The Rotten Brains

Written and Recorded in 1990

A brief instrumental one-chord-jam I wrote - or rather simply recorded - for my personal rendition of Pictures at an Exhibition, a very famous classical work by Modest Mussorgsky. The first attempt I made on playing its main theme Promenade with a rock band goes back to 1986 when I played the guitar part live on stage as a trio called the Band of Umasans. Four years later, when I formed a new trio band called The Rotten Brains, it was a unanimous willingness among us for challenging to play Promenade by only three of us. This further encouraged me to conceive if we could play the entire suite. I thought it would be definitely worth to try and began to arrange the entire suite, originally written for piano, for us to play. During the demo recording of the arranged works, an idea popped up for inserting a brief 'original' material for bridging the end of the entire first half and the beginning of the second half, more precisely; between the end of Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle and Promenade allocated as 'reprise' in a modern term. Because of its bridging function, I called it Intermezzo and since it was meant to be played by the three of us, I dubbed the name of the band as the title of the track.

Unfortunately, the idea of playing the entire suite met a quite reluctance, especially from the bass player, and the band broke up while rehearsing some pieces from my rendition.

Untitled #4

Written in 1992 and 1996 / Recorded in 1996

Basic pieces of this tune were originally written in 1992 for enhancing another tune I wrote months earlier for my band called Elegance. However, the resulted work failed to meet my satisfaction so that I decided not to use the additional pieces whenever the song was played later on. The discarded pieces were later discovered for my personal recording scheme I dubbed as The Soft Core Project and recorded in this way.

False Rain

Written and Recorded in 2001

I was feeling nearly empty in the period when I wrote this thing. Everything made me feel disgusting I felt nothing is real - even simple phenomenon like the falling of rain -  except for some good records by The Who. What I newly wrote was the main delusional chord progression only and all the rest were inspired from one of The Who's live performances of Baby Don’t You Do It from the mid-1970s.

Whenever I come back to listening to this track, I regret that I could be a tiny bit more careful for tuning when I finally added the lead guitar part. Anyway, this was one of the final demo recordings of my own stuff back in the days and it might be a typical irony that what I meant to finalise my entire recording career ended up with such a mess due to my own carelessness.

Untitled #3

Written and Recorded in 1996

Kinda typical thing from mine back in the days. I can’t recall anything about the creation of this instrumental tune except for the fact that I wrote and made this demo for my personal recording scheme I dubbed as The Soft Core Project in 1996. 

Hope for Wedding

Written and Recorded in 1999

First demo recording I made after I was totally liberated from any sense of duty for band or any sort of project but for simply my personal fun purpose in a long time. The first three minute portion was written based on a sketch recording of rough idea I made in the late 1980s, whilst the jam section that follows was written as the recording progressed, which was not recorded in just one go but was rather digitally pieced together what have been recorded bits by bits.

The song section in the beginning is a well-written pop stuff. The continued jam section is designed to express many different aspects of my musical preferences and sources of influence such as Country, Blues, Psychedelic and genuine Rock’N’Roll style. The title was coined from one of my favourite Soft Machine songs – Hope for Happiness – for expressing my bitter sarcasm towards a girl who left my life, in order to destroy my hope for wedding.

You’re My 1988

Written in 1988 / Recorded in 1988 and 1996

I picked up a King Crimson song called I Talked to the Wind to the set list of a live performance scheduled for my band called Flowers’ one day reunion in early November 1988, and rehearsed the song, and some other new materials for the band, for a very brief period. Since the band was a trio, I had to be creative for covering impressive flute and guitar parts in the original as a guitarist of the band. After the reunion thing was done, I wrote a new song based on some ideas I have cultivated from playing the King Crimson thing and added a lyric to dedicate it to someone who acted like a girl of the year in my private life.

The song was later converted to an instrumental tune and the audio track of this tune is mainly taken from that material, except for the guitar solo section in the middle, which is taken from the initial demo recorded in late 1988. 

Sides

Written and Recorded in 2001

The main body of this tune, mainly played by the piano in this demo, was actually based on the idea I wrote and left in the form of rough sketch recording in the late 1980s. Entire arrangement and other additional pieces were all made and written in 2001. With hindsight, the ending piece is irrelevant to proceeding sections and I would like to rather remove it from the final mixing, if any such opportunity was given in the future. The title means almost nothing as always the case for my musical compositions. 

Just a Kiss

Written in 1989 and 1996 / Recorded in 1989, 1996 and 2014

A piece of music I wrote while playing the piano in a bit romantic anxiety at the end of 1989. The initial demo sounded great but was filled with too many voices that easily reminded the strong influence from Todd Rundgren’s Just One Victory.

When it was converted to an instrumental piece, under a new recording scheme in 1996, the arrangement was simplified being requested from the singer of the band then I played with. In the meantime, I newly wrote the strings part that furnishes the guitar solo section in the middle and added it to this second attempt.

For making this video, I combined both demo recordings in order to make the best of them and also added some necessary pieces, which had been omitted from the 1996 work. I know the guitar solo at the ending is too long for entertaining the prospective audience but I just simply wanted to indulge in enjoying the moments I seized once again in a long long time.

