Chris Mosdell
Encyclopedia
Chris Mosdell is a British lyricist, poet, author, composer, vocalist and illustrator, based in Tokyo
, Japan, and Boulder, Colorado
, USA.
He has worked with a wide range of Japanese musicians and artists—the documentary Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist bills him as the “Lafcadio Hearn
of Lyrics”—though he is especially known for his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra
and the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa
. His solo album Equasian melded his scientific background into a musical framework, and his Oracles of Distraction, a set of poetic cards set to musical coordinates, further expanded his lyrical idiom.
He has written lyrics for Eric Clapton
, Sarah Brightman
and Boy George
; co-written with Michael Jackson
, worked with the West African kora
player Toumani Diabaté
; the calligraphy artist Juichi Yoshikawa
; and wrote the verse dance drama Amaterasu, The Resurrection of Radiance, that was performed with the City Ballet of London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
(2001).
Mosdell has also released a series of award-winning children's books under the moniker "Mozz," which he also illustrates.
A film about his life titled "Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist", featuring interviews with many of his collaborators and shot in Japan and The United States, was released in 2009.
Mosdell continues to write every morning for 2-3 hours by hand in his favourite coffee shops.
, England and grew up in North Wales but left London for Tokyo in 1976 after completing a B.Sc. (specializing in microbiology) from the University of Nottingham
and withdrawing from a Master Degree in pathology at the University of Exeter
after realizing his scientific leanings were at odds with his poetic interests. Arriving in Japan he became a script-writer for NHK
, numerous radio programs, a reporter for Radio Free Europe
, and a reader of the BBC World Service
radio news. His plays The Sound Seller (1977) and The Star Polisher (1978) were both produced for NHK and his collected television scripts, Laugh Out Loud (Asahi Publishing), were published in 1979—an edition that is still a popular text in Japanese universities today.
In 1977, a series of Mosdell’s poems, published in the Japan Times, came to the attention of Yukihiro Takahashi
, then the drummer for the Sadistic Mika Band
. Takahashi asked to use the poems as the lyrical base for pop singer Rajie, whose album he was producing.
Shortly afterward, Sadistic Mika Band disbanded, and some of the remaining members, including Takahashi, formed Sadistics as a follow-up act. Mosdell wrote the lyrics to the "Crazy Kimono Kids" and "Tokyo Taste" for their Sadistics album (1977).
(YMO), who would go on to major success not only in Japan, but be one of the few Japanese acts to become known overseas as influential innovators in the field of popular electronic music. They helped pioneer synthpop
and ambient house
, helped usher in electronica
, anticipated the beats and sounds of electro music, laid the foundations for contemporary J-pop
, and contributed to the development of house
, techno
, and hip hop
.
Mosdell's best-known YMO songs include "Behind the Mask
", "Solid State Survivor", "Nice Age", "Insomnia", "La Femme Chinoise", and "Citizens of Science", from the albums Yellow Magic Orchestra
(1978), Solid State Survivor
(1979), and ×∞ Multiplies
(1980)—lyrics envisaging a socially inert world, digitized and impersonal, and controlled by a forceful hidden authority within a landscape, essentially Japanese, but tinged with Chinese motifs.
The popularity and international influence of YMO made Mosdell a sought-after lyricist for other Japanese recording artists, as well as continuing as the central lyricist for the Yellow Magic Orchestra live album Public Pressure (1982). During this time Mosdell wrote chart-topping lyrics for other artists, including, among many others, Sandii and the Sunsetz, Sheena & The Rokkets
, and Imitation.
He has said of writing for Japanese acts that ""I usually put one word into the lyrics that is completely unpronounceable; things with an 'l,' an 'r,' a 'th,' a 'v' and a 'b,' just to be a nuisance. There's always one word that gets them. But yes, I was always very conscious that I was writing for someone whose English wasn't native."
Continuing his friendship and collaboration with the songwriters behind YMO, Mosdell also worked with these artists on their solo work, writing the bulk of the lyrics for Yukihiro Takahashi
’s Murdered by the Music solo LP, and the synthpop
club single, “War Head” with Ryuichi Sakamoto
. “War Head”, originally titled “Night Boys Pick Up Some Heat”, was written for the opening of the Roppongi
nightclub exington Queen], but was so favored by Sakamoto that he remixed it, with Mosdell performing vocals for the first time since YMO's “Citizens of Science”, in a rap
-styled lyrical rant.
The breadth of Mosdell's lyrical experimentation during this period led to his first solo recording. This resulted in the 1982 album Equasian, with its use of global ethnic sounds pre-dating the popularity of world music
. It was also the first of Mosdell’s efforts employing his visual lyrical and compositional technique, VISIC, which he used as the compositional basis for numerous other musical works. Equasian was showcased as an audio-visual/multimedia experience through live performances and a VISIC Exhibition at the Gallery Harajuku in Tokyo. For all its experimentation and relative obscurity, the record’s relevance and popularity has continued up through recent times, being reissued as a gate-fold, full-color CD package by Sony
in 2003.
to work with pop singer Boy George
. They worked together on two single cuts (“Fireboy Meets His Match” and “All Prayers are Answered”) for a Japanese shoju television commercial that, although released for a few weeks, was suddenly withdrawn after the singer’s brush with heroin.
In the same city, pop singer Michael Jackson
recorded a cover of YMO's “Behind the Mask” for inclusion on his 1981 Thriller
album. Producer Quincy Jones
had heard the Yellow Magic Orchestra version on a trip to Japan and played it to Jackson, who decided to turn it from an electro-pop song into a dance-funk version, with additional lyrics by Jackson. Mosdell has said of the collaboration, "when Michael Jackson took it, it made it into a love song about a woman. It was a completely different premise to me, I was talking about a very impersonal, socially controlled society, a future technological era, and the mask represented that immobile, unemotional state. But hey, I let him have that one." An agreement to share the royalties equally between Sakamoto, Mosdell and Jackson broke down when the management of Yellow Magic Orchestra disagreed and it prevented the song to be released on Jackson's sixth studio album, Thriller, and remained unreleased for over 25 years.
The Mosdell-Sakamoto-Jackson version was later picked up by Jackson's keyboardist Greg Phillinganes
for his 1984 album Pulse, and by Eric Clapton
, for his August
album, released in 1986.
“Sticky Music”, was another international chart success for Mosdell, performed by Sandii and the Sunsetz, as it rose to Number 3 on the Australian Top 40
pop chart in 1983. His lyrics to date were published in Ink Music: The Collected Lyrics of Chris Mosdell.
His popularity as a Tokyo-based English writer also led him to write for numerous Japanese television commercials, often collaborating with former Sadistic Mika Band
lead vocalist and guitarist Kazuhiko Kato
.
During this time he again teamed up with Yukihiro Takahashi
to write songs for the albums Ego (1988) and Broadcast from Heaven (1990).
In 2003 Sarah Brightman
recorded the song When Firebirds Sing, an operatic opus set in ancient Japan and included on her album Harem
. The song was commissioned for the popular Play Station 2 software Tengai Makyo
III (2004). The lyrics themselves depict the tale of lovers from the Land of Curved Fire and the Sea of Desires, who are symbolized by firebirds, their wings intertwined, that circle immortally in a celestial orbit.
