Jupiter Moon

Written and Recorded in 1992

The audio track of this video consists of a couple of different demos I made in similar time in 1992. Both had the synthesizer part played mechanically through the digital sequencer but had different themes; the earlier take had the lyrics on Jupiter and its metaphoric aspect in a certain mysticism, whilst the later take had the lyrics on the Moon and its metaphoric aspect in relation with women's periodical elements. I discerned and concluded that both lyrics had some issues for general public's casual listening and duly decided to remove from the final mix for the video.
In the musical aspect, 99% of this tune simply owes to one of the best-known songs by The Steve Miller Band; Joker.

A New Way

Written and Recorded in 1987

An instrumental piece I wrote for jamming with my band called Flowers in autumn 1987. In those days, I was into the music of Jimi Hendrix, especially in his later years' works, and I hope this piece could reflect such source of influence. Personally, Jamming this tune was more about practicing the soloing on the guitar for me, as a result, I admit this take contains too long such soloing and improvising with a narrow extent of creativity. Unfortunately, this was the sole take we recorded as a band playing A New Way.

The piece was later converted to be a part of my long composition titled Life of My Own in the following year.

Middle of the Night

Written in 1983 / Recorded in 2015

The very first song I ever wrote back in 1983, when I was 16 years old. By that time, all the guitar chord I knew was A, E, D and D minor and all of them was used for this simple stuff. Musically, I can sense the direct influence of Have You Seen the Rain by the Creedence Clearwater Revival. As for the lyrics, I picked up some words from John Lennon's Oh Yoko to sing along but they never settled.
The writing of this tune was too early to be properly demo recorded so that I made the first such recording in 1989. For making this video, I decided to make a new version from scratch and the initial process - the rhythm guitar part - was filmed for the resulted work.

Unfinished, Deliberately...

Written in 1991 / Recorded in 1991 and 2015

This was more about a tryout of a recording method I came across in a Syd Barrett album, Madcap Laughs, in which, every recording process began with capturing Syd's rhythm guitar and vocal parts, then all other accompaniments - including even the drums - were later overdubbed. I even tried to reconstruct the atmosphere of the album by featuring unnecessary guitar noise in the intro and a fake correspondence with the recording engineer in the end. I tried to play the rhythm guitar occasionally out of the rhythm in order to make accompaniment parts harder to play, deliberately.

For making the video, I tried to remove my voice part and replace it with the newly added lead guitar part. However, since the microphone used for capturing the original rhythm guitar part also captured my voice part, I could not perfectly remove it from the final mix. In addition, due to a mechanical problem occurred during the video making, I had to struggle to make the new guitar part synchronise with all the rest. In this sense, the song is yet in its unfinished stage whether or not it is deliberately...

Me & My Cat

Written in 1989 / Recorded in 1990

This was initially written for an unfinished conceptual work that had nothing to do with any cat in summer 1989. Around a half year later, I decided to pick up some well-written tunes from the failed work and convert them into individual, no-concept-binding compositions. In this way, this tune was newly associated with my personal love and adoration towards cats in general - though the strange lyrics have been removed from the final mix for the video.
The arrangement that features the flute part was largely inspired by one of my favourite Al Kooper songs called  Peacock Lady.

Pass

Written in 1989 / Recorded in 1989 and 2015

A catchy Rock'N'Pop tune I wrote in 1989. Except for the guitar solo, taken from its initial demo and embedded in the middle, I remade the demo recording of the entire tune. The original idea was a song about a light of love, who comes and goes like passing notes but in the new recording, I removed such meaningless lyrics and simplified the title in this way. If I could have an opportunity one day, this is one of my past materials I would like to play the most.

Feeling

Written and Recorded in 1988

This instrumental piece was directly influenced by a composition written by Lee Ritenour that I watched on TV. The programme featured a recorded live show edited into about 60 minutes or so and one of the tunes caught my attention. Unfortunately, I don't recall the title of the track but I am sure that most elements I put into this tune are largely stolen from that piece by Ritenour.
It coincided with a period when I began to be influenced by different kinds of music, especially people around me who were into so-called 'Latin Music', therefore, it was a natural tendency for me to try something like this, at least for once. It also marked my potential beginning for becoming a multi-instrumentalist - on top of the guitars, here I played solos on the bass guitar and the keyboard as well.