Sailing to the Moon – Male House Rock

Written and Recorded in 2001

‘Sailing to the Moon’ was an original tune I wrote in 2001, based on a rough sketch recording of the main chord progression initially made in the late 1980s. I am proud of myself in handling of the initial idea at the composing stage, especially in its complex arrangement, programming of the rhythm machine and professionally balanced mixing of all instruments.

Meanwhile, ‘Male House Rock’ was written as merely a continuous jam section. As its title implies, this was a parody of the Elvis Presley classic, Jailhouse Rock.  

I’d Like to Sing “I Love You”

Written in (1992 and ) 1994 / Recorded in 1996

Initially, this thing was written as a song addressed my then girlfriend. It was not a genuine love song but a sarcastic one and, to be honest, I don’t remember much how I wrote the tune back then. Completed demo recording was first made in 1994, that’s for sure, but later I found a fragmented piece of demo recording of this tune, probably recorded roughly a couple of years earlier. Anyway, neither of these early demos but a revised version I made in 1996 is the one featured in the audio track of this video, with newly captured image of myself miming to the tune in late 2014. I regard this thing as one of my typically well-written pop tunes and hope prospective listeners to just enjoy the music J   

To You

Written and Recorded in 2001

An instrumental tune I wrote mainly to present myself as a lead guitar player in 2001. Nothing more, nothing less, this is such a thing at all. 

Dance Theme

Written in 1993 / Recorded in 1996

This piece of music was first written in 1993, as what was supposed to be the main theme for a conceptual work, which was later abandoned. The concept was to write some variations of this theme track and some went well and others didn’t. The initial demo was made for my band called Culotte for its reference purpose, was slower than what you hear in this video and featured no drum track but the digitally programmed hi-hat part.

For making this video, I compared various available versions including the initial demo mentioned above and its resulted studio recording by Culotte but eventually decided to pick up the latest version I personally made in 1996.

The initial motivation for writing this tune was, to be honest with you, to write something for answering to some inspiration I received from Mariah Carey, especially from her debut single Emotions, which gave me certain new ideas on writing pop materials since I first heard the song aired on radio sometime in mid 1991.    

Dreamin’ #2

Written and Recorded in 1990

An experimental recording of myself playing the guitar improvisation loosely based on a pre-written arpeggio theme. Improvising sequences are also emphasised with digital delay effects including its ‘hold’ function, operated by an attached foot pedal. Since this was more about an experimental performance and recording, the resulted work has never been properly mixed and been forgotten until the time of making this video. Meanwhile, the theme gave a basis for another composition called Winter Love Illusion, soon after this recording, where the arpeggio was played by the piano with additional melodies topped on. 

Sea and the Moon

Written in 1989 / Recorded in 1989, 1996 and 2014

I wrote this tune in 1989 simply to show my personal homage to Don’t Answer Me by The Alan Person’s Project and Be My Baby by the Ronettes and their producer Phil Spector. The audio quality of the initial demo was not good and it had extended experimental piece in its ending.

When the tune was picked up for my personal recording scheme, which I dubbed as The Soft Core Project, in 1996, I tried to redo the tune with its core elements only.

For making this video, I added the sound effect of the wave sound captured in a local beach at that time in the intro and its replay in the middle and a brief piece of the experimental sound from the initial demo at the outro.

U. P. S

Written and Recorded in 1989

A brief but crazy composition I wrote when I was yet young. This was not written to be an amusement for ears, but rather a mathematical experiment resulted in the form of a piece of music. When I brought this to my band – The Intellectual Gnomes - to play, one of the mates revealed his honest account as I explained the theory behind the composition, saying, ‘it’s like a puzzle’.

Except for an unsuccessful attempt to perform live by the band above mentioned, I have never even thought of trying to play it again any longer.

Stay Close to Me

Written and Recorded in 1993

I have little things to talk about this tune. A typical tune I wrote back in the days with little considerations for the quality of the work. If it sounds cool, it only owes to the quality of the performance shared with my band mates. More precisely, I simply don’t like this tune personally.

Clock in a Moonlit Night

Written and Recorded in 1991

An eight-minute-long instrumental tune I wrote in early autumn in 1991, which consists of only a couple of chords. Initially, it was started as an experimental recording of a built-in tone I found in my digital synthesizer, which provides the programmed beat in a fixed rhythm with the tone of Timpani, while you are holding any key. I first recorded this rhythm section in stereo, into my multitrack recorder, and later added some sound effects by making use of various pedals designed for the electric guitar.

Creation of this tune coincided with a voluntary holiday I took for about a couple of weeks from a horrible labour work and I spent one of those days for visiting an art gallery to see an exhibition of Salvador Dali with one of my lady friends at that time. There was also another day I spent for a night out that involved another lady friend during that period and when the holiday came close to its end, I wrote the musical elements of this tune and recorded each instrument on top of the experimental rhythmic tracks. I also wrote lyrics for filling the sequence before the piano solo starts, which was filled with impressions taken from some incidents relating to my lady friends and Dali’s clock themed artworks.

