oversee t ...

**Takeshi Fujita - personal management *Polydor K.K. **Osamu Takeuchi - direction **Tomohide Ishikawa - A&R chief **Hitoshi Maeda - executive production ;Thanks *Gallery LS for Mandala (スーナムギャムフォ),

Fernandes Fernandes is a surname in the Portuguese-speaking countries. The name is a patronymic form of the Portuguese and Spanish personal name ''Fernando''. Fernandes is the 243rd most common surname in the world, the 3rd one in Angola and in São Tom ...

Release history

*"Love Song", "Aurora", "Song of the Force" and "Snow Blind" are included in the ''NEW SONGS FROM AURORA'' promotional sampler. *"Love Song", "Aurora" and "In the Square" are included on the ''

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

, 1989-1995 Polydor years of Hirasawa'' compilation. *"Island Door (Paranesian Circle)" is included in the vinyl release of the '' Ruiner Original Soundtrack''.

References

External links

*
AURORA
at iTunes Japan
AURORA
at amazon.co.jp {{Authority control Susumu Hirasawa albums Japanese-language albums 1994 albums Polydor Records albums