In 2008 Chris teamed up with long-time collaborator Kazuhiko Kato
for a new glam-rock band, Vitamin Q, releasing one album 'Vitamin Q featuring ANZA'. Chris Mosdell opened the show for their debut live performance at Shibuya AX.
The Michael Jackson
version of the song ‘Behind The Mask’ got its official release on December 10, 2010 as the ninth track on the posthumous album, Michael
. It was described by TIME
magazine as "Michael’s finest moment" and by NME
as "something remarkable… an absolute revelation… actually brilliant.”
The song was released as a single on February 21, 2011, with the music video released on June 14. The PV features a collection of hundreds of fan messages singing the track Chris originally wrote with the Yellow Magic Orchestra
.
version. It was eventually published in its entirety in book form in 2001 (Shichosha), together with the work of the experimental calligraphy
artist Joichi Yoshikawa. Its first version, however, was written to reflect the rhythmical influence of the African continent and recorded by the West African kora
player Toumani Diabate
in 1992 for the album "Shake the Whole World to Its Foundations". Mosdell wrote a series of chants (eventually numbering one thousand) based on the oral poetry of the Ainu
whereby, instead of having a fixed lyrical base to a song, he could dip into a pool of “chants” and select those favored for the composition—this eventually leading to infinite lyrical variations within a fixed musical format.
Continuing this method of lyrical composition, Mosdell started the solo project, Squawk: The Song of the Violinnet, though following the financial decline of the Smokey Studios in Ginza
, none of the recorded songs was ever distributed. However the effort did result in Mosdell’s collaboration with the American artists Jore Park and Wylci Fables, who produced enormous "birdhead boys" depicting the characters. Using a painting technique similar to batik
but on waxed Japanese washi paper, vast stained-glass-like art pieces were created—a method that would be used in Mosdell’s next project.
In 1988 Mosdell collaborated with the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa
on a deck of 77 cards in the omikuji
fortune-telling tradition of Shinto
shrines. The Oracles of Distraction, are similar in style to Brian Eno
's Oblique Strategies
; however, rather than being instructional they are intended to distract the reader with juxtaposed images and sound. Mosdell wrote a “distractive” poem for each “oracle” in English, while Tanikawa wrote the reverse side in Japanese. Jore Park and Wylci Fables created accompanying 77 washi-painted panels. Musician Yu Imai then worked alongside other studio performers with Mosdell to create 77 audio sketches utilizing Mosdell’s VISIC compositional method. The efforts were combined into a CD box set of text, audio and visual imagery intended to be used in conjunction. Users were instructed to randomly select a numbered card to read and view, and to simultaneously play the CD track of the same number.
While Mosdell was moving to Paris and commuting to Japan, The Oracles of Distraction was presented at Laforet Museum
in Harajuku
, Tokyo. Sony
developed a sound system enabling visitors to wear wireless headphones and walk under motion-triggered canopies that would beam random selections of audio to the headphones to accompany the text selections highlighted on towering, illuminated paintings by Park and Fables. The museum was designed like a Shinto
shrine, with attendants dressed in traditional regalia, and visitors selected their own personal oracle from among 77 different entrance tickets.
, wearing huge eccentric headdresses, whose voice changed with each new outfit in which she appeared. Gozo wrote that Mosdell’s work was “The Ink of Tokyo––beautiful, beautiful, this spirit, this sea.”
In 1989 Writing the Riot Act in the Illiterate Hour: New and Selected Lyrics (Shichosha) was published––an edition including additional poems from five Japanese poets (Shuntarō Tanikawa
, Yoshimasu Gozo, Kazuko Shiraishi
, Hiromi Ito
and Makoto Oka) who gave their own personal poetic interpretations of Mosdell’s lyrics.
He was also commissioned to write the theme song for the Social Democratic Party of Japan for the 1990 political election, resulting in the single “One World”, an ensemble piece featuring an assortment of vocalists and session musicians.
soundtrack collaborations with the composer Yoko Kanno
. Their partnership resulted in songs for the soundtracks to Ghost in the Shell
, Gundam
, Cowboy Bebop
, RahXephon
, and Wolf's Rain
. Together they also wrote “Dreams in a Pie” for the software game Napple Tale
and worked on songs (“Another Grey Day in the Big Blue World” and "Kingfisher Girl") for Maaya Sakamoto
, a voice actress and singer for anime.
Mosdell again collaborated with the calligraphy
artist Juichi Yoshikawa
, producing a bilingual publication, The Erotic Odes: A Pillow Book. Erotic shunga
woodcut prints were used to illuminate the 48 (the number of sexual positions in traditional Japanese society) haiku
-like poems, as were new creations by Yoshikawa. Shuntarō Tanikawa
, together with Rie Terada, translated the poems and the shunga
themselves were selected from a collection of Tanikawa’s father Tetsuzō Tanikawa
. The full-color edition, originally published by Libroport in 1997, was reissued in 2008 by Seigensha. Yoshikawa and Mosdell further collaborated on the full text printing of Shake the Whole World to Its Foundations.
Continuing to write lyrics for film soundtracks, Mosdell next wrote “From the Ruins of Your Beautiful Body” for the theme song to Marc Rigaudis’ adaptation of his short story, “She Was So Pretty”. The film featured Nana Okumura, former Miss Universe Japan 1998, and dealt with bullying in Japanese schools.
In 2009 Japanese holographic artist Hatsune Miku
released 'Hatsune Miku Orchestra,' featuring covering versions of Chris's songs 'La Femme Chinoise,' 'Behind The Mask' and 'Nice Age.'
in his book Fingerprints of the Gods
. Using the gallery setting once more, the project saw the scaled recreation of Stonehenge
, Machu Picchu
, and the Great Pyramid of Giza
, among many other monuments, within an installation environment. It was underscored by what Art Director Kevin Hamilton
coined “audio poems,” sonically recreating peak events within the timeline such as an Apache Indian reading a bible and amounting to an unusual audio-only project for a lyricist. It was shown in Tokyo and Osaka
, and again paired Mosdell with long-time musical collaborator Yu Imai.
If Tokyo
had been the defining influence on the lyricist's frenetic writing style, his next venture might prove to be its antithesis. In 2000 Mosdell was invited by the Institute of Tagore Studies and Research at Visva-Bharati University
(Santiniketan
, West Bengal
) for a six-month sojourn at India's “Abode of Peace”, established by Rabindranath Tagore
as an experimental school for literature and dance. Mosdell performed and under the spell of the lush and colorful environment wrote a new series of poems based on the 108 names of Krishna
and the tripartite mystical utterance of the Upanisads. Titled Thirty-Three Billion Songs on the Road of Reincarnations: The Santiniketan Sutra (after the number of gods in the Hindu
pantheon), the work is in stark contrast to his Tokyo output, subdued and calm. The book was published by Sahitya Akademi
, India's National Academy of Letters in 2008.
By the next year Mosdell relocated his secondary home from Paris to Boulder, Colorado
, and began a series of spoken word
performances that resulted in his being awarded the Grand Prize for Poetry at the Colorado Festival of Literature, and a distribution deal to compile his lyrical works into a new publication, Splatterhead (Emerson's Eye, 2000). Extending the format of the poetry reading to include live audio/video mixing with visual artist David Fodel and techno DJ E23, Mosdell toured various cities through 2001 with his “tongue-drum delirium” ensemble, Splatterhead & The Oblivion Brotherhood. The trio later released a techno
version of "Shake The World" as a single for the politically-inspired electronic music compilation Polyphonic Voices of Digital Dissent.
