There is one very big influence on my electronic musical compositions for One Mind Live: Isao Tomita. In the 1970’s I was knocked out by his breakthrough LP called Snowflakes are Falling : “Virtuoso Electronic Performances of Debussy’s Tone Paintings”.
Tomita said that his big influence was western classical music: “I thought I was listening to music from outer space,” but for this wide-eared Anglo Celtic kid of 15, when I heard his Debussy arrangements I was transported back to a childhood filled to the brim with Japanese aesthetics (loads of art books at home) and of course Japanese cartoons. Lots of Japanese cartoons. (It is only now, as I read about Tomita’s death in 2016 that he composed the theme for Kimba the White Lion!) So Tomita was always there in my life and as far as I was concerned he was from outer space. His work opened up a life-long love affair with electronic music especially Tangerine Dream, Eno and Stockhausen.
Somehow, such is the mash-up of my mind, all these confluences have produced Blue Lotus, which sounds nothing like Debussy, but could be, with your eyes closed, a Japanese garden in the snow glimmering with layered references from Shinto objects and Manga Spiritualism. Yep. Manga Spiritualism! All based in Animism, one of the most striking moments in Art is Japanese Hanawa Ceramics and the terracotta dog pictured below (6th -7th Century AD !!!) is part of that cyclical complexity that gives us Tomita and Manga and basically everything Japanese suspended in a timeless cross-historic cultural data base accessible to all. As to Blue Lotus, its origins Egyptian, I simply have no idea…maybe Isao Tomita is there now, in a parallel world, floating down the Nile, dreaming of another song. Maybe he’s there now with my Grandmother Amy, whose favourite arrangement of Tomita’s was Debussy’s Sunken Cathedral (La Cathédrale Engloutie).
Stephen Fearnley is an award-winning filmmaker, artist and composer. He composes transformational soundscapes for the journeys of One Mind Live – a unique worldwide online group meditation community. To sample One Mind Live, go HERE