In this video edition, the audio track was remixed from the original master and my voice parts are all carefully removed, so that I could bury my silly words that belong to the long gone past.  

Good Morning

Written in 1990 and 1993 / Recorded in 1993

The bridging piece in the middle, where the repetition of the same brief motif played with raising the key one after another, was originally written as a part of utterly different song called I Want You in early 1990. The song was well written but had a couple of problems; it was too complicated and too long to be a pop tune and the main body of the song was too resemble to Fox on the Run, the world famous pop classic by The Sweet.

All the rest parts of this tune were written in 1993, mainly by making use of the digital sequencer.

Apart from the recording session, the band Culotte rarely played this tune. At least, there is one remaining recording from a rehearsal session, which sounds quite differently from this official version.

Glad You’re Back - part 1 & 2

Written and Recorded in 1992

Rather an experimental tune I wrote in autumn 1992. Part 1 was all about writing simple phrases on the repetition of same chord progression, layer by layer, mostly reflecting influence I received from Brian Eno’s solo materials in his relatively early years. Part 2 was a thing written for improvising solo guitar, which has little – or nothing – in common with the other Part. The title was given being coincided with my personal situation, where I welcomed back my ex after a brief interval in our relationship.

Underworld

Written in 1988 / Recorded in 1996

The main riff of this tune was written while I was playing the bass guitar randomly. The guitar solo section in the middle and the intro were later added and the first demo recording was made at the end of 1988.

Since then, this tune was never played until 1996 when I decided to redo some of my past materials under a new scheme I dubbed as The Soft Core Project. The audio track of this video is taken from the latter version.The title of the track had little to do with the album cover I'm holding in one of the pictures featured in this video, but probably when I started writing the tune based on the bass riff, I was aiming at making some Bolan Boogie-ish thing.

It Goes On

Written and Recorded in 1988

When I first bought the multi-track recorder, in summer 1988, I really had no idea on how to use it at all. I started out with reading its instruction and this short tune was one of the earliest demo recordings I made while I was still learning how to handle the new machine to me, track by track. The basic idea for writing – or rather mostly for recording – this tune was to play something similar to Sultans of Swing, one of my favourite Dire Straits songs, and I planned to spare three tracks for the electric guitar, one for backing and other two for soloing in clean tone and with the distortion effect. While I was programming the rhythm machine, which was also new to me then, I thought it would be interesting to add strange intro that would have nothing in common with the main body of the tune. With exercising my playful mind, I inserted some rhythm patterns programmed in odd meters and the result is what you hear in the audio track of this video.

She’s Gone

Written in 1989 and 1990 / Recorded in 1996 and 1997

This might be one of the catchiest pop tunes I ever wrote but when the tune was originally written, it was meant to be a part of an unfinished Rock Opera for delivering an assigned story. The initial demo recording was made in the summer 1989 for this purpose, which was later destroyed when the Opera scheme was abandoned later in the same year. Then, attempts to rescue most of the musical ideas used in the botched Opera scheme followed and this tune was re-written as an individual pop song with a different lyric titled She’s Gone and recorded in early 1990. At this stage, I changed the arrangement not to feature any guitar instruments; bass part and solo were all played by the synthesizer.

Since then, the song was never played until I set up my personal recording scheme dubbed as The Soft Core Project, in 1996, to secure some of my well-written compositions from the past to be re-recorded in the finest way I could deliver at that time. Though She’s Gone was picked up for the Project, its Phase 1 stage was affected by my involvement to a newly formed band called School in a negative way so that -as far as this tune concerned - I could not provide the notion of ‘the finest’, in terms of its arrangement. After I was fired from School in the following year, I decided to go back to the Project and to upgrade it to the Phase 2 stage, which inevitably led the scheme to its final stage, Phase 3. She’s Gone was involved in both Phases and several demos were made during this period. The audio track of this video consists of, if my memory serves well, a couple of demo versions I made for the Phase 1 and 3. 

A Bouquet

Written and Recorded in 1995

A short instrumental tune I wrote for the unplugged electric guitar(s). The title was not meant for this particular tune but was taken from an unfinished concept for making an album with my band called Culotte. The concept itself was rather a silly thing that is not worthwhile to be mentioned here. By the time I recorded this demo, I remember Culotte was no longer operational and I was not happy about that. The recording method; to capture the sound of the unplugged electric guitar by microphones, was largely inspired by John Lennon’s My Mummy’s Dead. 

Sad News

Written in 1994 / Recorded in 1994 and 1996

One of my simple compositions consists of only a couple of minor chords. The initial demo was made for my band Culotte in 1994 and later re-recorded under my personal recording scheme I dubbed as The Soft Core Project, which featured the programmed rhythm machine. Both recordings were made relatively in rough ways so that I had to pick up best bits from them in order to make this video. Personally, I like the strings part that concludes the thing in the end. In addition, Despite its title seemingly has something significant, it doesn’t have any political nor social implication at all.