Vulnerable

Written in 1995 / Recorded in 1995 and 2015

One of my creations that I am proud of. This was written during a period when I was personally suffering from a mental crisis. I don't want to talk about it much so I would rather just mention of the elements that made me write this thing; breaking up of some relationships between I and those who had been close to me, a girl who took the advantage of my vulnerable situation for her business purpose, and a social crisis and anxiety in the background.

See You

Written and Recorded in 1988

This piece was actually written as the closing section of another separate tune called Feeling. However, since these tunes had nothing in common, I decided to treat them as different compositions and converted this closing piece as a corresponding track for another experimental recording I made in the same year that I called Welcome.
The idea of speeding up the pitch was inspired from the ending of Cirkus album by King Crimson.

Psychedelia

Written in 1995 / Recorded in 1995 and 2015

A song I wrote under the influence of Paper Sun by Traffic, And You Tried So Hard by Gong and That's It for the Other One by The Grateful Dead while I was suffering from bad flu in early 1995.

For making this video, I added the rhythm tracks and removed some pieces for making the entire work shorter and better. Due to the incompatibilities between the 8 track recorder used for the original recording and a 4 track player used for digitalising the material, the bass guitar is not synchronised with a slight delay. Therefore, I hope the listeners to 'get stoned' so that you could adjust the delay in sound within your brain due to the effect of some substances or, at least, you could feel comfortable for the delay :D

The intro section was occasionally featured when I played improvisation, live with my band called Culotte back then.

Nite Nite Blues

Written in 1986 and 2015 / Recorded in 1986, 1988 and 2015

The initial demo was recorded in 1986, which was a mere attempt on practicing the arrangement of four parts of instruments - three strings parts + electric guitar - in the form of 12-bar blues.
The rhythm part was later added when I first acquired the rhythm machine in 1988.
For making the video, I further added the melody line for the lead guitar, played it and finalised the composition in 2015. The outro is a remnant from the initial demo where I improvised by the keyboard layer by layer.

Requiem

Written and Recorded in 1995

My personal homage to King Crimson, to their creations including one of their compositions that shares the same title with this.

Lady Lullaby

Written and Recorded in 1987

One of my original compositions from my early years. This thing was written for my then band Flowers and performed live by them for only once in summer 1987, which is what is featured on the audio track of the video. At the time of writing, the band had another member who played the keyboard so that I could expand the range of my knowledge on chord progression I have acquired by then into this new creation. However, the keyboard player suddenly left the band in the last minute run up to the scheduled live show and I had to convert the tune to be played by the band left as a trio.
This change of the line-ups caused a disastrous mistake that occurred during the second half of my guitar solo section. Needless to say, I have cut off that disastrous piece but as a result, I could make the entire tune shorter and more comfortable for casual listening.
The title of the tune was taken from a line from one of my favourite songs back then - Crazy Fingers by the Grateful Dead - though musically, both had nothing to do with each other...

Surfin'

Written and Recorded in 1995

This tune was all about mixing a couple of different musical ideas popped up in my head separately. I made this demo recording simply because I wanted to know how it would sound if these twos are played together - the brief piano motif in the intro and main chord progression with the riff that follows the intro. Since the impression of the first half, which is played faster and lighter, reminded me of some Surf Rock stuff, I coined the title. Nevertheless, the core element of this composition rather lies in the second half, where the experiment of 'playing together the twos' occurs with a bit slower and heavier playing style, which could be described as Garage Psychedelic :D

The pictures used in this video have nothing to do with the composition, except me, the composer, is captured enjoying surfin' nearly a couple of decades later from the writing of the tune.

