Isao Tomita interviewed by Resident Advisor
Although it’s never had quite the same reputation as Walter Carlos’ Switched-On Bach, Isao Tomita’s 1974 album Snowflakes Are Dancing had an equally as powerful impact. The record was the result of Tomita’s extensive experiments with the Moog synthesizer, an instrument he went to great pains to bring to his studio in Japan. Similar to Carlos’ classically-inclined album, Tomita interpreted the works of Claude Debussy on Snowflakes. It took him 16 months to complete. It may be hard to grasp the significance of this album in the present day, considering the proliferation of powerful easy-to-use software synthesizers, but it’s not an overstatement to say that the explosion of electronic music that came afterwards was built on top of Tomita’s foundation.
Now 80 years old, Isao Tomita and Hideki Matsutake—Tomita’s pupil and, at one time, a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra—spoke to us about the dawn of electronic music, and where it is headed.
Comments
DATAMASKIN