Slow Thing

Written and Recorded in 1986

A short instrumental piece of music I wrote for the Band of Umasans, which I formed and played the guitar from late 1986 to early 1987. I don’t remember how and why I wrote this tune except for a couple of following things; I wanted to try out my knowledge on the usage of tensioned chords I had accumulated by then, and I wanted to play something to pay my tribute to the Oldies music of the 1950s including a recent reminder like Sea of Love by The Honeydrippers. The audio track of this video captured the earliest existing recording of this tune, performed live in front of the audience during the Umasans’ very first live act in December 1986.

Slow Thing remained as one of the repertoires for the Umasans, which later renamed to Flowers, until 1988. Occasionally, we played it at a faster tempo and called it Slow Thing Jam. After the break-up of the band, I first made a demo recording of this tune by myself and enriched the accompaniment with adding the piano and backing guitar tracks. These later versions are yet not bad, for making this video I chose the earliest one that captured the very essence of the tune, which should be played as a ‘slow’ thing.

Madly

Written in 1992 and 1997 / Recorded in 1997

The basic idea for writing this thing originally built up in 1992, being inspired a bit from Going Quietly Mad by Al Kooper, one of my favourite songs at that time. Soon after the initial demo recording was done, I changed my mind to discard its chorus and bridge sections to make the thing smoother and called the resulted work A Beautiful Concept.

While I was planning a conceptual work provisionally called Lost Love Story, I had to revisit the said initial demo and decided to rewrite a new thing based on the discarded pieces. However, my personal circumstance at that time didn’t allow me to take the most efficient way, instead, I wrote further additional piece in order to accommodate enough room for new lyrics, where I could express my contemporary emotion. This time, it was musically inspired by The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks, another favourite song coincided with the time of writing this piece. The core elements of A Beautiful Concept are also presented in the guitar solo section due to the conceptual requirement.

For making this video, I have cut off unnecessary repetition in the later part of the audio and removed my voice tracks that delivered the meaningless lyrics, as usual.

(Noises I made) When I was 18 Years Old

Written and Recorded in 1985

The very first recording of my original stuff can be traced back to the summer of 1984, when I was yet a High school student, in a very primitive way by using a couple of cassette recorders. Then I bought a recordable double cassette player, along with additional instruments like a bass guitar and a mini keyboard and continued to record my own materials up to the spring of the following year. 

During the following period, I was so busy that I could not make further demo recordings and by the end of the summer, I decided to destroy all of my past recording materials due to their poor quality.

One autumn day, one of my friends happened to offer me lending his rhythm box for a couple of months so that he could concentrate on studying. When I first saw this so-called rhythm box in his place, I simply thought this must be the item to solve the problem of my personal demo recording, which had been lacking the rhythmic instruments. Within the given period until the end of 1985, I worked hard on writing and recording my own things and a summary of the result is featured in the audio track of this video.

I Can Still…

Written in 1989 / Recorded in 1990 and 1996

This tune was originally written for an unfinished Rock Opera, under a title of One Misty Night in the summer of 1989. Due to the abandoning of the Rock Opera scheme, it was converted an individual pop tune with a newly written lyric called I Can Still… In terms of music, probably I made no modification in these two demo recordings from the early days.

In 1996, the song was picked up through my personal recording scheme; I dubbed as The Soft Core Project and was converted to an instrumental tune. For masking this video, I combined best bits from the early recording of I Can Still… and the one by The Soft Core Project.

If I could go back to the past, I would have taken this tune more seriously and would have tried to play it more often, rather than leaving it untouched for six long years, for it is not only a well-written tune but also it has a nice musical trait that must have suited to me back then.   

Book of Philosophy (Literary Works – part i)

Written in 1991 / Recorded in 1991 and 1994

The original idea for writing this conceptual work divided into three parts came from my personal experience of a day in early November, 1990. In the initial stage, the work was supposed to be divided into four parts and this Part i was assigned to describe some philosophical thoughts I had been dealing with at the time of the creation of this work. Despite all four parts were composed and demo recorded in the first few months of 1991, I soon recognised some failures within the conceptual work as a whole.
When I gave another try for re-organising the entire work three years later, I decided to change the theme and to make it divided into three parts. Though this second attempt didn't go quite well, the new concept coined at that stage contributed to making a series of videos that could showcase the work finally titled Literary Works.

Under the new concept, ‘some philosophical thoughts’ has been simply compiled to a Book of Philosophy, for technically representing this sort of literature, which is not written to be understood easily or for providing fun reading but is written focusing on its contents’ coherency. 

Death Song

Written in 1990 / Recorded in 1990, 1991 and 1998

Death Song was a thing I wrote expressing the outburst of my anger and frustration I held at the time of writing - December 1990. Before the song was recorded in any form, it was played live for filling the stage time as a solo act of me playing the guitar and singing. What surprised me at the most was that the audience’s response was unexpectedly good towards the song, to which I rather had a negative impression and estimation.

A demo recording of the song at home soon followed and in it, I added the sound effect of my voice, modified by the digital delay pedal, and rhythm sections for enhancing its weird atmosphere and (Hard) Rock aspect. The strings part was also added for dramatising the climax sequence.