Pajappa

Written and Recorded in 2001

The rhythm machine programme was recycled from the ending section of my other composition called Sides. Probably, I wanted to indulge in the mood of the uplifting rhythm for a bit more when I finished recording the said composition. In this recycled one, I simply gathered my favourite musical bits such as the intro from Promenade, the main theme of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, the famous chord progression shared by Sex Pistols (Anarchy in the UK) and The Doors (Love Street), guitar phrases from typical Rock'N'Roll style to the use of an exotic scale and so on...

The entire framework of the tune, which consists of a mere repetition of very simple elements, was definitely inspired from the title track of a Brian Eno album, Here Come the Warm Jets.

I didn't mean it but what I did here was summing up my whole musical activities into such a simple and playful piece of music, which became the final demo recording of my original compositions except for a few materials I later recorded for making YouTube videos in the 2010s.

Time

Written in 1994 / Recorded in 1994 and 2015

This tune was more about associated lyrics that described how foolish to waste one's time. The idea was largely inspired by the impression I had while dating my then girlfriend. In order to make the composition a bit more interesting, I wrote the backing vocals' parts sing only 'Time' in odd (but written) timings. Except for this mischievous device, musically this is relatively a normal composition from mine.

Electric Karma

Written in 1990 / Recorded in 1990 and 2015

A fine Rock / Pop tune I wrote under the unconscious influence of The Sweet - Fox on the Run. The tune consists of too many ingredients - including Baroque-like fugue section and Jethro Tull-like organ backing during the guitar solo - so that I had to cut off another ingredient that had been inserted for making the key changes smoother. Hence, especially at the ending, this edition has hiccups in the flow of the keys but at the end of the day, I believe it's got better and more suitable for being a Pop stuff, along with a shorter running time.
The title was taken from its removed lyrics, which had nothing to do with Buddhism nor had any significance at all. In addition, the second guitar part was added for the video edition for recovering the original guitar part lost during the digitalizing process.

Beaut

Written in 1990 / Recorded in 1990 and 2015

Another simple and meaningless composition of mine. One thing worthy to be mentioned about this thing is it includes a brief quote of the main theme from Gymnopedies by Eric Satie.

The tune was performed live twice, by a provisional band called The Show in late 1990 and by my solo act in early 1991. The former take was edited and uploaded onto YouTube under the title of Based on 'Gymnopedie No. 1' by Eric Satie. This version is not bad but I didn't like the change made by the keyboard player, who tried to play this tune sounds like kinda cocktail jazz.

The melody line I originally wrote for the voice part was replaced by the tricky-toned guitar in making the re-do video in 2015.

Humane

Written and Recorded in 1994

The inspiration for writing this thing came from a moment when I noticed a very ugly, inhumane product sold at the shelve in a shop, where I worked as a part-time staff. That dark impression given from the encounter haunted the atmosphere of the tune entirely, despite it began from relatively light and cheerful piano arpeggio.
Although the voice part that conveyed my notion on the product has been eliminated from the audio track for the video, it had an impressive line that still inhabits within my head, which said:

白痴が白昼、薄情な街に迫害される。
Hakuchi ga hakuchu, hakujo na machi ni hakugai sareru.
that means:
Idiots get persecuted by the ruthless city in the broad daylight.

Welcome

Written and Recorded in 1988

When I first bought me a multitrack recorder that recognises each of four channels of the normal cassette tape, i. e. left and right channels for Side A and Side B, as a track during the summer holiday of 1988, I was so excited to the fact that finally I obtained a magical equipment that enables me to record whatever I like in a proper way. As soon as I have unboxed the multitracker, I began to make my own recording by carefully following the instruction, which included explanations on some tips on recording technics such as ping/pong, punch-in/out and so on. By the time I reached to the last page of the instruction's recording section, every part of the trial recording has been done, which consisted of rhythm machine, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, lead guitar and my voice. Then, I turned the page for looking at the mixing section and turned over the cassette tape for trying out the reverse tape effect. The result of the mix-down then is what you hear in the audio track of this video :)
I gave this title, addressing to the prospective listeners in the future to mean 'welcome to the world of my personal recording experiments' as an initial greeting from me.