is a Japanese musician and composer. In the fifth year of elementary school, Hirasawa took up the

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 gu ...

, inspired by the surf and

instrumental rock Instrumental rock is rock music that emphasizes musical instruments and features very little or no singing. Examples of instrumental rock can be found in practically every subgenre of rock, often from musicians who specialize in the style. Instr ...

bands he heard on the radio and on TV, later joining his junior high school's band. In 1973 he formed

Mandrake A mandrake is the root of a plant, historically derived either from plants of the genus '' Mandragora'' found in the Mediterranean region, or from other species, such as ''Bryonia alba'', the English mandrake, which have similar properties. The ...

, a

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. I ...

band that incorporated elements from heavy metal and

krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electronic music, ...

. Being one of the few Japanese progressive rock bands of its time, Mandrake achieved little success and released no albums during its lifetime. After discovering punk rock and working on synthesizer-heavy projects, Hirasawa felt that progressive rock became just for entertainment and decided to reform the band as the

electronic rock Electronic rock is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music, featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s, when rock bands began incorporating electronic instrum ...

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 Hiras ...

in 1979. Originally met with success, they turned to decidedly uncommercial

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-r ...

and

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

after Hirasawa went through an adverse reaction to his fame. With Hirasawa at the forefront, the band went through various lineups and achieved some popularity in the Japanese

independent music Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording a ...

scene. In 1989, Hirasawa launched his solo career. Unbound by the restraints of a band, his albums were marked by a refusal to stick to any particular genre. He continued to evolve his sound while concurrently working with two different iterations of P-Model until the group was disbanded in 2000. He has actively been releasing new music since. While Hirasawa is mostly remembered in Japan for the first two P-Model albums, he has achieved international recognition for his soundtrack work, particularly for the adaptations of the Kentaro Miura manga '' Berserk'' and the work of anime director

Satoshi Kon was a Japanese film director, animator, screenwriter and manga artist from Sapporo, Hokkaido and a member of the Japanese Animation Creators Association (JAniCA). He was a graduate of the Graphic Design department of the Musashino Art Univer ...

Compositions

Hirasawa's music takes from such concepts as

analytical psychology Analytical psychology ( de , Analytische Psychologie, sometimes translated as analytic psychology and referred to as Jungian analysis) is a term coined by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, to describe research into his new "empirical science" ...

, advances in digital technology, the philosophies of

yin and yang Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and ya ...

, and principles of nature versus machines. As an avid fan of science fiction novels since the 1970s and an eclectic reader overall, he's been inspired by the works of

Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel '' Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked a ...

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

Hayao Kawai (1928–2007) was a Japanese Jungian psychologist who has been described as "the founder of Japanese Analytical and Clinical Psychology". He introduced the sandplay therapy concept to Japanese psychology. He participated in Eranos from 1982. ...

Kenji Miyazawa was a Japanese novelist and poet of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social acti ...

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

Wilhelm Reich Wilhelm Reich ( , ; 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian Doctor of Medicine, doctor of medicine and a psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. The author ...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupéry, simply known as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (, , ; 29 June 1900 – 31 July 1944), was a French writer, poet, aristocrat, journalist and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of s ...

Theodore Sturgeon Theodore Sturgeon (; born Edward Hamilton Waldo, February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 sh ...

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
''

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

. A constant source of inspiration for his music has come from

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. On a 1994 trip to

Phuket Phuket (; th, ภูเก็ต, , ms, Bukit or ''Tongkah''; Hokkien:普吉; ) is one of the southern provinces (''changwat'') of Thailand. It consists of the island of Phuket, the country's largest island, and another 32 smaller islands of ...

, Hirasawa went through a "Thai shock", amazed by the country's culture, namely its

transsexual Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignment ...