In the following year, the song was played by my new band called Elegance on some occasions and one of them was recorded. 

Nearly a decade later, I picked up this song to be played again by my personal recording scheme called The Soft Core Project. On this occasion, I invited my friend drummer to a studio for recording his part accompanied with me on the guitar.

The audio track of this video consists of all three recording materials mentioned above.

Guitar Intro

Written in 1992 / Recorded in 1995 and 2011

This short piece of music for solo guitar was actually written as the intro for a song called Give Me a Cat in the early summer of 1992. Before I completed writing the main body of the song, this intro piece was once played live in front of the audience during a show by my band called Elegance. It was the first show for the new line-up of the band and was the last one for the band’s history.

A few years later, while I was organising my past materials, I came across with this tune and re-recorded the entire song with adding a newly programmed digital synthesizer part, which is still audible at the end of this video.

For making this video, I chose to single out the intro piece because the main body of the song is not well written. Alternatively, I played the intro of White Rabbit, one of my favourite Jefferson Airplane songs, in the end of this video because my intro piece is written for a song written in the key of F sharp.

Operetta: The Grand Meeting (from ‘Music for a Story-Telling’)

Written in 1991, 1994 and 1998 / Recorded in 1996 and 1998

Basically, as far as the music concerns, my conceptual work titled Music for a Story-Telling is a collection of re-workings of my past compositions written in 1991; either works I wrote for a band called Elegance, which couldn't exist long enough to perform it, and/or works for a students’ theatrical project called Zone. This long tune is based on various works I wrote for both occasions.

The very idea to write and play a kind of mini Rock Opera like thing captured my mind in the initial stage of the Zone project. By the time I made demo recording of my original tracks for the prospective performance, I knew that the director already gathered enough amount of musician-students to form several bands and one of his key concepts was that the performance was not going to be played in a conventional manner but to be played in plural stages or areas, each of them was provisionally called ‘zone’. The condition given enabled me to set up a scheme of performing a mini Rock Opera – or a Rock Operetta – and at the stage of making demo recordings, I stopped at only writing the main theme for the scheme and called it Operetta Theme, so that I could leave other performers to write their original materials to form the entire structure. Nonetheless, the director simply rejected my idea for the Operetta scheme and the theme was neither used nor performed in the project.

About a year later, when I began to convert some of my lost ideas for the project into my own musical work, I decided to place the very idea of the Rock Operetta at the climax sequence of the entire structure. The original Operetta Theme was made to be used as the same role in the operetta to provide its intro and outro, which is this time designed to contain several other tunes I wrote for the conceptual work in a form of medley. The demo version of The Grand Meeting was initially made to be only provided to my band Culotte, sometime in 1994, which didn’t feature any rhythm part, in order to leave a creative room for the drummer. Nevertheless, the drummer left the band in the following year before we could even rehearse the Operetta, and it was soon followed by breaking up of the band by the end of 1995.

After I was fired from the next band I formed called School in 1997 or 98, I finally gave up forming another band of mine. Instead, I decided to develop a recording scheme I have launched before the forming of School and began to make demo recording under the scheme, I personally called it The Soft Core Project. The audio materials gathered here are all recorded at this stage; either in Phase 1 (pre-School period) and Phase 2 (post-School period). For making this video, I tried to reconstruct the Operetta by putting together several tracks that were made separately.

In the storyline, The Grand Meeting is designed to depict the controversial meeting held by Kelp, the intruder, and his admirers in defiance of the authority. Wella, the convict, condemns the authority regarding the Brainwash punishment and Mikhi, the village girl, performs her initiation of Love (this may lead the whole audience to a grand orgy). The Peasant warns the audience that the soldiers are coming to arrest them all and encourages them to resist and fight. This followed by Imayya, the General Stuff, who confesses his soldiers’ defeat due to the moral corruption caused by the so-called performance of Love (or simply being involved in the massive orgy)... Oh, what a nasty story it is!     

Poesy (Literary Works - Part ii)

 Written and Recorded in 1991

The original idea for writing this conceptual work divided into three parts came from my personal experience of a day in early November, 1990. In the initial stage, the work was supposed to be divided into four parts and this Part ii was assigned to describe a dream I had before I woke up on that day. Despite all four parts were composed and demo recorded in the first few months of 1991, I soon recognised some failures within the conceptual work as a whole.
When I gave another try for re-organising the entire work three years later, I decided to change the theme and to make it divided into three parts. Though this second attempt didn't go quite well, the new concept coined at that stage contributed to making a series of videos that could showcase the work finally titled Literary Works.

Under the new concept, the ‘dream I had before I woke up on that day’ has been converted to represent a literary style of poesy. Before the entire structure was fixed, I played a blueprint version of the entire work on the piano in front of the audience. This means that the core elements of the entire work, including ideas assigned to other parts, was largely written as a piano composition. In that sense, Poesy reminds me of the initial mood I have set for the work as a whole and selection of instruments, deliberately excluding the electric guitar, clearly explains what I was aiming at.  