Returning to Tokyo, Mosdell was one of a hundred local artists invited to contribute artifacts to the Millennium Time Capsule, an event held at the Laforet Museum
, Harajuku
. Each artist was given a time capsule and asked to place in it representations of their work that best depicted the city of Tokyo at the turn of the 20th century. Mosdell chose his notebooks, with page after page of densely written descriptions of his Eastern odyssey, and a selection of the pens that he had used for numerous lyrical projects including a pen embossed with an alien with which he wrote his Thrills in Voidville series with, and his "nude nib"”, a pen carved in the figure of a woman that he used whilst composing The Erotic Odes.
Mosdell was commissioned to script the theatrical scenario for an updated Anglo-Japanese variation of the ancient Japanese epic, Amaterasu
. Titled The Sun Goddess: The Resurrection of Radiance, the masked dance drama was performed as part of the “Japan Year in Britain” celebration, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from May 26-28, 2001. In collaboration with designer/director Tomio Mohri, choreographer Cathy Marston and the City Ballet of London, taiko
drummer Miyuki Ikeda, model/actress Sayako Yamaguchi, and composer Kazuhiko Kato
(of Sadistic Mika Band
), the play depicts the origins of music and dance. Written in blank verse
with a British cast of Shakespearean actors, it employed techniques from the traditional stage of kabuki
to innovative choreography, and melded into the stage setting other aspects of contemporary media.
By 2006, to coincide with the publication of City of Song, his epic depiction of characters from the twenty-three ku, or wards, of Tokyo, Mosdell had updated his spoken word
performances to include a full mixed-culture ensemble, The Incendiary Orchestra. Featuring koto
composer/performer, Michiyo Yagi
, violinist Edgar Kautzner, tabla player Andy Matzukami, and translator Rie Terada, the live performances were held in various places around Tokyo, and were recorded on video as part of a documentary about Mosdell's artistic history, titled Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist, slated for release in 2009.
The full-length film features interviews with Mosdell, Ryuichi Sakamoto
, Shuntarō Tanikawa
, Yukihiro Takahashi
, Yoko Kanno
, anime singer Maaya Sakamoto
, calligraphy artist Junichi Yoshikawa and others, and debuted at the South by Southwest
movie festival in Austin, Texas
, in March 2009.
as Spike Milligan
-esque.
Three books have been released so far, entirely illustrated and written by Mosdell, "The Pearls of Wisdumb" (2003), "In Search of the Holey Whale" (2008) and "A Fork in the Road" (2010). The three were compiled into a box set called Utter Mozzsense (2010).
All three have won awards. "The Pearls of Wisdumb" won an EVVY Awards for Best Humor, while "A Fork in the Road" was the Winner of the USA Book News "Best Books 2010" Award for Humor. "In Search of the Holey Whale" won Gold Prize Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for Poetry.
Lyricist, Yellow Magic Orchestra
Lyricist, Yukihiro Takahashi
Lyricist, Ryuichi Sakamoto
Lyricist, Sheena & The Rokkets
Lyricist, Maaya Sakamoto
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan, and Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
, USA.
He has worked with a wide range of Japanese musicians and artists—the documentary Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist bills him as the “Lafcadio Hearn
Lafcadio Hearn
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn , known also by the Japanese name , was an international writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things...
of Lyrics”—though he is especially known for his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
and the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa
Shuntaro Tanikawa
is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
. His solo album Equasian melded his scientific background into a musical framework, and his Oracles of Distraction, a set of poetic cards set to musical coordinates, further expanded his lyrical idiom.
He has written lyrics for Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...
and Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
; co-written with Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
, worked with the West African kora
Kora (instrument)
The kora is a 21-string bridge-harp used extensively in West Africa.-Description:A kora is built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator, and has a notched bridge. It does not fit well into any one category of western instruments and would have to be...
player Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté is a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he has also been involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles.-Biography:...
; the calligraphy artist Juichi Yoshikawa
Juichi Yoshikawa
is a Japanese calligraphist, or sho artist, who studied calligraphy formally under Inamura Undo, and later with Ueda Sokiu. Yoshikawa's avant garde trademark "three and a half dimensions" style applies observation as the additional dimension...
; and wrote the verse dance drama Amaterasu, The Resurrection of Radiance, that was performed with the City Ballet of London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
(2001).
Mosdell has also released a series of award-winning children's books under the moniker "Mozz," which he also illustrates.
A film about his life titled "Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist", featuring interviews with many of his collaborators and shot in Japan and The United States, was released in 2009.
Mosdell continues to write every morning for 2-3 hours by hand in his favourite coffee shops.
Early lyrical life
Mosdell was born in GainsboroughGainsborough, Lincolnshire
Gainsborough is a town 15 miles north-west of Lincoln on the River Trent within the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. At one time it served as an important port with trade downstream to Hull, and was the most inland in England, being more than 55 miles from the North...
, England and grew up in North Wales but left London for Tokyo in 1976 after completing a B.Sc. (specializing in microbiology) from the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
and withdrawing from a Master Degree in pathology at the University of Exeter
University of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university in South West England. It belongs to the 1994 Group, an association of 19 of the United Kingdom's smaller research-intensive universities....
after realizing his scientific leanings were at odds with his poetic interests. Arriving in Japan he became a script-writer for NHK
NHK
NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....
, numerous radio programs, a reporter for Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
, and a reader of the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
radio news. His plays The Sound Seller (1977) and The Star Polisher (1978) were both produced for NHK and his collected television scripts, Laugh Out Loud (Asahi Publishing), were published in 1979—an edition that is still a popular text in Japanese universities today.
In 1977, a series of Mosdell’s poems, published in the Japan Times, came to the attention of Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.-Biography:...
, then the drummer for the Sadistic Mika Band
Sadistic Mika Band
was a Japanese rock group formed in 1972. Its name is a parody of the "Plastic Ono Band". Produced by Masatoshi Hashiba on Toshiba-EMI Records , the band was led by the then husband and wife team of guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, and his wife, singer Mika Fukui...
. Takahashi asked to use the poems as the lyrical base for pop singer Rajie, whose album he was producing.
Shortly afterward, Sadistic Mika Band disbanded, and some of the remaining members, including Takahashi, formed Sadistics as a follow-up act. Mosdell wrote the lyrics to the "Crazy Kimono Kids" and "Tokyo Taste" for their Sadistics album (1977).
Mainstream success
Takahashi continued to be a prime collaborator for Mosdell, inviting him to participate as the lyricist in his next musical endeavor, Yellow Magic OrchestraYellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
(YMO), who would go on to major success not only in Japan, but be one of the few Japanese acts to become known overseas as influential innovators in the field of popular electronic music. They helped pioneer synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
and ambient house
Ambient house
Ambient house, a music genre that first emerged in the late 1980s, is a sub-genre of house music, combining elements of acid house and ambient music...
, helped usher in electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
, anticipated the beats and sounds of electro music, laid the foundations for contemporary J-pop
J-pop
, an abbreviation for Japanese pop, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in 1960s music, such as The Beatles, and replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene...
, and contributed to the development of house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
.
