Isao Tomita
May 9, 2016 9:45 AM   Subscribe

Isao Tomita, early pioneer of electronic music, has died. In the 1970s, he made several albums of classical pieces played on Moog synthesizers, including Debussy's "Clair de Lune", and "Arabesque no. 1" (which for many years was used as the theme music for the PBS "Stargazer" program). He also recorded a full version of Holst's "The Planets."

("Stargazer" show previously on MeFi)

Some other works:

"The Sea Named Solaris", based on a Bach 3-part Invention, was also featured in Carl Sagan's original "Cosmos" series and soundtrack.

Ravel's "Bolero"
posted by dnash (56 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by parki at 9:46 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by Smibbo at 9:51 AM on May 9, 2016


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posted by Artw at 9:54 AM on May 9, 2016


Tomita's Bermuda Triangle LP on pink vinyl was the first record I bought for myself. I've listened to his records countless times. Some people say that his arrangements of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (originally composed for piano) are better than Ravel's orchestrations.
posted by larrybob at 9:55 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, no!

I discovered Tomita's music through some fashion blog, randomly enough. My idiot boyfriend at the time derisively called it "stoner music," which in hindsight was a perfect "I knew it was over when" moment. I thought his music was absolutely delightful.

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posted by sunset in snow country at 9:56 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


I loved listening to The Planets and Bermuda Triangle (my copy was blue vinyl) as a kid.

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posted by jazon at 9:58 AM on May 9, 2016


Snowflakes Are Dancing was pretty much the soundtrack to the local planetarium in my home town. I was lucky enough to meet him in the early '80s when I was working for RCA. Unfortunately I didn't know any Japanese.

For years I thought the picture on the cover of Snowflakes Are Dancing was Leonard Nimoy.
posted by lagomorphius at 10:05 AM on May 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


Conceptually, this belongs in here.

Exit.
posted by infini at 10:07 AM on May 9, 2016


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posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 10:07 AM on May 9, 2016


Tomita was probably the gateway into electronica for a whole lot of people of my age. Sad to say, I haven't listened to any Tomita in ages.


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posted by Thorzdad at 10:08 AM on May 9, 2016


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posted by grumpybear69 at 10:13 AM on May 9, 2016


Favorite Tomita: The Bermuda Triangle, with two of the best B-sides ever: "The Harp Of The Ancient People With Songs Of Venus And Space Children" and "The Visionary Flight To The 1448 Nebular Group Of The Bootes."
posted by octobersurprise at 10:14 AM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was more of a Vangelis fan than a Tomita fan in terms of their "modern" stuff, so I guess I never realized Tomita had also put out all this classical stuff. I guess I know what my evening's soundtrack will be...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:24 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I am listening to The Planets, and I am struck by how similar it is Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross's arrangement of In The Hall of the Mountain King
posted by rustcrumb at 10:35 AM on May 9, 2016


2-3 years ago my brother pulled out his stash of LPs from way back, and it included my copy of Tomita's Pictures at an Exhibition, which was probably one of my earliest music purchases. Which is probably why I think of his name being TOMITA, not Tomita.

Good-bye and thanks for everything.

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posted by benito.strauss at 10:36 AM on May 9, 2016



posted by Smart Dalek at 10:37 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


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I spent hours as a teenager listening to his works. I really ought to go revisit them.
posted by wanderingmind at 10:37 AM on May 9, 2016


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posted by gusandrews at 10:43 AM on May 9, 2016


After my initial taste of synthesizer madness via W. Carlos' albums, I picked up Tomita's Snowflakes and Pictures albums and played them over and over.

aav.

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posted by the sobsister at 10:46 AM on May 9, 2016


Dammit, I listened the shit out of Tomita when I was a tweener.
And it turns out he's done two different arrangements of "Pictures". There was a poppy non-synthy version he did for Osamu Tezuka's animation in the sixties (I think).
Oh hey, the Internets are telling me he did a boatload of soundtracks for Tezuka. Sweet!
Anyway, I really hate 2016.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 10:48 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


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posted by sleeping bear at 10:50 AM on May 9, 2016


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posted by LobsterMitten at 10:53 AM on May 9, 2016


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I loved Snowflakes, years ago. Will have to spent today listening to his other work.
posted by gold-in-green at 11:10 AM on May 9, 2016


According to Wikipedia, Holst's daughter objected to Tomita's version of The Planets and attempted to stop its release.
posted by sleeping bear at 11:20 AM on May 9, 2016


Tomita was probably the gateway into electronica for a whole lot of people of my age.

