“This was the most controversial Tomita album, where he
uses Holst's spectacular, mystical suite The Planets as a launching pad for
what amounts to a simulated spaceship trip through the solar system. Hence the
title The Tomita Planets, which did not deter the Holst estate from trying
(unsuccessfully) to pull this recording off the market at the time. When Tomita
sticks to what Holst wrote, he follows every turn and bend of the score, save
for a big cut in the last part of Jupiter and an eviscerated Uranus that nearly
disappears altogether. Moreover, the music -- especially Venus -- often does
lend itself to an electronic space flight fantasy, with Tomita's arsenal of
phase-shifting, flanging, pitch-bending, envelope following and reversing
choral effects and more on full display. It's the stuff between movements that
provoked the purists -- the campy simulated mission control communications and
electronic blast-off prior to Mars and the "noises" of space flight
scattered throughout (including a nasty asteroid belt between Jupiter and
Saturn). The most questionable idea was that of playing Jupiter's grand central
theme on a tinkly electronic music box as a way to open and close the record --
which some will find satirical, others touching, still others tasteless.
Indeed, Tomita seems to have it in for British pomp; when this theme is played
within the context of Jupiter, he interrupts it with electronic chatter between
mission control and the spaceship. Ultimately, The Tomita Planets is still good
electronic fun, and it launched a series of space-themed concept albums by this
electronic astronaut.”(Ginell, p118.)[1]
Sunday, 3 November 2019
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Introduction
Isao Tomita (with his Moog), in his studio, Tokyo 1976. (Associated Press). Introduction Here we will look...

-
In 1974 Tomita released the album Snowflakes are Dancing which was an electronic styling of Claude Debussy’s impressio...
-
Tomita influenced a lot of artists with his classical emulations, including Sakamoto and even Michael Jackson, who with Tomita experimente...
-
Tomita’s work was used extensively in television and film, his Arabesque No1 was used for the astronomy series Jack Ho...
No comments:
Post a Comment