Has anyone else listened to Hirasawa Susumu's solo work?

ShinHell9

I started on here when I was like 14...
About two years ago I got a Hirasawa Susumu 45 that prompted me to really start to go through a bit of his work outside of doing awesome soundtracks. I really like the album he released just a year after working on the Berserk soundtrack and feel like some songs on it are a continuation of it. I found it on youtube, it's also on spotify in Japan but doesn't seem to be in the US.

Check it out if you guys are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZYGuUGvUA
The songs Ghost Bridge and The Man from Narcissus Space really remind me of the Berserk anime.
 
Vistoron, Byakkoya - White Tiger Field, Philosopher's Propeller and Technique of Relief are legit god tier music albums.

Sim City and Siren are also excellent. You can hear a lot of the same elements/instrumentals he would later incorporate into his anime music work from his 1990s/2000s era albums. I started uploading his music onto YouTube around 13 years ago (I don't nowadays), so I've been a fan for a long time now.

https://www.youtube.com/user/KazuoKiriyama666/videos

He's still active and rocks a cool white hair look nowadays.
 
My introduction to Hirasawa was through the soundtracks for Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress and Paprika. This scene specifically-


Chikara no Uta and Paranesian Circle from the Aurora album are two of my favorites.


 

ShinHell9

I started on here when I was like 14...
Really great to see the Hirasawa Susumu appreciation here. You guys added in so many great songs, some of which I haven’t had the chance to hear yet so you all gave me something good to listen to with my coffee

@Henry Spencer I’ll have to check out your channel because there’s so much Spotify doesn’t have of his and it’s become really hard to find his CDs for cheap here in Japan. At BOOKOFF, he’s been placed in the “80s” section which is where they put all the artists whose cds cost 3-4x what they used to.

Before YouTube had a ton of music, where did everyone get access to his music? Because like I mentioned before, everything I find is quite expensive now.

@alexderman that P-Model album sounds especially awesome, I’m sad I haven’t heard it til now.

@Sareth I specifically sought out Millennium Actress and Paprika a few years ago because I realized he did the soundtrack, and also I remembered how much I liked Satoshi Kon’s other work. Both were great but I especially liked the former and its kind of love letter to Japanese cinema.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Before YouTube had a ton of music, where did everyone get access to his music?
Well in the era that I first heard about him, there was a bunch of his stuff on Napster, of course. But I also imported his albums from CDJapan back in the day. I was pretty judicious, using the 30 second preview clips in 2000 to inform my purchases :iva:
 

ShinHell9

I started on here when I was like 14...
Oh also if anyone was interested in that particular 45:

It is a recent issue so I would assume it’s digitally mixed, for anyone who cares about that sort of thing. I could try to help out anyone who’s interested in trying to get it but right now shipping abroad from Japan is a mess and I know at the very least EMS to the US is limited so I’m not sure what could actually be done.

Edit: silly me, it’s also available on the website @Walter just mentioned too, probably way easier to deal with:

Well in the era that I first heard about him, there was a bunch of his stuff on Napster, of course. But I also imported his albums from CDJapan back in the day. I was pretty judicious, using the 30 second preview clips in 2000 to inform my purchases :iva:
Those were strange times, I remember buying a lot of Japanese music to varying results off of clips as well. Usually whatever would float into American Amazon though, I wasn’t that cool. I did just check out CDJapan, and it seems the prices are about the same as they are in Japan. I usually have a rule about paying over $15 for a CD (records are no problem though) but it looks like I’m going to have to break that.
 
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One of my favourites:
I so love FGG. I think I first listened to this song when someone here on the forums used it as background music for a Berserk collection video. Great song and also very relaxing.

Also so many cool recommendations here, I don't have all of Hirasawa's CDs, so many tracks are new to me. My favorite album would be Switched - On Lotus.
 
Like a lot of people, I got into Hirasawa's music through Berserk. For me, it's almost become synonymous with it. Tracks like "Moon Time", "Hashi Daiku" and "Naashisasu Jigen Kara Kita Hito" I could all imagine playing at some point in the series.

He's certainly a unique musician. There's something otherworldly but also deeply familiar about his work.
 

jackson_hurley

even the horses are cut in half!
I bought 5 cd from him so far. Sin city, secret of.the flower, the two albums that contain remixes of his best stuff and the collabo with a death metal singer that contains 2 songs from the berserk soundtrack but with vocals and a third song from blue lotus. I intend to buy more including the last three kaku p-model.
 
"and the collabo with a death metal singer that contains 2 songs from the berserk soundtrack but with vocals"
Which album is that on?
 
This might be a dumb question. But I read once online that he isn’t singing in Japanese but actually a sort of mixture of languages that he made up. I was wondering if anyone can confirm this?
 
As much as possible and when I can as much as possible. I know it seems a little bit overplayed to constantly put Hirasawa constantly with Berserk but his music is really the only way I can ever really go through that series, largely because it's so out of this world that you wouldn't think music by Hirasawa would gel well with a manga like that and yet it does. Most recently I've been listening to his albums Technique of Relief & The Man Climbing the Hologram and both of them are such outstanding albums that it's hard to find one bad track or at least a track that dents the album. But I listen to Susumu Hirasawa's solo work nonstop and lately it's been getting me through the worst moments possible.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Here's a strange one I doubt everyone's heard — Yuko Miyamura (Casca's 1997 VA, and of course Asuka's VA from Evangelion) singing Hirasawa Susumu's "Mother" :

 
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