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

performers, some of whom he would invite to be singers on his albums and guest performers in his concerts throughout his career. After many trips back to the country Hirasawa grew to be increasingly identified with the transsexual population, incorporating their problems and experiences in society into his work. On having his music categorized based on western trends, Hirasawa has said:

Performances

For every main solo album he releases, Hirasawa also stages an accompanying "Interactive Live Show", an interactive concert that merges computer graphics with his music to tell a story. The flow of each show is determined by audience participation; for example, ''Interactive Live Show 2000 Philosopher's Propeller'' was formatted as a maze, and the audience was asked to choose which direction to go in. Provided with phone numbers to four

cellular phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while ...

during one song, the audience was allowed to call the numbers to have Hirasawa play the corresponding ringtones. This created an improvised harmony between the background music and the ringing phones. Since 1998, participation has been possible through the internet. Hirasawa's live music is built on samples he activates with various hand-crafted machines and pre-recorded tracks without vocals. For the ''Solar Live'' concerts, he used solar power and a power-generating wheel as the source of energy for his electronic equipment. Hirasawa has worked since the start of his solo career to decrease the amount of performers around himself. Most of his solo albums from 1992 onwards feature no guest musicians, and live backing bands were relinquished in 1994. Since then, only a few select shows have had guest singers or backing instrumentalists.

Equipment usage

One of Hirasawa's defining factors that set him apart from other Japanese electronic artists is ever-changing production techniques and gear of choice.

Guitars

Hirasawa has favored guitars designed specifically by Japanese instrument manufacturers. With a movement in the early '80s of electric guitar makers moving away from mass-producing copies of foreign designs and towards original ones, Hirasawa played many unique models. Over a five-year period, from

's last days to the early P-Model phase, he used the H.S. Anderson Rider,

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 ...

Art Wave and

ESP ESP most commonly refers to: * Extrasensory perception, a paranormal ability ESP may also refer to: Arts, entertainment Music * ESP Guitars, a manufacturer of electric guitars * E.S. Posthumus, an independent music group formed in 2000, ...

Random Star, painting them in bright colors (burgundy, yellow, blue and white). In 1983 he settled on

Tōkai Gakki , often referred to as Tokai Guitars, is a Japanese musical instrument manufacturer situated in Hamamatsu city, Shizuoka prefecture. Tokai is one of Japan's leading companies in the business. The company was founded in 1947 by Tadayouki Adachi an ...

's aluminum guitars as his main ones, attracted by their unique material and design. He used multiple Tōkai Talbos over an eleven-year period, with the guitar becoming an integral part of his image. After Tōkai discontinued production and customer support for the Talbo due to financial difficulties in the mid-'90s, Hirasawa requested Fernandes to make him a guitar of his design in 1994 called ''PHOTON'', a Talbo-shaped guitar with a wooden body. In 2004, he requested TALBO Secret FACTORY, a manufacturer of Talbos run by other musicians who also liked the guitar and wanted to continue to use it, to build a Talbo of his own design, called '' ICE-9'' (named after the material of the same name from

's novel ''

Cat's Cradle Cat's cradle is a game involving the creation of various string figures between the fingers, either individually or by passing a loop of string back and forth between two or more players. The true origin of the name is debated, though the fi ...

''). It became Hirasawa's main guitar for the next eight years. To showcase it, he made an eponymous mini-album in 2005. Hirasawa has continued to work with the TALBO Secret FACTORY, requesting the conversion of one of his early Tōkai models into a new design of his, the ''ASTRO'', in 2011 and asking for the renewal of the ''PHOTON'' with new specifications after two decades of usage. In 2012, Secret FACTORY co-founder

HISASHI Hisashi is a masculine Japanese given name. Its meaning differs depending on the kanji used to write it. Kanji Single kanji used to write the name Hisashi include: *: "long time" *: "eternal" *: "still" *: "standard" *: "complete" *: "long" *: "li ...

gifted him a Talbo of his own design, the ''EVO 0101Z'', which Hirasawa adopted as his new main guitar, owning standard copies as well as two equipped with

single coil guitar pickup A single coil pickup is a type of magnetic transducer, or pickup, for the electric guitar and the electric bass. It electromagnetically converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal. Single coil pickups are one of the two most po ...

s for selective usage. Besides those, Hirasawa has also used different types of guitar for specific purposes, playing MIDI guitars like the Ibanez X-ING IMG-2010 and Casio MG500, various acoustic and classical models, classic surf ones like the

Mosrite Mosrite is an American guitar manufacturing company, based in Bakersfield, California, from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Founded by Semie Moseley, Mosrite guitars were played by many rock and roll and country artists. Mosrite guitars were ...

and the

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

, and the Aria AS-100C/SPL

silent guitar A silent guitar is a type of guitar with a solid or chambered body that converts the vibration of the strings into electric current using a piezoelectric pickup. The body of the guitar does not amplify the vibration of the strings into audible so ...

