Album:Water in Time and Space

Water in Time and Space (時空の水) is Susumu Hirasawa's first solo album. It is the first part of a trilogy, with The Ghost in Science being the second, and Virtual Rabbit being the third, that explores reality, religion, science and dreams.

Background
At the end of P-Model's 28 December 1988 show at Shibuya Club Quattro, Susumu Hirasawa announced that the band was "entering cold sleep in preparation for the coming ice age", effectively signalling its disbandment. The decision came following lengthy production battles with One Pattern and Monster that had drained the entire group, which brought Hirasawa to the realization that his approach since 1983 had created unworkable long-term problems. He felt that P-Model had effectively stopped being a band when its only other major creative force, Yasumi Tanaka, left; and that he had only continued it out of misplaced emotional attachment in a period of poor mental health.

While Monster was still in production, Hirasawa maintained several side projects that went beyond the scope of P-Model. On the music side, he made Shun 4 and the first tracks of How About Fuko; both ventures saw him experimenting with new forms of sampling and layering tracks. Elsewhere, he began practicing with the Amiga's computer graphic programs, eventually establishing the private label "Photon" to distribute tapes of his CG work through mail order. His first release, Susumu Hirasawa's CG New Year's Card, served both as a demonstration of his new skill and a confirmation of his then-upcoming solo career.

Following the announcement of P-Model's separation, Hirasawa took to untying his other outlets from the band: On 1 March his management office changed its name from "Model House" to "Octave", and the official fanclub followed suit a month after the album's release, from "Moire Club" to "Hirasawa Bypass". In 4 April, Hirasawa signed a contract with Polydor and started recording the album in their studios, taking only a month to do so. His first solo tour took place one month after finishing the album.

Composition
To prepare for solo work, Hirasawa recorded Mandrake's "Happening by the Windowsill" on his own. The sound he developed was noted as a return to prog sounds and melodies. Before communicating his intention to end P-Model to the other members, Hirasawa was being taken over by his new material throughout mid-late 1988, experiencing a feeling he hadn't had since around the time of making In a Model Room.

In another similarity to the creation of In a Model Room, Hirasawa had an existing cache of material to work with: three-fifths of Water in Time and Space are effectively self-covers of material he wrote during the two-year void of major releases that preceded it. He could not afford to discard three Monster songs ("Coyote", "No Workshop", "Dune") and salvaged them for the album instead. Two songs from independent self-recorded cassette only releases (Scuba's "Frozen Beach" and Charity Original Tape's "Root of Spirit") were also rearranged for the album, with the former being an older piece Hirasawa wanted to do justice to, and the latter being a recent composition that acted as a blueprint for the rest of the tracks' musical style. "Solar Ray" is a reworking of a jingle originally written for a Mizuno commercial.

Water in Time and Space features a large variety of styles, such as march, orchestral, western and folk; influenced by Jungian, new-age and Andean themes. The press release defines the genre as "Isotonic Pop" (アイソトニック・ポップ). The album has no particular total concept, unlike most of Hirasawa's solo output. It is noted for having a high amount of love songs ("Dune", "Frozen Beach", "Venus"), something uncommon in Hirasawa's writing before and after its making.

Free from the constraints of P-Model and the band's nervous energy, Water in Time and Space is comparatively light and brisk. Though created with heavy use of digital devices, it is one of Hirasawa's least electronic-sounding 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. Reflecting a then-recent change in his approach towards that concept, found sounds like bird chirping and coin rolling are used as rhythmic backing, unlike the MIDI guitar percussion solos of One Pattern.

Production
Water in Time and Space heavily features the Korg M1R workstation synthesizer, whose expansive, organic-sounding preset palette completely replaces the digital tones from the Casio synths used by the Nakano era P-Model. Still, some Nakano-era equipment (Hirasawa's trademark Talbo guitars and electronic devices) carried over.

The chief engineer for the album was Yoshiaki Kondo, who had earlier worked on Karkador and One Pattern. This would be the first project where Hirasawa received his long-sought services unaltered, as previous productions were subject to disputes with Alfa over Kondo's fitness for the role and undercover re-engineering. Water in Time and Space has a mechanical lo-fi sound, not entirely dissimilar from One Pattern, which became the characteristic sound for the first solo trilogy. Besides the electronics, Hirasawa also performed with plucked string instruments and, for the first time on a released recording, percussion instruments. The liner notes give him a blanket "all instruments" credit.

