Lyricist Chris Mosdell has written for Eric Clapton, Sarah Brightman, Boy George, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yellow Magic Orchestra. He has co-written with Michael Jackson; worked with the West African kora master Toumani Diabate; collaborated on film scores and theatrical productions; and been commissioned to write the election theme song for the Social Democratic Party of Japan. In addition to winning the Gold Prize at the Tokyo Music Festival for his lyrics, Mosdell has been awarded the Yuki Hayashi-Newkirk Poetry Prize and, most recently, the Grand Prize for Poetry at the Boulder, Colorado, Festival of Literature. The innovator of "Visic," a development of visual music, his groundbreaking work culminated in the interactive audio-visual album Equasian. In collaboration with the poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, he also wrote The Oracles of Distraction, a set of ideographic cards adjoined to musical functions, and composed the musical soundtrack for the gallery installations of Graham Hancock's best-selling book, Fingerprints of the Gods.
"When I read his lyrics, I see him in a chemistry laboratory, making Molotov cocktails - his eyes lucid, blue and very clear."
- Ryuichi Sakamoto
"Magnificent... a banquet of sensory delights."
-Vivien Allender, Vogue
"The most imaginative work being done in Japan today."
-Sherry Reniker, Poetry Editor, Edge
"A hara-kiri of every reader's association with written recourse.
A genuine masterwork, without a wasted word."
-Brian Comerford (E23), Radiovalve.com
Lyricist "extraordinaire."
-Angela Jeffs, The Japan Times