Electronics

Hirasawa has used

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 ...

computers extensively in his work, starting out with CG production in 1987, and later on applying it on his albums and live shows, using applications such as Say, SCALA, Bars & Pipes, SuperJAM! and

OctaMED OctaMED is a popular music tracker for the Commodore Amiga, written by Teijo Kinnunen. The first version, 1.12, was released in 1989 under the name MED, which stands for Music EDitor. In April 1990, version 2.00 was released with MIDI support as ...

. He stopped using Amigas with the ''LIMBO-54'' shows of 2003 and the ''Byakkoya''/''Paprika'' albums of 2006, since "maintaining an Amiga now is, like maintaining a classic car, costly". In the '90s he started a gradual transition to

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

(later on dabbling in

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

for a time), using programs such as Delay Lama,

Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project led by Kenmochi Hideki at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, in 2000 and was not originally intended to b ...

s, Bars'n'Pipes (an unofficial continuation of the Amiga program),

Cakewalk Sonar Sonar was a digital audio workstation created by the former Boston, Massachusetts-based music production software company Cakewalk (company), Cakewalk. It was acquired by Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies and renamed Cakewalk by B ...

and Synth1. When choosing string tones Hirasawa aims to find ones with unstable pitches and a "dark sound", which he finds harmonious, such as the

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

, Kurzweil synths and EASTWEST's line of Symphonic sounds.

Recording/production

In the '90s, Hirasawa gradually moved his work from professional facilities to home, dubbing his workspace on various residences "Studio WIRESELF". He finally moved completely to it by the recording of 2000's ''Philosopher's Propeller''. The following year he undertook the

sustainable energy Energy is sustainable if it "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Most definitions of sustainable energy include considerations of environmental aspects such as greenh ...

project "Hirasawa Energy Works" and changed his lifestyle so that all his music would be recorded with solar energy. To reduce carbon emission, Studio WIRESELF was outfitted to be powered completely by a

photovoltaic system A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and co ...

of 2

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s,Morgan, Jonah.
ANS Exclusive Interview: Berserk Soundtrack Composer Susumu Hirasawa
. ''Anime News Service''. Retrieved 11 February 2010. with 2 car batteries to store extra energy. Years later, Hirasawa added 2 more panels to the studio and retired the batteries. Initially Studio WIRESELF operated on large pieces of equipment, both analog and digital. With the advances of technology and the streamlining of production under Hirasawa Energy Works, the working landscape transitioned to

software synthesizer A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the sam ...

s, with the physical elements of the studio reduced to one recording booth and two workstations, one for Hirasawa and the other for engineer Masanori Chinzei.

Activism and charity

In 1988, Hirasawa sold a at a

flea market A flea market (or swap meet) is a type of street market that provides space for vendors to sell previously-owned (second-hand) goods. This type of market is often seasonal. However, in recent years there has been the development of 'formal' ...

Yoyogi is a neighbourhood in the northern part of Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Geography The area encompassed by Yoyogi is typically defined two ways: * Only the five Yoyogi . * The former , corresponding roughly to the area south of National Route 20 (K� ...

for charity, it contained 3 New Age songs made specifically for the release and came with a 36-page long booklet chronicling the self-analysis of his dreams and reality. All proceeds were donated to the volunteering welfare facility for the mentally ill in

Gunma Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima ...

, founded by the psychologist who gave Hirasawa counseling around the time he made the P-Model albums ''

Scuba Scuba may refer to: * Scuba diving ** Scuba set, the equipment used for scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diving * Scuba, an in-memory database developed by Facebook * Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, either of two in ...

'' and ''

Karkador ''Karkador'' is the sixth album by the Japanese electronic rock band P-Model, and the first where frontman Susumu Hirasawa was the sole remaining founding member. Background and composition ''Karkador'' was mainly inspired by the dreams of P-Mod ...

''. In 2001, a pregnant stray cat appeared in Hirasawa's studio. He took care of her and helped carry out four of her pregnancies from 2001 to 2002. Since he could not take care of all the kittens, Hirasawa created a temporary site to recruit possible adopters and keep up with the welfare of the various cats. As Hirasawa objected to the American response after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, which he believes involved excessive carnage, and the Japanese government's aiding of such actions, he offered downloads of online banners and two of his songs for free, which he hoped would be used as tools of objection. One of them is a rerecording of 1994's "Love Song", which is about children in the battlefield; the other is "High-Minded Castle", about a man who "can not know the truth and true background through media, he tries to face the real tragedy on the other side of the world". The latter was taken from the ''

Blue Limbo ''Blue Limbo'' is the ninth solo album by Susumu Hirasawa. Background The dystopian themes of the album were influenced by the Iraq War and the remaining traces of the Cambodian Civil War. One day before its release, "High-Minded Castle" and a n ...

