A mysterious rediscovery - After more than 20 years, the long-awaited reprint is here! The mysterious sound of aloe vera.

In 1995, a truly innovative music album was released.

It's a strange album in which an electroencephalogram (EEG) was attached to an aloe plant and the results were converted into music.
If I had to describe it, it would be the revival of an unprecedented piece that the performer could call "Aloe."

The following is from the liner notes by Yuji Shibasaki.

This is an extremely experimental and ambitious project that overlaps with the practice of "making plants audible" in the field of contemporary music.

Did you know that various electronic music works produced in Japan from the 1980s to the 1990s have recently been receiving support from unexpected quarters?

When they were first released, these songs were created as healing music with a certain "practical" purpose, but they are now attracting renewed attention from many young music fans, especially on the Internet, under the keywords "New Age Revival" and "Japanese Ambient."

Moreover, it is not just in Japan that this genre is attracting the interest of listeners overseas as well. A variety of ambient and new age records and CDs, including works by pioneers of environmental music such as Satoshi Ashikawa and Hiroshi Yoshimura, are highly prized by enthusiastic listeners and are traded at premium prices on the second-hand market.

There are various reasons why this situation has come about, but the biggest one is that over time it has become recognized that the music is also extremely excellent for purely aesthetic enjoyment.

The newly re-released "Aloe - Its Mysterious Sound" is a work that could be called the ultimate example of this "rediscovery."

If you look online, you'll be surprised to see so many comments praising it as a high-quality ambient piece.

As explained separately, this work is not music created by any particular musician based on sheet music.

If we had to say, the "performer" would be aloe itself. In 1995, aloe was gaining a lot of attention due to the boom at the time, and the concept of trying to take in the benefits of aloe through the ears was extremely experimental and ambitious, overlapping with the practice of "making plants audible" in the field of contemporary music.

However, the sound is extremely clean and easy to listen to, and the way the watery synthesizer tones ebb and flow is very pleasant.

According to Hideo Utsugi, president of Della, the record company that released the album, the idea for creating this work came from learning that beech trees make sounds when they draw water from the ground, and that large cacti emit special waveforms, which inspired him to try to commercialize music using aloe vera, a "medicinal tree."

The actual production was handled by Tadaaki Kisaka, a former staff member of the company who served as the producer of this work.
According to him, the sounds contained in this album were created by attaching alligator clips to an aloe plant about 15 centimeters in diameter that he was growing in his office, connecting it to a human electroencephalogram (EEG) measuring device, converting the data into MIDI data, and then playing it on a synthesizer.

The aloe was stimulated from time to time by being lightly poked, and the recording was done directly from the synthesizer without any overdubbing.

In other words, it's a sound dominated by "chance," but as you can hear, it's interesting because it feels quite "musical," starting with the phrases and harmonies.

Choosing the right tone for the synthesizer was also a difficult task, but even so, it sounds as if Aloe is actually "playing" music: the "hyurururururu" pattern that goes up and down the scale, and the single "pawn" sound that is played at an exquisite timing.
It makes you realize the mystery and depth of aloe, which cannot be grasped by common sense such as "plants have no will of their own."

When you think about it, one of the great attractions of ambient music is that it makes you feel as if you are listening to music that is "just there," without any strong artistic intention.

However, in many cases, this "unintentional" quality is nothing more than something that was intended by a particular composer, and music that is simply "there" is rarely turned into a work of art.

In that sense, "Aloe: The Mysterious Sound" can be said to be one of the few examples of "music that is simply there," something that exists between music and non-music.

The sudden resurgence of interest in this work is likely due not only to its healing effects, but also to the unique quality that it evokes in us that stimulates our intellectual excitement.

May 2021 Yuji Shibasaki

Staff:

Planning: Hideo Utsugi
Producer: Tadaaki Kisaka
Performer: Aloe
Sound Manipulator: Tadaaki Kisaka

- 2021 Reissue -
Director: Kunihito Ikeda
Mastering Engineer: Fumihiro Kojima
Sales Promoter: Atsushi Nakamura
Executive Producer: Hideo Utsugi

Music Copyright by Do-U

[Track List]

1. Aloe Music (Aloe Extraction Sound)

◎1 song (approximately 41 minutes)
◎This CD does not contain songs.
◎Performance: Aloe

<Product information>
Total 1 song/approx. 41 minutes
￥1,760 (tax included)
Product number: NSG-501R