Although he played about 90% of the instruments in the album, only two tracks were performed by Hirasawa completely solo; the rest feature a variety of guest performers: session musicians for parts he couldn't play by himself, and friends and actors from underground new wave scene. His collaboration with guests here led to the beginning of his solo backing band. For songs that required choral backing, Hirasawa would get whoever was present in the studio and form an impromptu choir. For one of the songs, Hirasawa had Kondo emulate the way his vocals sound when recorded with the VB-89 portable vocal booth.

Hirasawa described the recording process as "mentally easy but physically hard". Since he had to play nearly every instrument on his album, that meant he had no resting time when working on it. Sessions happened concurrently with those for Maximum Kiss by The Groovers, for which Hirasawa was producer, as well as strings and saxophone arranger. His mind managed to handle the busy workload, but it took a toll on his body, to the point of looking "corpse-like" after a month at it. Despite the concerns of the people around him, Hirasawa kept working without changing his routine.

Visuals
The artwork of Water in Time and Space was made by Kiyoshi Inagaki, who had done some graphic work for P-Model and Shun. The art design of the album established some general design characteristics for Hirasawa's solo albums: Water in Time and Space is Hirasawa's first album where a photo of him (with paint splotches on his face) was used for the cover, with the colors reversed into their negatives; and the symbol on the cover is Hirasawa's autograph, which makes various appearances through his works, being particularly prominent in the early stage of his solo career. The art is themed around water imagery. The photographs in the booklet feature Hirasawa wearing a black suit jacket and a gaudily-patterned ascot popping out between the lapels. For his 1989 shows, Hirasawa replicated this look, with exception of the jacket: his touring one had a large black vertical stripe on the middle, black sleeves, two smaller white stripes running between them, instead of being purely black. The shirt used on the album's cover and the ascot on the inner photos/shows mark the only times Hirasawa has worn florally patterned clothing, a mainstay of his day-to-day wardrobe, for his professional work.

Personnel

 * Susumu Hirasawa - vocals, classical guitar, electric guitar, bass, crumhorn (on "Haldyn Hotel"), timpani, electronic drums, percussion, synthesizers, drum machine, sampler, Ozonotech Computer ("Say" program - Computer Voice on "Dune"), programming, arrangements, production


 * additional performers
 * Minoru Yoshizawa - crumhorn (credited as "Krumme Horn") on "Haldyn Hotel"
 * Akiro Kamio Arishima, Masahiro Furukawa, Hisayuki Makanae - backing vocals on "Haldyn Hotel"
 * Kazuhide Akimoto (also listed under special thanks as "Akimoto-kun"), Michäel Saturnus - backing vocals on "Haldyn Hotel" and "Coyote"
 * Asuka Kaneko's Section - violins, cellos, violas and double basses on "Root of Spirit"
 * Shingo Tomoda - percussion on "Coyote", drums on "Frozen Beach" and "Venus"
 * Kazumi "KERA" 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"
 * Hiroshi Harada - Min'yō Styled Vocal on "Skeleton Coast Park"


 * technical
 * Yoshiaki Kondo (Gok Sound) - recording & mixing engineer
 * Shinichi Tomita, Nobuhiko Matsufuji, Atsushi Hattori (Mix); Masanori Ihara (Gold Rush Studio); Yoshikatsu Takatori (Sound Inn) - second engineers


 * visuals
 * Kiyoshi Inagaki - art direction
 * Mado & Vincent - photography
 * Akemi Tsujitani, Michiko Aoki - styling
 * Kazunori Yoshida - hair & makeup


 * operations
 * Mitsuo Nagano (for Octave) - artist management
 * Mitsuru Hirose - publicity coordination
 * Office Moving - concert coordination
 * Polydor Records.
 * Kazuyoshi Aoki - A&R
 * Osamu Takeuchi - assistant


 * Thanks
 * Yasumasa Mishima, Yumiko Ohno, Masaya Abe, Mezame no Sato, Kei Fukuchi, Kazumi Sawaki, AC Unit, Ice Grey, Nobuyoshi Matsubara, Akira Ito, Aria, Casio, 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 [Fractal Terrain Track]" is the B-Side to the "Bandiria Travellers [Physical 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 [Fractal 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 | 1989-1995 Polydor years of Hirasawa compilation.