'' album, which displays a dystopian theme partly influenced by the American government's retaliation. To support

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

journalists,

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

and

citizen media Citizen media is content produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles. Background "Citizen media" was coined by Clemencia Rodriguez, wh ...

, Hirasawa started a free music archive to be used by independent news as background music. He sent e-mails to various associates and members of P-Model requesting involvement, the only one to join was guitarist PEVO 1go. The files uploaded were instrumental mixes of songs by both musicians, including some from '' Vistoron'', whose concept revolves around the propagation of a false reality by mass media. In the aftermath of the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

and the

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The was a nuclear accident in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which occurred on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 and ...

, Hirasawa started traveling around the country with a

Geiger counter A Geiger counter (also known as a Geiger–Müller counter) is an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. It is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental ph ...

, measuring the radiation levels and reporting them in his Twitter account. In June 2011, a song was posted on his site, titled : A rerecording of the P-Model song "Boat" (from 1984's ''

'') in the style of "The Aggregated Past – Kangen Shugi 8760 Hours" project, with the lyrics changed to protest against Japan's use of nuclear power and to criticize the government and the media. The song, credited to "Stealthman", was only available on the site for six days, but could be redistributed if unaltered and not for profit. An instrumental mix was posted on the site by Hirasawa after the original was taken down, following the same distribution guidelines. As these events occurred, Hirasawa told a story on Twitter of being assaulted and having his computer and website hacked by "Stealthman". Through his tweets and the way the posts were worded on his website, Hirasawa effectively distanced himself from the track and disowned it. The song is available on the karaoke service provider Xing's online song library, credited to "Stealthman".

Personal life

Hirasawa has an older brother, artist , who goes by the moniker "YOU1". He formed a stage effects team to give

shows visual flair and appeared on the band's last show, running on a treadmill. Yūichi was P-Model's art director for the band's first 9 years of existence, and has done occasional artwork for his brother from 2013 onwards. His only musical credits are for writing the lyrics of "For Kids" and "Sunshine City" (from '' In a Model Room''), and for doing backing vocals on "Rocket" (from ''

The Ghost in Science is Susumu Hirasawa's second solo album. Overview ''The Ghost in Science'' is marked by a whimsical, futuristic thematic in which Hirasawa paints himself as a mad scientist. It has a sound similar to other Hirasawa albums of the same era, thou ...

''). In 2013, Yūichi opened the Gazio in

Tsukuba is a city located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 244,528 in 108,669 households and a population density of 862 persons per km². The percentage of the population aged over 65 was 20.3%. The total ar ...

. Although branded as a "new wave" café, the establishment was heavily themed around P-Model and Susumu: it was adorned with various band related memorabilia, served original cocktails titled after his songs and often held special events and shows by members and associates of the band; Susumu made exclusive content for it and, as he gives his brother most things he has no need for at a given moment, many studio and stage objects were displayed in the café. Gazio ceased operations as an active restaurant in 2015 and rebranded as an art studio; Yūichi now holds twice monthly "Café Gazio" events in Kichijōji. Their father, , was a

firefighter A firefighter is a first responder and rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and in some cases or jurisdictions also ...

as well as a

calligrapher Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...

: Under the penname , he wrote the names of album and band for the cover art of the P-Model album ''

Potpourri Potpourri ( ) is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant materials used to provide a gentle natural scent, commonly in residential settings. It is often placed in a decorative bowl. The word "potpourri" comes into English from the French ...