Mosdell's best-known YMO songs include "Behind the Mask
Behind the Mask
- Film :* Behind the Mask , a film featuring Boris Karloff* Behind the Mask , a film starring Michael Redgrave* Behind the Mask , a documentary film about the Irish Republican Army...
", "Solid State Survivor", "Nice Age", "Insomnia", "La Femme Chinoise", and "Citizens of Science", from the albums Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
(1978), Solid State Survivor
Solid State Survivor
Solid State Survivor was the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Solid State Survivor was never released in the United States, but many of the songs from this album were compiled for release in the States as the US pressing of ×∞Multiplies ,...
(1979), and ×∞ Multiplies
Multiplies (album)
-US version:Some pressings included "Tighten Up" as the opening track for Side A.-European version:On this pressing, the first "Snakeman Show" is actually "Jingle 'YMO'", while the second "Snakeman Show" is the "Japan is #1" skit from the Japanese pressing....
(1980)—lyrics envisaging a socially inert world, digitized and impersonal, and controlled by a forceful hidden authority within a landscape, essentially Japanese, but tinged with Chinese motifs.
The popularity and international influence of YMO made Mosdell a sought-after lyricist for other Japanese recording artists, as well as continuing as the central lyricist for the Yellow Magic Orchestra live album Public Pressure (1982). During this time Mosdell wrote chart-topping lyrics for other artists, including, among many others, Sandii and the Sunsetz, Sheena & The Rokkets
Sheena & The Rokkets
are a Japanese guitar rock band. They are one of the Mentai Rock artists who were popular in the late 1970s. Their single Lemon Tea is widely covered in Japan, by, for example, Mad Soldiers, the Red Pepper Girls and Hitomi.- Singles :#涙のハイウェイ...
, and Imitation.
He has said of writing for Japanese acts that ""I usually put one word into the lyrics that is completely unpronounceable; things with an 'l,' an 'r,' a 'th,' a 'v' and a 'b,' just to be a nuisance. There's always one word that gets them. But yes, I was always very conscious that I was writing for someone whose English wasn't native."
Continuing his friendship and collaboration with the songwriters behind YMO, Mosdell also worked with these artists on their solo work, writing the bulk of the lyrics for Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.-Biography:...
’s Murdered by the Music solo LP, and the synthpop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
club single, “War Head” with Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
. “War Head”, originally titled “Night Boys Pick Up Some Heat”, was written for the opening of the Roppongi
Roppongi
is a district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan, famous as home to the rich Roppongi Hills area and an active night club scene. Many foreign embassies are located in Roppongi, and the night life is popular with locals and foreigners alike...
nightclub exington Queen], but was so favored by Sakamoto that he remixed it, with Mosdell performing vocals for the first time since YMO's “Citizens of Science”, in a rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
-styled lyrical rant.
The breadth of Mosdell's lyrical experimentation during this period led to his first solo recording. This resulted in the 1982 album Equasian, with its use of global ethnic sounds pre-dating the popularity of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
. It was also the first of Mosdell’s efforts employing his visual lyrical and compositional technique, VISIC, which he used as the compositional basis for numerous other musical works. Equasian was showcased as an audio-visual/multimedia experience through live performances and a VISIC Exhibition at the Gallery Harajuku in Tokyo. For all its experimentation and relative obscurity, the record’s relevance and popularity has continued up through recent times, being reissued as a gate-fold, full-color CD package by Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
in 2003.
International collaborations
During a period of increasing international collaborations, Mosdell traveled to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to work with pop singer Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
. They worked together on two single cuts (“Fireboy Meets His Match” and “All Prayers are Answered”) for a Japanese shoju television commercial that, although released for a few weeks, was suddenly withdrawn after the singer’s brush with heroin.
In the same city, pop singer Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
recorded a cover of YMO's “Behind the Mask” for inclusion on his 1981 Thriller
Thriller (album)
Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall...
album. Producer Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
had heard the Yellow Magic Orchestra version on a trip to Japan and played it to Jackson, who decided to turn it from an electro-pop song into a dance-funk version, with additional lyrics by Jackson. Mosdell has said of the collaboration, "when Michael Jackson took it, it made it into a love song about a woman. It was a completely different premise to me, I was talking about a very impersonal, socially controlled society, a future technological era, and the mask represented that immobile, unemotional state. But hey, I let him have that one." An agreement to share the royalties equally between Sakamoto, Mosdell and Jackson broke down when the management of Yellow Magic Orchestra disagreed and it prevented the song to be released on Jackson's sixth studio album, Thriller, and remained unreleased for over 25 years.
The Mosdell-Sakamoto-Jackson version was later picked up by Jackson's keyboardist Greg Phillinganes
Greg Phillinganes
Greg Phillinganes is an active session keyboardist in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of Cass Technical High School, Detroit Michigan....
for his 1984 album Pulse, and by Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, for his August
August (album)
August is an album by blues rocker Eric Clapton, released in 1986. Primarily produced byPhil Collins, in association with longtime Clapton associate Tom Dowd, it became Clapton's biggest-selling LP to date....
album, released in 1986.
“Sticky Music”, was another international chart success for Mosdell, performed by Sandii and the Sunsetz, as it rose to Number 3 on the Australian Top 40
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
pop chart in 1983. His lyrics to date were published in Ink Music: The Collected Lyrics of Chris Mosdell.
His popularity as a Tokyo-based English writer also led him to write for numerous Japanese television commercials, often collaborating with former Sadistic Mika Band
Sadistic Mika Band
was a Japanese rock group formed in 1972. Its name is a parody of the "Plastic Ono Band". Produced by Masatoshi Hashiba on Toshiba-EMI Records , the band was led by the then husband and wife team of guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, and his wife, singer Mika Fukui...
lead vocalist and guitarist Kazuhiko Kato
Kazuhiko Kato (musician)
, nicknamed , was a Japanese record producer, songwriter, and singer. He sometimes used the spelling of "Kazuhiko Katoh".As a member of the Folk Crusaders, Kato launched his recording career in the mid 1960s...
.
During this time he again teamed up with Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.-Biography:...
to write songs for the albums Ego (1988) and Broadcast from Heaven (1990).
In 2003 Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman
Sarah Brightman is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer. She is famous for possessing a vocal range of over 3 octaves and singing in the whistle register...
recorded the song When Firebirds Sing, an operatic opus set in ancient Japan and included on her album Harem
Harem (album)
Harem is a 2003 album by English singer Sarah Brightman. It mixes her operatic voice with Middle-Eastern and Indian rhythms and vocals. Thanks to an idea of Frank Peterson, the producer of this album, in the song "Mysterious Days", they included the vocals of the late singer Ofra Haza, who worked...
. The song was commissioned for the popular Play Station 2 software Tengai Makyo
Tengai Makyō
is a widely popular series of traditional console RPGs that are available in Japan and Taiwan.Though originally intended to be only three games, it has grown to encompass a number of remakes, gaidens and genre spin-offs across a variety of platforms...
III (2004). The lyrics themselves depict the tale of lovers from the Land of Curved Fire and the Sea of Desires, who are symbolized by firebirds, their wings intertwined, that circle immortally in a celestial orbit.
In 2008 Chris teamed up with long-time collaborator Kazuhiko Kato
Kazuhiko Kato
Kazuhiko Kato is the name of:* Monkey Punch , manga artist and creator of Lupin III* Kazuhiko Kato , record producer and member of Sadistic Mika Band...
for a new glam-rock band, Vitamin Q, releasing one album 'Vitamin Q featuring ANZA'. Chris Mosdell opened the show for their debut live performance at Shibuya AX.
The Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
version of the song ‘Behind The Mask’ got its official release on December 10, 2010 as the ninth track on the posthumous album, Michael
Michael (album)
Michael is a posthumous album of previously unreleased tracks by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released from December 10, 2010 - January 14, 2011 by Epic Records and Sony Music Entertainment and features guest performances by Akon, 50 Cent, Lenny Kravitz and Dave Grohl...
. It was described by TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine as "Michael’s finest moment" and by NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
as "something remarkable… an absolute revelation… actually brilliant.”
The song was released as a single on February 21, 2011, with the music video released on June 14. The PV features a collection of hundreds of fan messages singing the track Chris originally wrote with the Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
.
Alternative lyrical landscapes
Mosdell words were used in alternative forms when he wrote the lyrics to Shake the Whole World to Its Foundations, a work that has evolved from a mixed Japanese-Western orchestral setting to an electronic technoTechno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
version. It was eventually published in its entirety in book form in 2001 (Shichosha), together with the work of the experimental calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
artist Joichi Yoshikawa. Its first version, however, was written to reflect the rhythmical influence of the African continent and recorded by the West African kora
Kora (instrument)
The kora is a 21-string bridge-harp used extensively in West Africa.-Description:A kora is built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator, and has a notched bridge. It does not fit well into any one category of western instruments and would have to be...
player Toumani Diabate
Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté is a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he has also been involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles.-Biography:...
in 1992 for the album "Shake the Whole World to Its Foundations". Mosdell wrote a series of chants (eventually numbering one thousand) based on the oral poetry of the Ainu
Ainu people
The , also called Aynu, Aino , and in historical texts Ezo , are indigenous people or groups in Japan and Russia. Historically they spoke the Ainu language and related varieties and lived in Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin...
whereby, instead of having a fixed lyrical base to a song, he could dip into a pool of “chants” and select those favored for the composition—this eventually leading to infinite lyrical variations within a fixed musical format.
Continuing this method of lyrical composition, Mosdell started the solo project, Squawk: The Song of the Violinnet, though following the financial decline of the Smokey Studios in Ginza
Ginza
is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi.It is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses. Ginza is recognized as one of the most...
, none of the recorded songs was ever distributed. However the effort did result in Mosdell’s collaboration with the American artists Jore Park and Wylci Fables, who produced enormous "birdhead boys" depicting the characters. Using a painting technique similar to batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
but on waxed Japanese washi paper, vast stained-glass-like art pieces were created—a method that would be used in Mosdell’s next project.
In 1988 Mosdell collaborated with the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa
Shuntaro Tanikawa
is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
on a deck of 77 cards in the omikuji
Omikuji
Omikuji are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. Literally "sacred lot", these are usually received by making a small offering and randomly choosing one from a box, hoping for the resulting fortune to be good...
fortune-telling tradition of Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
shrines. The Oracles of Distraction, are similar in style to Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
's Oblique Strategies
Oblique Strategies
Oblique Strategies is a set of published cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt first published in 1975, and is now in its fifth, open ended, edition...
; however, rather than being instructional they are intended to distract the reader with juxtaposed images and sound. Mosdell wrote a “distractive” poem for each “oracle” in English, while Tanikawa wrote the reverse side in Japanese. Jore Park and Wylci Fables created accompanying 77 washi-painted panels. Musician Yu Imai then worked alongside other studio performers with Mosdell to create 77 audio sketches utilizing Mosdell’s VISIC compositional method. The efforts were combined into a CD box set of text, audio and visual imagery intended to be used in conjunction. Users were instructed to randomly select a numbered card to read and view, and to simultaneously play the CD track of the same number.
While Mosdell was moving to Paris and commuting to Japan, The Oracles of Distraction was presented at Laforet Museum
Laforet
Department Store and Museum is a department store and museum located in the Harajuku commercial and entertainment district of the Shibuya neighborhood, in Tokyo, Japan, on one of Harajuku's most famous intersections....
in Harajuku
Harajuku
Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan....
, Tokyo. Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
developed a sound system enabling visitors to wear wireless headphones and walk under motion-triggered canopies that would beam random selections of audio to the headphones to accompany the text selections highlighted on towering, illuminated paintings by Park and Fables. The museum was designed like a Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
shrine, with attendants dressed in traditional regalia, and visitors selected their own personal oracle from among 77 different entrance tickets.
The Ink of Tokyo
In 1988 Mosdell’s LAA . . . The Dangerous Opera Begins was published (Soseisha)—a narrative poem in seven acts with a theatrical structure. Influenced by the Japanese poet Yoshimasu Gozo and his technique of writing whilst walking, Mosdell envisaged a spectacular prima donnaPrima donna
Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...
, wearing huge eccentric headdresses, whose voice changed with each new outfit in which she appeared. Gozo wrote that Mosdell’s work was “The Ink of Tokyo––beautiful, beautiful, this spirit, this sea.”
In 1989 Writing the Riot Act in the Illiterate Hour: New and Selected Lyrics (Shichosha) was published––an edition including additional poems from five Japanese poets (Shuntarō Tanikawa
Shuntaro Tanikawa
is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Yoshimasu Gozo, Kazuko Shiraishi
Kazuko Shiraishi
Kazuko Shiraishi is a Japanese poet and translator who was born in Vancouver, Canada. She is a modernist, outsider poet who got her start in Katsue Kitazono's VOU poetry group, which led Shiraishi to publish her first book of poems in 1951. She soon became involved in jazz performance and beat...
, Hiromi Ito
Hiromi Itō
is one of the most prominent women writers of contemporary Japan, with more than a dozen collections of poetry, several works of prose, numerous books of essays, and several major literary prizes to her name...
and Makoto Oka) who gave their own personal poetic interpretations of Mosdell’s lyrics.
He was also commissioned to write the theme song for the Social Democratic Party of Japan for the 1990 political election, resulting in the single “One World”, an ensemble piece featuring an assortment of vocalists and session musicians.
Anime and visual interpretations
In the early 1990s Mosdell began animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
soundtrack collaborations with the composer Yoko Kanno
Yoko Kanno
is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...
. Their partnership resulted in songs for the soundtracks to Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell
is a Japanese multimedia franchise composed of manga, animated films, anime series, video games and novels. It focuses on the activities of the counter-terrorist organization Public Security Section 9 in a futuristic, cyberpunk Japan ....
, Gundam
Gundam
The is a metaseries of anime created by Sunrise studios that features giant robots called "Mobile Suits" ; usually the protagonist's MS will carry the name Gundam....
, Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop
is a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...
, RahXephon
RahXephon
is a Japanese anime series about 17-year-old Ayato Kamina, his ability to control a godlike mecha known as the RahXephon, and his inner journey to find a place in the world...
, and Wolf's Rain
Wolf's Rain
is an anime series created by writer and story editor Keiko Nobumoto and produced by Bones Studio. The series was directed by Tensai Okamura and featured character designs by Toshihiro Kawamoto with a soundtrack produced and arranged by Yoko Kanno. It focuses on the journey of four lone wolves...