Diamond Love

Written and Recorded in 1998

I wrote this tune being requested from one of my ex-girlfriends in 1998. It was about a year later since our relationship abruptly ended, and when I heard the request from her, it was a bit of surprise. What she asked me was just to write a new original tune dedicated to her, and duly I made it. The audio track of this video is what I composed for her. In those days, both of us didn’t have any platform for sharing music files and she could only listen to the result of her request played by my stereo through the land line. In addition, it was the last phone call between us.

Ain’t No Mercy Blues

Written and Recorded in 1989

A well written Blues Rock thing I wrote in 1989. I don’t remember much about how and why I wrote this thing but probably I was interested in conducting a recording experiment like this; to overdub three layers of guitar tracks in a relatively simply written stuff. A couple of years later, I wrote a different lyric for this tune to play it with my band called Elegance. The only surviving audio of them performed live is also available on my YouTube channel though it’s not the complete performance but a brief instrumental edition. 

Like a Crow

Written and Recorded in 1997

This tune was written for an unfinished conceptual work I called Lost Love Story. Because of this reason, the guitar solo section in the middle shares the same chord progression with On What Ground?, which has been written for the same purpose. The title of this track came from a remark made by my former band mate, who described his new hair-do as ‘being cut like a crow’. Then, he continued to complain it was his girlfriend, who ordered him to cut his hair neat so that he could be seen as a normal bloke. I have to admit that this silly story partially stimulated me for the idea of the said conceptual work, which was abandoned soon after writing and recording of this demo track.

One More Time

Written in 1992 / Recorded in 1992 and 2011

I admit that I have put too many ideas together into this piece of music. Actually, when I brought this tune to my band to play, I had no hesitation to cut off the programmed piano piece entirely, from both the intro and short before the ending, to make the entire impression much more like a Rock stuff. Maybe I could write another, utterly different piece of music by developing ideas from the piano piece but, ironically, the rest of this piece of music rather emerged from exactly this process of developing. Therefore, in making of this video, I decided to pick up this original version, rather than Rock edition by Culotte, when they played live in 1993 or another demo version I personally made in 1996. The additional guitar part was recorded for this video version, to replace what was originally presented by my voice, which delivered some silly lyrics of begging a girl to have sex with one more time… typical in’it?

Dreamin’ #3

Written and Recorded in 1998

Actually, this piece of music was written and recorded as the closing jam section of my instrumental composition titled Room. At the same time, I found this section separately mixed in a different way, with the string sections more weighed on. When I first re-discovered the latter rough mix, I felt a certain similarity to my earlier attempt called Dreamin, which was written and recorded in 1988. From these reasons, I decided to make a video of this tune separately from its parent tune and call it in this way, taking another earlier attempt in my consideration in terms of numbering. 

Shall We Dance Again?

Written and Recorded in 2001

One of the latest compositions I have ever written, so far. If my memory serves well, this tune hasn’t got any title at the time of writing of it. The concept was quite obvious that I must have wanted to make something fits into the atmosphere of the contemporary music scene in the early 2000s, as a composer whose main instrument was the electric guitar. Though it may sound easily-made, I remember that it took me a huge effort and time to make a programme for the synthesizer by using a relatively primitive model of digital sequencer. Another thing I would like to address over this tune is, even though it may give an impression of some influence from dance music, I can only give a credit to the music of Mike Oldfield, especially his works during the second half of 1990s, as the sole source of influence for making this tune – this is the reason why it features the tone of tubular bells as one of the main melody instruments.  

Room

Written and Recorded in 1998

I could scarcely remember this tune that was rather ‘discovered’ while I was organising a bunch of Mini Discs, which have been left in a plastic bag since I moved out of the ‘room’, where I had lived and made these demos, in mid-2001. There are several reasons why I can’t remember about things happened during the period of the late 1990s and early 2000s; I acknowledge that I had been suffering from mild alcoholism and mental depression, though I have never seen a doctor back then (or even now). This tune was digitally titled as ‘Room (Beautie)’ on the mini-disk. I don’t remember what I supposed to mean in these words but probably, I guess, the latter word in bracket referred to the extended jam section at the end of the track, which I have cut off from this video and issued separately under a title of Dreamin’ #3. In addition, I am also not sure if this recording was conducted under the Soft Core Project scheme or not.

Making of this video coincided with the last days I spent in a room in Cape Town, South Africa. So I took pictures and captured footage of the room while I was living there and picked some of them to be featured in this video. Despite I am not able to remember my original intention, I thought it must be a good opportunity to pay a tribute to a room, where I spent some portion of my lifetime.     

Floating Like a Ghost

Written and Recorded in 1989

The title was taken from a phrase I heard from my friend at that time, who described the way we were in those days as students, in a bit poetic way. The tune was originally written under a conceptual scheme during the summer of 1989 and was converted to an individual tune later in the same year. Despite it's just a pop tune in the typical 1980s style, which doesn’t provide scary atmosphere due to the source of inspiration I got from casual conversation mentioned above, in making this video I thought it would be simply interesting to feature a fake ghost shown on the screen. It took me less than five minutes to cover myself with a sheet and play the role of dancing ghost :D

On What Ground?