''. Since childhood, Hirasawa showed a love for machines, and thought of himself as an engineer. He was a RC plane enthusiast (at one point in time wanting to be a pilot) and repaired broken devices (such as radios and flashlights) given to him by his parents. He studied in the electronics department of , where he was the first to finish the graduation project, the construction of a TV, out of sheer luck, since he did not fully understand the circuits. He also had

motocross Motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The sport evolved from motorcycle trials competitions held in the United Kingdom. History Motocross first evolved in Britain from motorcycle trials competi ...

as a hobby for a time. He enrolled in the in 1972 and graduated ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' in 1975 from the university's

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordina ...

course. According to the ''Tokyo Designers' Gakuin College '75 Design Annual'', his graduation project was a dome-shaped stage set hall for

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...

shows. During the early days of

, he worked as a part-time carrier on a fruits and vegetables market during the morning and at a

Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was ...

warehouse during the night, alongside Mandrake co-founder Fumiyasu Abe. In 1978, Hirasawa applied for a part-time lecturer position at

Yamaha Music Foundation The Yamaha Music Foundation is an organization established in 1966 by the authority of the Japanese Ministry of Education for the purpose of promoting music education and music popularization. It continued a program of music classes begun by Yamaha ...

, and since he was the only person that applied for that position, he got the job. He taught courses at the Yamaha Synthesizer School until 1983, and met various musicians that he would later collaborate with through these lectures. After leaving his position as teacher, he took to making commercial jingle for the rest of the decade to make ends meet. Hirasawa started smoking in 1979 and quit in 2001; he has since become an avid vaper. He's also a

teetotaler Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of total personal abstinence from the psychoactive drug alcohol, specifically in alcoholic drinks. A person who practices (and possibly advocates) teetotalism is called a teetotaler or teetotaller, or i ...

, since drinking anything larger than a fifth of a cup of beer makes him feel like his head is exploding. Regardless of that, he used to drink small amounts of wine during recording sessions to preserve his voice, which he's since replaced with

throat lozenge A throat lozenge (also known as a cough drop, sore throat sweet, troche, cachou, pastille or cough sweet) is a small, typically medicated tablet intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to temporarily stop coughs, lubricate, and soothe irri ...

s. Hirasawa has spoken out in favor of the

Big Pharma conspiracy theory Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories which claim that the medical community in general and pharmaceutical companies in particular, especially large corporations, operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, that t ...

. He has been known to promote the usage of

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

, including the widely discredited

Miracle Mineral Solution Miracle Mineral Supplement, often referred to as Miracle Mineral Solution, Master Mineral Solution, MMS or the CD protocol, is a branded name for an aqueous solution of chlorine dioxide, an industrial bleaching agent, that has been falsely p ...

, and has posted on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

extensively about his experiences with

acupuncture Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientifi ...

and

moxibustion Moxibustion () is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy which consists of burning dried mugwort ('' wikt:moxa'') on particular points on the body. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, ...

. A vegetarian, Hirasawa doesn't eat meat, remarking, "At any rate, meat is unappetizing and gross. Eating meat makes me tired and makes me throw up". He lives in a house in Tsukuba with his pet

calico cat A calico cat is a domestic cat of any breed with a tri-color coat. The calico cat is most commonly thought of as being typically 25% to 75% white with large orange and black patches (or sometimes cream and grey patches, which is called a mu ...

. The house also has a garden, where he grows some of his food; he also cultivates bacteria to make yogurt out of soy milk. While repeatedly incorporating various concepts from

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

ism and

Buddhism 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 gra ...

in his themes, as well as ones from other Asian religions, Hirasawa has never specified what his beliefs are. However, at one point in time, he supported the return of the

imperial cult An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...

of the

Emperor of Japan The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial House of Japan, Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his positio ...

as a psychological measure: "I think His Majesty needs to recover his glorification. In this matter, I’m sort of right wing; the Emperor of Japan needs to regain his symbolic position as a God. But this is for the sake of a healthy process of

collective consciousness Collective consciousness, collective conscience, or collective conscious (french: conscience collective) is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.''Collins Dictionary of Sociolog ...

, so please don't lump my position in with all the militaristic talk".

Discography

Studio albums

* * *''

Virtual Rabbit ''Virtual Rabbit'' is Susumu Hirasawa's third solo album. Overview ''Virtual Rabbit'' was made in the same style as the previous two albums, although greater in scale, with compositions more in line with Hirasawa's later solo work, and with a lar ...

'' (1991) * ''Aurora'' (1994) *''

Sim City ''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim' ...

'' (1995) *''

Siren Siren or sirens may refer to: Common meanings * Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies * Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology Places * Siren (town), Wisconsin * Siren, Wisc ...

'' (1996) * * *''

'' (2003) * * * * *''

Beacon A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...