. Together they also wrote “Dreams in a Pie” for the software game Napple Tale
Napple Tale
, more commonly called simply Napple Tale, is a 2.5D platform game for the Dreamcast, released on October 18, 2000 in Japan. It is notable in that the development team consisted entirely of women.-Story:...
and worked on songs (“Another Grey Day in the Big Blue World” and "Kingfisher Girl") for Maaya Sakamoto
Maaya Sakamoto
is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actress, and voice actress. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime series Little Twins, but is more well known for her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in the hit anime series The Vision of Escaflowne...
, a voice actress and singer for anime.
Mosdell again collaborated with the calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
artist Juichi Yoshikawa
Juichi Yoshikawa
is a Japanese calligraphist, or sho artist, who studied calligraphy formally under Inamura Undo, and later with Ueda Sokiu. Yoshikawa's avant garde trademark "three and a half dimensions" style applies observation as the additional dimension...
, producing a bilingual publication, The Erotic Odes: A Pillow Book. Erotic shunga
Shunga
' is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement...
woodcut prints were used to illuminate the 48 (the number of sexual positions in traditional Japanese society) haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
-like poems, as were new creations by Yoshikawa. Shuntarō Tanikawa
Shuntaro Tanikawa
is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, together with Rie Terada, translated the poems and the shunga
Shunga
' is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement...
themselves were selected from a collection of Tanikawa’s father Tetsuzō Tanikawa
Tetsuzo Tanikawa
was a Japanese philosopher who promoted the concept of World Government for purposes of peace.Tanikawa introduced philosophical ideas in Japan through his translations of Georg Simmel and Immanuel Kant. His major philosophical influence was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
. The full-color edition, originally published by Libroport in 1997, was reissued in 2008 by Seigensha. Yoshikawa and Mosdell further collaborated on the full text printing of Shake the Whole World to Its Foundations.
Continuing to write lyrics for film soundtracks, Mosdell next wrote “From the Ruins of Your Beautiful Body” for the theme song to Marc Rigaudis’ adaptation of his short story, “She Was So Pretty”. The film featured Nana Okumura, former Miss Universe Japan 1998, and dealt with bullying in Japanese schools.
In 2009 Japanese holographic artist Hatsune Miku
Hatsune Miku
is a singing synthesizer application with a female persona, developed by Crypton Future Media. It uses Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 synthesizing technology. The name of the character comes from a fusion of the Japanese for , and future , referring to her position as the first of Crypton's...
released 'Hatsune Miku Orchestra,' featuring covering versions of Chris's songs 'La Femme Chinoise,' 'Behind The Mask' and 'Nice Age.'
Installation and live performance
In 1999 Mosdell was asked by producer Shozo Tsurumoto to convey through sound the prehistorical view set forth by Graham HancockGraham Hancock
Graham Hancock is a British writer and journalist. Hancock specialises in unconventional theories involving ancient civilizations, stone monuments or megaliths, altered states of consciousness, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past...
in his book Fingerprints of the Gods
Fingerprints of the Gods
Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization is a book first published in 1995 by Graham Hancock, in which he echoes nineteenth century writer Ignatius Donnelly, author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World , in contending that some previously enigmatic ancient but...
. Using the gallery setting once more, the project saw the scaled recreation of Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
, Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for...
, and the Great Pyramid of Giza
Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...
, among many other monuments, within an installation environment. It was underscored by what Art Director Kevin Hamilton
Kevin Hamilton
Kevin Hamilton is a current Canadian diplomat, and is Chargé d’affaires at the Office of the Canadian Embassy to Lithuania.Concurrently, he is non-resident Deputy Head of Mission for the Canadian Embassy to Estonia; and non-resident Deputy Head of Mission for the Canadian Embassy to Latvia.Prior to...
coined “audio poems,” sonically recreating peak events within the timeline such as an Apache Indian reading a bible and amounting to an unusual audio-only project for a lyricist. It was shown in Tokyo and Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, and again paired Mosdell with long-time musical collaborator Yu Imai.
If Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
had been the defining influence on the lyricist's frenetic writing style, his next venture might prove to be its antithesis. In 2000 Mosdell was invited by the Institute of Tagore Studies and Research at Visva-Bharati University
Visva-Bharati University
Visva Bharati University is a Central University for research and teaching in India, located in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India...
(Santiniketan
Santiniketan
Santiniketan is a small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, approximately 180 kilometres north of Kolkata . It was made famous by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town that attracts thousands of visitors each year...
, West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
) for a six-month sojourn at India's “Abode of Peace”, established by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
as an experimental school for literature and dance. Mosdell performed and under the spell of the lush and colorful environment wrote a new series of poems based on the 108 names of Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...
and the tripartite mystical utterance of the Upanisads. Titled Thirty-Three Billion Songs on the Road of Reincarnations: The Santiniketan Sutra (after the number of gods in the Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
pantheon), the work is in stark contrast to his Tokyo output, subdued and calm. The book was published by Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
, India's National Academy of Letters in 2008.
By the next year Mosdell relocated his secondary home from Paris to Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
, and began a series of spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
performances that resulted in his being awarded the Grand Prize for Poetry at the Colorado Festival of Literature, and a distribution deal to compile his lyrical works into a new publication, Splatterhead (Emerson's Eye, 2000). Extending the format of the poetry reading to include live audio/video mixing with visual artist David Fodel and techno DJ E23, Mosdell toured various cities through 2001 with his “tongue-drum delirium” ensemble, Splatterhead & The Oblivion Brotherhood. The trio later released a techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
version of "Shake The World" as a single for the politically-inspired electronic music compilation Polyphonic Voices of Digital Dissent.
Returning to Tokyo, Mosdell was one of a hundred local artists invited to contribute artifacts to the Millennium Time Capsule, an event held at the Laforet Museum
Laforet
Department Store and Museum is a department store and museum located in the Harajuku commercial and entertainment district of the Shibuya neighborhood, in Tokyo, Japan, on one of Harajuku's most famous intersections....
, Harajuku
Harajuku
Harajuku is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan....
. Each artist was given a time capsule and asked to place in it representations of their work that best depicted the city of Tokyo at the turn of the 20th century. Mosdell chose his notebooks, with page after page of densely written descriptions of his Eastern odyssey, and a selection of the pens that he had used for numerous lyrical projects including a pen embossed with an alien with which he wrote his Thrills in Voidville series with, and his "nude nib"”, a pen carved in the figure of a woman that he used whilst composing The Erotic Odes.
Mosdell was commissioned to script the theatrical scenario for an updated Anglo-Japanese variation of the ancient Japanese epic, Amaterasu
Amaterasu
, or is apart of the Japanese myth cycle and also a major deity of the Shinto religion. She is the goddess of the sun, but also of the universe. the name Amaterasu derived from Amateru meaning "shining in heaven." The meaning of her whole name, Amaterasu-ōmikami, is "the great August kami who...
. Titled The Sun Goddess: The Resurrection of Radiance, the masked dance drama was performed as part of the “Japan Year in Britain” celebration, at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from May 26-28, 2001. In collaboration with designer/director Tomio Mohri, choreographer Cathy Marston and the City Ballet of London, taiko
Taiko
means "drum" in Japanese . Outside Japan, the word is often used to refer to any of the various Japanese drums and to the relatively recent art-form of ensemble taiko drumming...
drummer Miyuki Ikeda, model/actress Sayako Yamaguchi, and composer Kazuhiko Kato
Kazuhiko Kato (musician)
, nicknamed , was a Japanese record producer, songwriter, and singer. He sometimes used the spelling of "Kazuhiko Katoh".As a member of the Folk Crusaders, Kato launched his recording career in the mid 1960s...
