''Solar Ray'' (stylized and subtitled as ''SOLAR RAY Hirasawa best recycling album Recycled by P-MODEL kernel'') is a 2001 remix album by

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. ...

. It is the centerpiece of "Hirasawa Energy Works", a project to produce music in an ecologically friendly way.

Overview

In 2000, Hirasawa switched from a

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

-powered car to a

hybrid electric A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an Electric motor, electric propulsion system (hybrid vehicle drivetrain). The presence of the electric powertr ...

, developing an interest in sustainable energy, specifically in the idea of using solar power to make music. He purchased two 120-watt

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, outfitted his home studio to be powered by them, and connected two car batteries to store additional energy, which combined allowed Hirasawa to work for 12 hours. To further optimize the work hours and prepare for bad weather days, only equipment necessary for work was ever kept on. The studio was illuminated by less than 30 small low wattage blue LEDs. Hirasawa's workdays ended when there was no more energy remaining. In total, less than 7 kg of

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

were emitted during the making of the album. ''Solar Ray'' features remixes of songs from previous albums in the energetic

technopop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

style of Hirasawa's former 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 ...

Track listing

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 ...

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, Sampler,

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 ...

Laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

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 ...

, 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 ...

*Sadatoshi Tainaka -

Drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

(sampled) on "AURORA 2" *Miss N. & Wisakha Fraytes - Vocals (sampled) on "Sim City 2" *Tuan Chin Kuan - Vocals (sampled) on "World Turbine" *Masanori Chinzei -

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

References

External links

Music Samples from SOLAR RAY

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* * * {{Authority control Susumu Hirasawa albums Japanese-language albums 2001 remix albums Self-released albums