problems and experiences in society into his work. On having his music categorized based on western trends, Hirasawa has said: Performances For every main solo album he releases, Hirasawa also stages an accompanying "Interactive Live Show", an interactive concert that merges computer graphics with his music to tell a story. The flow of each show is determined by audience participation; for example, Interactive Live Show 2000 Philosopher's Propeller was formatted as a maze, and the audience was asked to choose which direction to go in. Provided with phone numbers to four cellular phones during one song, the audience was allowed to call the numbers to have Hirasawa play the corresponding ringtones. This created an improvised harmony between the background music and the ringing phones. Since 1998, participation has been possible through the internet. Hirasawa's live music is built on samples he activates with various hand-crafted machines and pre-recorded tracks without vocals. For the Solar Live concerts, he used solar power and a power-generating wheel as the source of energy for his electronic equipment. Hirasawa has worked since the start of his solo career to decrease the amount of performers around himself. Most of his solo albums from 1992 onwards feature no guest musicians, and live backing bands were relinquished in 1994. Since then, only a few select shows have had guest singers or backing instrumentalists. Equipment usage One of Hirasawa's defining factors that set him apart from other Japanese electronic artists is ever-changing production techniques and gear of choice. Guitars Hirasawa has favored guitars designed specifically by Japanese instrument manufacturers. With a movement in the early '80s of electric guitar makers moving away from mass-producing copies of foreign designs and towards original ones, Hirasawa played many unique models. Over a five-year period, from Mandrake's last days to the early P-Model phase, he used the H.S. Anderson Rider, Fernandes Art Wave and ESP Random Star, painting them in bright colors (burgundy, yellow, blue and white). In 1983 he settled on Tōkai Gakki's aluminum guitars as his main ones, attracted by their unique material and design. He used multiple Tōkai Talbos over an eleven-year period, with the guitar becoming an integral part of his image. After Tōkai discontinued production and customer support for the Talbo due to financial difficulties in the mid-'90s, Hirasawa requested Fernandes to make him a guitar of his design in 1994 called PHOTON, a Talbo-shaped guitar with a