'' (2021)

As Kaku P-Model

*'' Vistoron'' (2004) *'' Gipnoza'' (, 2013) *

Soundtracks

* * *''Model House Works'' (assorted

adverts Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

, 1985) *''

Detonator Orgun is a 1991 Japanese original video animation series by AIC and Artmic, directed by Masami Ōbari with character designs by Kia Asamiya (working under his real name, Michitaka Kikuchi). Planning for the series started in 1989, but the animati ...

'' (anime, 1991-1992) *''Glory Wars'' (

light novel A light novel (, Hepburn: ''raito noberu'') is a style of young adult novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students. The term "light novel" is a ''wasei-eigo'', or a Japanese term formed from words in the English languag ...

s, 1993) * *''Lost Legend'' (

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

stage show A theatrical production is any work of theatre, such as a staged play, musical, comedy or drama produced from a written book or script. Theatrical productions also extend to other performance designations such as Dramatic and Nondramatic theatre, a ...

, 1999) * * *

AmigaOS 4 AmigaOS 4 (abbreviated as OS4 or AOS4) is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code developed by Commodore, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner. "T ...

(

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

, 2004) * * * * * * *''

Opus ''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.). Opus or OPUS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...

'' (anime)

Publications

* Landsale – Record Copy Full Score (with Yasumi Tanaka & Katsuhiko Akiyama). Ongaku Shunjū, 1980 *P-Model. I3 Promotion, 1992 * – P-model no kako ha ikaga?. Sankakuyama Tsūshin (independent fan club), 1995 (collection of press clippings & flyers, 1973-1993) * (by Kasiko Takahasi). Chaos Union &

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

Publishing, 1999 (2 volumes & 1 CD-ROM) **P-Model Side – Open Source **Hirasawa Side – **Rev.2.0 (revised & expanded reissue). Fascination & Book-ing, 2005 **Rev.2.4 v2010 (revised & expanded digital reissue). Chaos Union & Fascination, 2010 (available as both a limited pressing of 1000 physical DVD-ROMs and as download) *SP-2 . Chaos Union & Teslakite, 2008 (mix of photography & essays) *. Chaos Union & Fascination (material originally posted on FAMIGA from December 1998 to March 2002), 2012 ;Newsletters *Moire Club. Model House, 1985–1989 (12 volumes) *Hirasawa Bypass. I3 Promotion, 1989–1996 (19 volumes) *Green Nerve. Chaos Union & Teslakite, 1997–present (37 volumes) ;Special releases *Another Papers. Model House & Personal Pulse, 1983 * two 16-page booklets: & . DIW (Disk Union) & SYUN, 1994 *tokyo paranesian. I3 Promotion, 1994 *Sim City Photographs. I3 Promotion, 1995 *Interactive Live Show Vol.5. Hirasawa Bypass (I3 Promotion), 1996 *p-model 1996. Hirasawa Bypass (I3 Promotion), 1996 *Day Scanner of Susumu Hirasawa. Chaos Union & Teslakite, 1997 *. Chaos Union & Marquee, 1997 (2 volumes) *World Cell – History of Interactive Live Show. Chaos Union & Teslakite, 1998 *A Young Person's Guide to Mandrake 1973–1978. Chaos Union & Mecano, 2006 *Live Byakkoya. Chaos Union & Teslakite, 2006

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Bibliography * . * .

External links

*
平沢進　Susumu Hirasawa (P-MODEL)　Official site
(current website)
NO ROOM – The official site of Susumu Hirasawa (P-MODEL)
(semi-deactivated site) * / (defunct personal sites)
Twitter account

Susumu Hirasawa
iTunes Japan page (Universal)
SUSUMU HIRASAWA
iTunes Japan page (Columbia) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirasawa, Susumu 1954 births Ambient musicians Anime composers Inventors of musical instruments Japanese film score composers Japanese guitarists Japanese keyboardists Japanese male composers Japanese male film score composers Japanese male singer-songwriters Japanese singer-songwriters Japanese multi-instrumentalists Japanese music arrangers Japanese record producers Japanese rock musicians Japanese songwriters Japanese synth-pop musicians Japanese techno musicians Japanese trance musicians Living people New-age musicians New wave musicians Nippon Columbia artists Polydor Records artists Post-punk musicians Progressive rock musicians Singers from Tokyo Video game composers Vocaloid musicians World music musicians