(of Sadistic Mika Band
Sadistic Mika Band
was a Japanese rock group formed in 1972. Its name is a parody of the "Plastic Ono Band". Produced by Masatoshi Hashiba on Toshiba-EMI Records , the band was led by the then husband and wife team of guitarist Kazuhiko Kato, and his wife, singer Mika Fukui...
), the play depicts the origins of music and dance. Written in blank verse
Blank verse
Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the sixteenth century" and Paul Fussell has claimed that "about three-quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse."The first...
with a British cast of Shakespearean actors, it employed techniques from the traditional stage of kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
to innovative choreography, and melded into the stage setting other aspects of contemporary media.
By 2006, to coincide with the publication of City of Song, his epic depiction of characters from the twenty-three ku, or wards, of Tokyo, Mosdell had updated his spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
performances to include a full mixed-culture ensemble, The Incendiary Orchestra. Featuring koto
Koto (musical instrument)
The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese guzheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about length, and made from kiri wood...
composer/performer, Michiyo Yagi
Michiyo Yagi
, a Japanese musician, studied koto under the late Tadao Sawai, Kazue Sawai and Satomi Kurauchi, and graduated from the NHK Professional Training School for Traditional Musicians. Between 1989 and 1990 she was a visiting professor of Music at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, U.S.A...
, violinist Edgar Kautzner, tabla player Andy Matzukami, and translator Rie Terada, the live performances were held in various places around Tokyo, and were recorded on video as part of a documentary about Mosdell's artistic history, titled Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist, slated for release in 2009.
Ink Music: The Movie
A film about Chris Mosdell's life, titled "Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist" was released in 2009. It was produced by Denver's Brian Comerford, a volunteer producer at KGNU radio who has been running the Electronic Air show since 1995. Comerford said of the production, "He's worked with the who's who of all these major names in Japanese pop culture, from the music scene to calligraphy artists to fashion designers to stage directors to the largest broadcasting company... everyone in Japan knows his work, and yet no one there knows who he is."The full-length film features interviews with Mosdell, Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
, Shuntarō Tanikawa
Shuntaro Tanikawa
is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi
Yukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.-Biography:...
, Yoko Kanno
Yoko Kanno
is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements...
, anime singer Maaya Sakamoto
Maaya Sakamoto
is a Japanese singer-songwriter, actress, and voice actress. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime series Little Twins, but is more well known for her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in the hit anime series The Vision of Escaflowne...
, calligraphy artist Junichi Yoshikawa and others, and debuted at the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
movie festival in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, in March 2009.
Children's poetry books: Mozz
Under the nickname "Mozz," Chris has produced a series of three books under Goofy Guru Publishing, based in Boulder, Colorado. Mosdell has described the books as his "alter ego, to balance out his heavy, abstract, psychedelic and often obscure poetry." The books have been described by The Japan TimesThe Japan Times
The Japan Times is an English language newspaper published in Japan. Unlike its competitors, the Daily Yomiuri and the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, it is not affiliated with a Japanese language media organization...
as Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
-esque.
Three books have been released so far, entirely illustrated and written by Mosdell, "The Pearls of Wisdumb" (2003), "In Search of the Holey Whale" (2008) and "A Fork in the Road" (2010). The three were compiled into a box set called Utter Mozzsense (2010).
All three have won awards. "The Pearls of Wisdumb" won an EVVY Awards for Best Humor, while "A Fork in the Road" was the Winner of the USA Book News "Best Books 2010" Award for Humor. "In Search of the Holey Whale" won Gold Prize Winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award for Poetry.
Lyricist, Yellow Magic OrchestraYellow Magic OrchestraSakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...
- "Behind the Mask" (Solid State SurvivorSolid State SurvivorSolid State Survivor was the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Solid State Survivor was never released in the United States, but many of the songs from this album were compiled for release in the States as the US pressing of ×∞Multiplies ,...
, 1979) - "Citizens of Science" (×∞ Multiplies, 1980)
- "Insomnia" (Solid State SurvivorSolid State SurvivorSolid State Survivor was the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Solid State Survivor was never released in the United States, but many of the songs from this album were compiled for release in the States as the US pressing of ×∞Multiplies ,...
, 1979) - "La Femme Chinoise" (Yellow Magic Orchestra, 1978; Public Pressure, 1980; After ServiceAfter ServiceAfter Service is the second live album by Yellow Magic Orchestra, directly following their final studio album, Service. The album features David Palmer on additional drums. A film version was released alongside the album...
, 1981) - "Nice Age" (×∞ Multiplies, 1980)
- "Radio Junk" (Public Pressure, 1980)
- "Solid State Survivor" (Solid State SurvivorSolid State SurvivorSolid State Survivor was the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Solid State Survivor was never released in the United States, but many of the songs from this album were compiled for release in the States as the US pressing of ×∞Multiplies ,...
, 1979)
Lyricist, Yukihiro TakahashiYukihiro TakahashiYukihiro Takahashi is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.-Biography:...
- "Blue Colour Worker" (Murdered By The Music, 1980)
- "The Core of Eden" (Murdered By The Music, 1980)
- "Murdered by the Music" (Murdered By The Music, 1980)
- "Radioactivist" (Murdered By The Music, 1980)
- "School of Thought" (Murdered By The Music, 1980)
- "Drip Dry Eyes" (NeuromanticNeuromantic (album)Neuromantic is Yukihiro Takahashi's self-produced 1981 album and featured his YMO colleagues Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto on keyboards. Tony Mansfield and Phil Manzanera also played on the album.The title of William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer" is inspired by this album's title.-Track...
, 1981) - "Erotic" (EgoEgo (album)Ego is the seventh studio album by the German band Oomph!.-Track listing:# Ego - 4:19# Supernova - 3:59# Willst Du Frei Sein? - 3:54# Drop The Lie - 3:45# Bitter - 4:17# Transformation - 4:02# Atem - 3.58...
, 1988) - "Yes" (EgoEgo (album)Ego is the seventh studio album by the German band Oomph!.-Track listing:# Ego - 4:19# Supernova - 3:59# Willst Du Frei Sein? - 3:54# Drop The Lie - 3:45# Bitter - 4:17# Transformation - 4:02# Atem - 3.58...
, 1988) - "Forever Bursting Into Flame" (Broadcast From Heaven, 1990)
- "The Sensual Object Dance" (Broadcast From Heaven, 1990)
- "360 Degrees" (Broadcast From Heaven, 1990)
Lyricist, Ryuichi SakamotoRyuichi SakamotoAfter working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
- "Behind the Mask" (Behind the Mask, 1980)
- "Lexington Queen" [a.k.a. "Night Boys Pick Up Some Heat"] (The Arrangement, 1981)
- "War Head" (Field Work - Ryuichi Sakamoto Collection: 1981-1987, 1987)
Lyricist, Sandii and the Sunsetz
- "Idol Era" (Eating Pleasure, 1980)
- "Zoot Kook" (Eating Pleasure, 1980)
- "Bongazuna" (Heat Scale, 1981)
- "The Eve of Adam" (Heat Scale, 1981)
- "Heat Scale" (Heat Scale, 1981)
- "Dreams of Immigrants" (Immigrants, 1982)
- "Sticky Music" (Sticky Music 7", 1983)
- "Drip Dry Eyes" (Viva Lava Liva, 1984)
Lyricist, Sheena & The RokketsSheena & The Rokketsare a Japanese guitar rock band. They are one of the Mentai Rock artists who were popular in the late 1970s. Their single Lemon Tea is widely covered in Japan, by, for example, Mad Soldiers, the Red Pepper Girls and Hitomi.- Singles :#涙のハイウェイ...
