The Sun Sets On A Maestro

I read some sad news on the Internet today. One of my musical heroes has just died.

But I bet there won't be the publicity that David Bowie and Prince received when they passed on; even though this particular musician is just as important with his compositions and influence on electronic music.

I don't know how many people have heard of the Japanese synth player Isao Tomita, and his reworking of various classical pieces of music? I don't think he is as famous as Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre are, although he certainly should be.

I first came across him in the late 1970s, when one of my brothers put the Snowflakes Are Dancing album on the turntable. I've always liked synth music, but Tomita's renditions of the tunes were something else. Easily recognisable, but with a space tinge to them. He amusingly called his many synths, his Plasma Orchestra.

Although you may not know his name, you would undoubtedly have come across his music in films and TV programmes. The most well known would be Carl Sagan's Cosmos from the 1980s.

There was a great sunset tonight. Something no doubt Tomita would have enjoyed seeing and may have given him inspiration for another piece of music.

I have many of his albums, but they aren't that easy to come by. So I thought I would share a piece of his music, to demonstrate how great he was, sat among all his Moogs etc.

Art Of Decay

Back in March I met Italian artist Roberto Alborghetti at Barton's when he launched his Ghost Bus film, which used lots of close up photos of the decaying coach set to music.

He recently put up a new film that used photos he took of some cracked and decayed blue and white tiles on the Amalfi Coast, which looked like the sea and land on a map.

So I got thinking as to whether I could make one myself, with my limited talent and computer skills. I also wondered what I could use for a subject matter. An obvious choice was our wooden garage doors that have seen better days, with peeling paint and a bit of rot.

So I took some photos, fiddled with them in Lightroom and created a short, 40 second film in iMovie.  I also added some music from Kitaro and uploaded it to YouTube.

Here's the link to the video, so you can see for yourselves. Enjoy.