Written and Recorded in 1996

A couple of different works I wrote for an abandoned conceptual scheme called Lost Love Story. I even don’t remember what the content of the scheme was, but a thing titled On What Ground?, which is sandwiched in the middle of this video, shares a same motif with Indulgence, another work from the same scheme. The other thing also featured here is titled as Here She Comes that has extra three minutes of recording at the end of the original demo, where it features programmed synthesizers only.

In making this video, I tried to present these demos in a sensible way as possible but I also do not hesitate to simply admit that both works are not written well in the first place. 

Medley - Medley {reprise}

Written in 1989 and 1990 / Recorded in 1990

A demo recording of my original tunes played in a form of the medley. These tunes were originally written for an abandoned conceptual work I attempted to write in the previous year. Since the original scheme for the conceptual work was to deliver a story line, some tunes were written only for the convenience of the scheme, so that I had to pick and choose from some of these things to be re-recorded in a form like this. Of course, these tunes were also written on the extent of potential internal cross-references within the conceptual work and that made it easier for me to reintegrate them in this way.

Written in 1989 and 1990 / Recorded in 1990 and 2015

The Reprise section was made, not for the said conceptual purpose but for reminding the prospective audience of how the entire album began with the source Medley and for introducing a series of closing tracks. In other words, these tunes were converted to the theme tune for a Pop album, which would be packed with other individual pop tunes; the idea borrowed from The Beatles' SGT. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For making the video, I added some new recordings to this Reprise section for better audio experience.

Indulgence

Written and Recorded in 1996

This tune was written as a part of an unfinished conceptual work technically titled Lost Love Story. Unlike my other similar attempts, this one didn’t have well-thought-out plans when I started writing things and the work was soon abandoned, partly because of a sudden change in the circumstance caught me think twice and partly because of poor assessments I made on first few pieces I had written for the concept. The change of circumstance rather urged me to do something different, whilst sticking to the concept demanded me to write and play in old fashioned style, as you can hear on this particular track. When I decided to move on, this tune had nowhere to go but to remain as a remnant of my indulgence into the same old blues. 

Dawning; a new day

Written and Recorded in 1991

Originally, this piece of music was composed to be the Part IV of one of my conceptual works, which had aimed to depict my personal experience of a day in early November 1990. At that stage, Part IV was assigned to present an ideal fictional ending of the depiction to close the entire conceptual work and I personally called it Nocturne, because it should cover the end of that day.

However, when I took another attempt to re-organise the entire work a few years later, I noticed that this Part IV has nothing in common with any other parts so that I had to change the theme of the concept completely. Thie automatically meant that I had to remove Part iv from the conceptual work, which was eventually titled as Literary Works. Because of these reasons, re-working of this piece of music never took place but it was simply renamed to the current title.

Yam Yam de sang Ram

Written and Recorded in 1996

When Culotte - my band I had formed and led for several years - finally broke up, I decided to continue making music basically all by myself. To fill the void of the rhythm section, I attempted not only to depend on using the rhythm machine, but also to play the drums by myself. This tune was one of those attempts and went relatively well. It still accommodated my voice parts, where I sang badly and aimlessly. For making this video, ‘song’ parts are largely removed except for further meaningless mumbling of the song title, which has no meaning at all. It might be worthwhile to mention that by the time of this recording, I have already lost interests in writing lyrics for singing because I felt there has been almost nothing remaining for me to sing about.

Digital Reich

Written in 1994 / Recorded in 1994 and 2011

An experimental composition I wrote in 1994, borrowing some idea(s) from Steve Reich. I don’t remember what the ideas were or where I found them, but when I came across with the ideas, I simply thought it would be interesting to apply such ideas to make a digital programme for the synthesizer, to reconstruct the theory accurately. 

It took probably less than five minutes for me to make the programme, which consists of a couple of tracks playing the exactly same pattern with a different length of rests – or the same melody line written in different length of bars. Both tracks are programmed with an endless loop attached, so once it started it will never end unless someone push the Stop button or stop supplying electric power to the sequencer. The longer it is played, there must be the wider length of the time gap between the melody lines. In theory, these lines must synchronise at the completely same timing, once in 10 minutes or 20 minutes, or even longer interval.

When the initial demo recording was made, I recorded the programmed synthesizer parts for over 20 minutes and could not spot the moment when these lines synchronise once again within that length of time frame. Nevertheless, I felt listening to digital music for 20 minutes a very boring thing, so I decided to write a suitable guitar part to the atmosphere of the composition and placed it in the relatively early phase of the recording. The result is what this video is all about.   

Tongue

Written and Recorded in 1995

One of Prog Rock tunes I wrote in the first half of 1995. The demo recording was made for my band called Culotte and because of this reason, I deliberately didn’t use the rhythm machine as a part of the accompaniment. This tune represents my interest and intention for combining inspirations I gained from Progressive Rock, especially King Crimson, and from Blues Rock, especially Jack Bruce and Cream, with a brief homage to Daevid Allen’s Gong, a French Prog Rock band in the middle section. The original demo also included a lyric that expressed my sexual obsession, which might be still obvious by the title given to the tune. For making this video, I tried to cut off the obscene lyric and, as a result, the rhythmic structure has been modified to more difficult, but also more likely to the original intention of this thing.  