My dad's Tomita and Wendy Carlos LP's were my first exposure to electronic music and really molded my taste in music when I was young.

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posted by Dr. Twist at 11:29 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by jabo at 11:35 AM on May 9, 2016



posted by Skygazer at 11:37 AM on May 9, 2016


He is simply a giant! I've got LPs of Planets and Firebird and I'll be wearing them out this week.

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posted by naju at 11:40 AM on May 9, 2016


I also had the Pictures at an Exhibition album.
posted by MtDewd at 11:50 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I actually had all these albums and pretty much had forgotten about them until now! Or rather, my father had them. Maybe not all of them, actually, but five or six of them. I listened to them incessantly when I was young: Pictures at an Exhibition, The Firebird, Daphne et Chloe, Snowflakes are Dancing.

Audiophile stores would use these to demo their equipment, which I think is why my father had them all. So, we had them on 8-Track!
posted by me & my monkey at 11:59 AM on May 9, 2016


The first three albums I remember listening to as a kid were Tomita's The Planets, Glass' Koyaanisqatsi, and Eno's Music for Airports. I was five. My dad made interesting parenting choices.
posted by colossal at 12:08 PM on May 9, 2016 [9 favorites]


I think colossal and I had the same dad.
posted by Dr. Twist at 12:21 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Wendy Carlos was my intro to synth music. (She was still Walter at the time.) Someone brought in a synth to my elementary school music class, and they also played samples from "Switched on Bach" which I then went out and bought.

I'm not sure if I first heard Tomita from the "Cosmos" soundtrack, or possibly something played on a radio show that Kansas City's classical station had on late Saturday evenings, when they broke from standard classical to a mix of things. For sure it was the "Cosmos" soundtrack that really got me more interested in both Tomita and Vangelis.

(It's kind of amazing to think about all the vast equipment those folks needed back then to create their albums, and you can do it all nowadays on a Mac.)

I hadn't heard anything about Tomita in years, I guess I assumed he was already passed. It's great to listen to some of this stuff again.

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posted by dnash at 12:57 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


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Tomita was a singular voice. His sense of tone color was unique among synthesizer programmers. No one's patches sound _anything at all_ like his. I'm not really a fan, as I often find his sounds jarring and his arrangements incongruous, but I am in awe of his accomplishments.

I've listened in depth to Snowflakes and Pictures (one of my earliest record purchases, like benito.strauss above), both of which are fascinating, and recently I listened to "Mars" from The Planets.

He worked wonders with Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk" - his use of filtering to create an unambiguous vocal effect is amazing. I met him once and asked him how he did it. His English was very limited and I knew no Japanese; he held up one hand and moved an imaginary slider back and forth, and held up the other thumb and forefinger to show how he manually limited the slider's range to between endpoints.

I own several of his releases on LP and have been waiting for the right moment to listen to them. I guess the time has come.
posted by Greenie at 1:09 PM on May 9, 2016 [6 favorites]


I think colossal and I had the same dad.

Those all loomed big in my childhood also.
posted by Artw at 1:17 PM on May 9, 2016


(It's kind of amazing to think about all the vast equipment those folks needed back then to create their albums, and you can do it all nowadays on a Mac.)


Well, sort of! He used some of the best sounding and most flexible synths ever made, and you can bet we haven't come close to replicating them in software with anywhere near their original sonic beauty.
posted by naju at 1:26 PM on May 9, 2016


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posted by get off of my cloud at 1:44 PM on May 9, 2016


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My dad's Tomita 8-tracks inspired me to make (electronic) music myself, and were the soundtrack to a lot of flights of imagination. When other people were mourning Bowie and Prince, I thought "I recognize the talent, but never was really into any of their music." But Tomita was my childhood musical hero.


we haven't come close to replicating them in software with anywhere near their original sonic beauty

