gundam and the gang

One of the lyricist's latest "rhythm blizzards" has been his involvement in an assortment of anime enterprises—writing the theme song (After All) for the classic Japanese robot warrior movie (Mobile Suit) GUNDAM, together with other songs for the soundtrack, (Song of a Stone, The Eternity Dance, Until); providing lyrics for the popular COWBOY BEBOP films (Butterfly, The Singing Sea) and working on the acclaimed animation forerunner GHOST IN THE SHELL, writing Beauty is Within Us, The End of All You’ll Know and Giant Global Gods Are We.

All have been in partnership with the composer Yoko Kanno, who Chris says he has "waited years to meet" and whose emotive melodies, he says, have a wonderfully close affinity to his own rhythms of writing. Obviously, a symbiosis made in Shibuya!

the hat is back

August, 2003, EQUASIAN, Chris’s classic "VISIC" (visual music) opus is re-released in all its glory through Sony Music—a soft-cased, limited edition, with the original visic book of prints in full colour included. In addition, Chris documents the unique recording session with personal anecdotes and insights into the compositions and lyrical creations.

He writes: "I see now how uncompromising, how obsessive, how unswerving in my blinkered ideology I was in those heady days of experimentation. Today I truly have to marvel at my own fanaticism to create the most brilliant beast. Sometimes it all seems to balance, and then again it all seems to tipple into the fathomless abyss. At times I believe I discover synergic penicillin, and at times the laboratory erupts and explodes. But I presume that too is all part of the equation."

strange beauty

Collaborating with French photographer/film director Marc Rigaudis, Chris composed the musical score for Etrange Cuisine, a submission to the International Digital Film Festival, and penned the lyrics From the Ruins of Your Beautiful Body for She Was So Pretty featuring Nana Okumura, Miss Universe Japan 1998. The film, based on a short story from the book Ito San by Rigaudis, is an expose of ijime—bullying in Japanese high schools—and was an entry for the American Short-Shorts Festival and the Fipa Festival in Biarritz.