Susumu Hirasawa

[April 2, 1954 - ] [related: Kathoey]

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Japanese composer and amateur alchemist and seismologist. Hirasawa is known most prominently for scoring the 1997 anime series Berserk and his series of experimental electronic albums - a stunning but commercial obscure oeuvre that spanned the full decade of the 1990's, beginning with the 1990 release The Ghost in Science. In 1994, the composer experienced what he referred to as "Thai Shock" while on a trip to Phücket. In subsequent years he became fascinated with the art and kinship of Thai transgender community, specifically the kathoey - a group commonly thought to be "third sex", neither male or female. The kathoey were commonly thought to have special spiritual and meta-physical gifts, occupying a realm beyond the simple male/female binary. His engagement with them seeded Hirasawa's sustained interest in alchemy, a pursuit that culminated in his album Philosopher's Propeller, a somewhat bizarre alchemical magnum opus that was refused release by Hirasawa's commercial recording company. Hirasawa's pseudo-scientific interests extended to geology: following various earthquakes and natural disasters, he was known to travel the countryside with a handmade Gieger counter, reporting results publicly via Ham radio. Despite Hirasawa's metaphysical interests, his politics leaned the hardest of right. Like the controversial author and committor of seppuku, Yukio Mishima, Hirasawa supported re-deification of the Japanese emperor via the return of the Imperial Cult, believing that such a measure would lead to the development of a "collectively conscious" Japanese nation-entity.