(The Holy) Abandonment

Written and Recorded in 1992

In terms of music, this tune was written based upon the influence of The Doors, especially of their well combined aspects of soulful taste and baroque elements. When it was written, I was reading a book of occultism that weighed on the importance of mental abandonment, which made me write a silly lyric that used to go along with the tune in its initial demo recording. By removing such a silly component, I reckon the tune now sounds quite well. 

Before & After

Written and Recorded in 1988 (Before) / Written in 1988 and 1995, Recorded in 1995 (After)

This is a tricky video that features a couple of my personal demo recordings from different eras. Whilst ‘Before’ stands for a sketch recording of the basic idea of the tune, roughly recorded in circa 1988, ‘After’ stands for a summarised edition of what was later written, based on the very idea in 1995. In my view, whilst the former was still in the realm of influence from the 1980s pop music, the latter reflected my desperate feeling at the time of recording; playing it rough like a Punk Rock thing with using a cigarette lighter to play the slide guitar. The tune was written for my band called Culotte, which had just lost its permanent drummer and in the lyric associated with this tune, I tried to pour out my irritation caused by that situation. In other words, ‘Before’ represents innocent and pure state of the tune, when it was born, while ‘After’ represents the same thing with ill-minded make-ups on, yet it is furnished with more aggressive and vivid tones of guitar sounds, in order to make it a bit more attractive, perhaps.

Ontological Nobodies

Written and Recorded in 1992

Probably one of the finest pop tunes I have ever written despite its’ seemingly odd title. The tune was mainly written by using the guitar except for the piano part, which was written while I was programming it on a digital sequencer. After the demo recording has been done, I thought it must be handy to write down the chord progression I programmed for the piano part on the paper, while I still remember it, but I could not take enough time to do so because I was busy working at an office job at that time. The initial demo also accommodated a lyric I wrote, which reflected my pessimistic views on being an ordinary office worker – the title of the track was a definition, or description I gave for those who I had to deal with due to  my position in those days.

The song was played live by my band Culotte for only once, and the footage I used in this video was actually taken from that performance. However, it went terribly bad and we never played it again since then. 

Bondage – Part One / Part Two

Written and Recorded in 1995

When the original drummer of Culotte left the band in mid-1995, I had to struggle to cope with the difficulties to carry on with ‘business as usual.’ The first few materials I newly wrote since his departure were either directly addressed to him or furnished by past materials that featured him on the drums. Bondage was one of such attempts, which features a sound-check sequence from our past live recording in its intro. Despite the given circumstance, I decided to stick to a principle that when I make any demo material for the band Culotte, I don’t use the rhythm machine in order to give the drummer enough room for his creative imagination.

Writing of this tune coincided with my mental crisis as well. The lyrics, I wrote for this tune, contained a line like following: ‘If DNA and the Akashic Records were compatible…’ Unfortunately, I can’t recall what followed the line.

After the relatively dynamic Part One, it is followed by Part Two, a typical one-chord jam by me at that time. I dared to leave my voice parts in this section because it’s not anything like singing, but a reading of something written in Latin that I have found in a fishy book in those days. Extended piece of Part Two was newly discovered from the original master tape while I was making this video. 

Conversations We Used to Have

Written and Recorded in 1992

A catchy pop tune I wrote in early spring, 1992. It originally had lyrics to go with that reflected the impression I have got through some interesting conversations with a girl in her age of eighteen, to whom I came across in the previous year. The lyrics were too personal and intimate to be revealed even in this form of publication, but this piece of music still reminds me of how influential she used to be at the time when I wrote this thing. Apart from my personal sentiment, I simply reckon that this is just another well written sophisticated pop tune from mine.

Remember Me (Part One)

Written in 1991 and 1993 / Recorded in 1994

Remember Me was originally a song I wrote for piano and voices as the closing track of the soundtrack version of Zone, a students' theatrical project, in the end of 1991. This original recording was technically accompanied by roughly recorded improvisation music played by my fellow students that featured a bass player providing a repetition of mere two notes – G and D – and the acoustic guitar flowing upon it freely. When I thought about remaking my original part of the tune, I simply guessed it would be interesting to rewrite the accompaniment section as well. When the demo recording of the renewal version was made, it was designed to have all the guitar parts to fade out while playing the melody line, as you can hear at the ending of this video, the bass part was to be left continuing to provide the two chords, upon which the piano piece can be later added.

When I brought this demo version to my band called Culotte for recording purpose, the drummer continued to play even after I recognised that enough length of material has been already recorded. So I joined to play the guitar as the jam spontaneously went on, as usual with these guys, and it resulted in to leave an interesting jam piece captured in good audio quality. Playing back the recorded material made me decide to divide the whole thing in two parts and the piano piece in question was assigned to the Part Two. In addition, the guitar into for this Part One is obviously quoted from MC5’s Kick Out the Jams.