- "Stiff Lips" (Sheena & The RokketsSheena & The Rokketsare a Japanese guitar rock band. They are one of the Mentai Rock artists who were popular in the late 1970s. Their single Lemon Tea is widely covered in Japan, by, for example, Mad Soldiers, the Red Pepper Girls and Hitomi.- Singles :#涙のハイウェイ...
, 1979) - "Radio Junk" (Synkuu Pack, 1979)
- "Dead Guitar" (Channel Good, 1980)
- "Japanic" (Japanik, 2008)
- "Planet Guitar" (Japanik, 2008)
Lyricist, Maaya SakamotoMaaya Sakamotois a Japanese singer-songwriter, actress, and voice actress. She made her debut as a voice actress in 1992 as the voice of Chifuru in the anime series Little Twins, but is more well known for her role as Hitomi Kanzaki in the hit anime series The Vision of Escaflowne...
- "The Garden of Everything" (Single Collection+ Nikopachi, 2003)
- "Another Grey Day in the Big Blue World" (Easy ListeningEasy Listening (album)-Charts:...
, 2001) - "Kingfisher Girl" (Shōnen Alice, 2003)
- "Tell Me What The Rain Knows" (Wolf's Rain OSTWolf's Rainis an anime series created by writer and story editor Keiko Nobumoto and produced by Bones Studio. The series was directed by Tensai Okamura and featured character designs by Toshihiro Kawamoto with a soundtrack produced and arranged by Yoko Kanno. It focuses on the journey of four lone wolves...
, 2004)
Solo
- Equasian (1982 Alfa / 2003 Sony)
- The Oracles of Distraction (1988 Midi Records)
- Fingerprints of the Gods (2002 Consipio)
Vocalist
- "Citizens of Science" (YMO, Multiplies)
- "War Head" (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Solo Works)
- "Shake the World" (Splatterhead & The Oblivion Brotherhood, Polyphonic Voices Of Digital Dissent)
Film score lyrics
- "Butterfly" (Cowboy BebopCowboy Bebopis a critically acclaimed and award-winning 1998 Japanese anime series directed by Shinichirō Watanabe, written by Keiko Nobumoto, and produced by Sunrise. Its 26 episodes comprise a complete storyline: set in 2071, the series follows the adventures, misadventures and tragedies of five bounty...
: Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Future Blues), 2001) - "Beauty Is Within Us" (Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone ComplexGhost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complexis an anime television series produced by Production I.G and based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell. It was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, with original character design by Hajime Shimomura and a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno...
O.S.T., 2003) - "Run, Wolf Warrior, Run" (Wolf's RainWolf's Rainis an anime series created by writer and story editor Keiko Nobumoto and produced by Bones Studio. The series was directed by Tensai Okamura and featured character designs by Toshihiro Kawamoto with a soundtrack produced and arranged by Yoko Kanno. It focuses on the journey of four lone wolves...
, 2004) - "Walking Through the Empty Age" (TexhnolyzeTexhnolyzeis a Japanese animated television series directed by Hiroshi Hamasaki, from a screenplay by Chiaki Konaka, and produced by Yasuyuki Ueda, with original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe....
: Man of Men, 2004) - "The End of All You'll Know" (Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone ComplexGhost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complexis an anime television series produced by Production I.G and based on Masamune Shirow's manga Ghost in the Shell. It was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, with original character design by Hajime Shimomura and a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno...
O.S.T. 3, 2005) - "Ringo Biyori: The Wolf Whistling Song" (Spice and WolfSpice and Wolfis a Japanese light novel series written by Isuna Hasekura, with illustrations by Jū Ayakura. ASCII Media Works published 17 novels between February 2006 and July 2011 under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. ASCII Media Works reported that as of October 2008, over 2.2 million copies of the first nine...
, 2008)
Selected publications
- Laugh Out Loud (Asahi Publishing, 1979)
- Ink Music: The Collected Lyrics of Chris Mosdell (Ink Music Inc., 1985)
- LAA . . . The Dangerous Opera Begins (Soseisha, 1988)
- Writing the Riot Act in the Illiterate Hour: New and Selected Lyrics with Shuntarō TanikawaShuntaro Tanikawais a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, Yoshimasu Gozo, Kazuko ShiraishiKazuko ShiraishiKazuko Shiraishi is a Japanese poet and translator who was born in Vancouver, Canada. She is a modernist, outsider poet who got her start in Katsue Kitazono's VOU poetry group, which led Shiraishi to publish her first book of poems in 1951. She soon became involved in jazz performance and beat...
, Hiromi ItoHiromi Itōis one of the most prominent women writers of contemporary Japan, with more than a dozen collections of poetry, several works of prose, numerous books of essays, and several major literary prizes to her name...
and Makoto Oka (Shichosha, 1989) - The Oracles of Distraction with Shuntarō TanikawaShuntaro Tanikawais a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
(Seidosha, 1991) - Shake the Whole World To Its Foundations with Juichi YoshikawaJuichi Yoshikawais a Japanese calligraphist, or sho artist, who studied calligraphy formally under Inamura Undo, and later with Ueda Sokiu. Yoshikawa's avant garde trademark "three and a half dimensions" style applies observation as the additional dimension...
(calligraphy), and Rie Terada (translator) (Shichosha Publishing, 2001) - Splatterhead: The Songlines of Chris Mosdell (Emerson's Eye, 2001)
- City of Song: The Incendiary Arias (Edokko Editions, 2006)
- Thirty-Three Billion Songs on the Road of Reincarnations: The Santiniketan Sutra (Sahitya Akademi, 2008)
- The Erotic Odes: A Pillow Book with Juichi YoshikawaJuichi Yoshikawais a Japanese calligraphist, or sho artist, who studied calligraphy formally under Inamura Undo, and later with Ueda Sokiu. Yoshikawa's avant garde trademark "three and a half dimensions" style applies observation as the additional dimension...
(calligraphy), and Shuntarō TanikawaShuntaro Tanikawais a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature...
and Rie Terada (translators) (Seigensha, 2008)
Awards
- Gold Prize for Lyrics, Tokyo Music FestivalTokyo Music FestivalThe Tokyo Music Festival was an international music contest that ran from 1972 to 1991. It was organised by the Tokyo Music Festival Association...
, for "Wild Dreams" by Pia ZadoraPia ZadoraPia Zadora is an American actress and singer. After working as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians , she came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the highly criticized Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe...
, 1984 - The Yuki Hayashi-Newkirk Poetry Prize, 1987
- Grand Prize for Poetry, Colorado Festival of Literature, 2000
- EVVY Children's Book Award for Humor, 2004
- Gold Prize Winner of the Moonbeam Children's Book Award for Poetry, 2008
- Winner of the USA Book News "Best Books 2010" Award for Humor