Title: Isao Tomita – Space Fantasy (2015)
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
This hybrid SACD contains stereo and 4.0 multi-channel audio and I think it’s fantastic! Tomita was 83 when he re-arranged and re-mixed his Kosmos album for SACD. I think it’s remarkable that he was still working, but I feel I must reluctantly share why you may want to skip this one…
Title: Isao Tomita – Planet Zero (2011)
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
This hybrid SACD contains stereo and 4.0 multi-channel audio and I think it’s fantastic! Planet Zero contains reworked versions of several compositions released by Isao Tomita’s in the seventies, mainly from the 1976 album “The Planets”.
Title: Isao Tomita – Planets Ultimate Edition (2011)
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
This hybrid SACD contains stereo and 4.0 multi-channel audio and I think it’s fantastic! In essence, Tomita’s The Planets is an electronic rendition of The Planets by Gustav Holst. The idea of messing with a classic like The Planets might offend some, but not me – I love it! His interpretation is incredibly imaginative and works a treat because each piece manages to capture some of the mood and emotion of the original as scored by Holst, yet also adds something to make it sound truly special. Not only does it work tremendously well as a piece of music, it sounds great too i.e. it sounds spectacular in stereo and multi-channel, as hi-res music should.
This was the most controversial Tomita album, where he uses Holst’s spectacular, mystical suite The Planets as a launching pad for what amounts to a simulated spaceship trip through the solar system. Hence the title The Tomita Planets, which did not deter the Holst estate from trying (unsuccessfully) to pull this recording off the market at the time. When Tomita sticks to what Holst wrote, he follows every turn and bend of the score, save for a big cut in the last part of Jupiter and an eviscerated Uranus that nearly disappears altogether. Moreover, the music — especially Venus — often does lend itself to an electronic space flight fantasy, with Tomita’s arsenal of phase-shifting, flanging, pitch-bending, envelope following and reversing choral effects and more on full display. It’s the stuff between movements that provoked the purists — the campy simulated mission control communications and electronic blastoff prior to Mars and the “noises” of space flight scattered throughout (including a nasty asteroid belt between Jupiter and Saturn). The most questionable idea was that of playing Jupiter’s grand central theme on a tinkly electronic music box as a way to open and close the record — which some will find satirical, others touching, still others tasteless. Indeed, Tomita seems to have it in for British pomp; when this theme is played within the context of Jupiter, he interrupts it with electronic chatter between mission control and the spaceship. Ultimately, The Tomita Planets is still good electronic fun, and it launched a series of space-themed concept albums by this electronic astronaut. ~ Richard S. Ginell
Title: Isao Tomita – Moussorgsky-Tomita: Pictures At An Exhibition (1975/2014)
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
This hybrid SACD contains stereo and 4.0 multi-channel audio and I think it’s fantastic! For this album TOMITA created some of the most unusual, high quality electronic sounds ever heard. Then he used these sounds very effectively in some amazing orchestrations. The listening is as enjoyable as it is bizarre, quite an accomplishment in itself.
Title: Isao Tomita – Okhotsk Fantasy (2016)
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO
This hybrid SACD contains stereo and 4.1 multi-channel audio and I think it’s fantastic! Many of us Tomita fans wondered why he put a mono recording of an old cartoon on the OKHOTSK FANTASY album, instead of doing a DAPHNIS AND CHLOE – ULTIMATE EDITION in discrete 4.1 channel Quadraphonic sound… Now it is clear, the OKHOTSK FANTASY album was his last. It was released in March 2016, and he passed away two months later. So he probably wasn’t able to finish it. Knowing this, we can wish that he had started putting his Quadraphonic albums on SACD sooner, but we can’t blame him for the last two SACDs, because he was 83 and 84 when he did them.