While I don't want to get into it here (or anywhere anymore), I'll at least note this is a subject of endless debate in some circles. And it assumes that emulation is a worthy goal, rather than new synthesis methods. At any rate, software does a better imitation of analog hardware than the reverse.
posted by Foosnark at 1:52 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Fair! And sorry for the derail. I just love that System 700 and the sounds he was able to coax out of it.
posted by naju at 2:47 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Isao follows right after Carlos in the pantheon of early synth greats. After Carlos, a lot of what followed was quick, cheesey and gimmicky. Not Tomita. Technically - given the limitations of the gear at the time - his imaginative and superbly recorded realizations were astonishing, musical and polished to the nth. The effort! His playfulness and humanity were always evident and charming. No doubt a lot of film professionals heard his work and realized that the doors were open to a new universe of possiblities.

After that struggle to avoid too many superlatives ... What a damn pleasure it has always been, and will always be, to hear his sounds.
posted by Twang at 3:55 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


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posted by treepour at 4:08 PM on May 9, 2016


Back when I first became obsessed with all things synth, as well as with digging in the crates for weird old records, I always picked up his albums when I found them. He was one of a generation of artists who helped to usher synthesizers out of engineering labs and into the vocabulary of modern music.

,~‘ (that's a patch cable)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:47 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was at this show in Battery Park, lower Manhattan, in 1986. Tomita was conducting and playing from inside a pyramid hoisted above the river with a crane, wild fireworks going off in the sky, a laser show, a barge in the middle of the Hudson River with a pianist and full choir, and a helicopter holding massive speaker in place above the river, the whole thing playing out with the Statue of Liberty as a grand backdrop. It was astounding, a free concert sponsored by Casio. I was lucky to be there.

Tomita was one of the true Titans of the synthesizer. 2016 is one absolutely brutal year for music.


posted by dbiedny at 5:53 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


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posted by mubba at 6:55 PM on May 9, 2016


After Maxwell's Silver Hammer touched off my synthlove, I gobbled up all I could find. Carlos and her temper was good and all, but Tomita really resonated. "Snowflakes" and headphones were one of my teen refuges, but my deepest love was for "The Planets".
Arigato Sensei.

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posted by djrock3k at 7:50 PM on May 9, 2016


Loved his version of "Girl with the Flaxen Hair" and "The Engulfed Cathedral". He was a master of the medium. RIP
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posted by Fibognocchi at 7:53 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


I had a single Tomita record when I was about 19 and it helped get me into (listening to and making) electronic music. Great sounds.

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posted by mmoncur at 8:00 PM on May 9, 2016


Oh, no. Tomita was my college soundtrack. I always laughed at the end of "The Ballet Of The Chicks In Their Shelves" from Pictures At An Exhibition, when what I believe to be the mother hen clucking in quiet triumph after defending her chicks from a predatory cat.

Like others here, losing Prince and Bowie and others was an intellectual loss for me ... I recognized their talent without ever being into their music. But Tomita? This one hits me in the feels.

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posted by lhauser at 9:28 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


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posted by R343L at 10:28 PM on May 9, 2016


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posted by No-sword at 3:59 AM on May 10, 2016


I have this on vinyl, sadly with no deck to play it with. Engulfed Cathedral deserves a 7.1 setup with extreme woofer.
posted by arzakh at 6:07 AM on May 10, 2016


Anybody remember Synergy (AKA Larry Fast)?
posted by lagomorphius at 12:11 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Heh, a Facebook friend mentioned Synergy yesterday. I re-listened to Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra but honestly I don't think it holds up as well as Tomita's work.

Also have been re-listening to Jean-Michel Jarre's classic stuff, and finding it kind of a mixed bag. Though I'm still a sucker for Zoolook.
posted by Foosnark at 1:43 PM on May 10, 2016


John Coulthart (Previously) on Tomita Album Covers
posted by larrybob at 6:02 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


That John Coulthart link I just posted hipped me to Tomita's LP that came out before the classical one with synthesizer versions of pop hits Electric Samurai - Switched On Hit & Rock. Full album Youtube link.
posted by larrybob at 6:08 PM on May 10, 2016


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posted by Rash at 11:17 PM on May 10, 2016


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