is a Japanese musician and composer. In the fifth year of elementary school, Hirasawa took up the electric guitar, inspired by the surf and instrumental rock bands he heard on the radio and on TV, later joining his junior high school's band. In 1973 he formed Mandrake, a progressive rock band that incorporated elements from heavy metal and krautrock. Being one of the few Japanese progressive rock bands of its time, Mandrake achieved little success and released no albums during its lifetime. After discovering punk rock and working on synthesizer-heavy projects, Hirasawa felt that progressive rock became just for entertainment and decided to reform the band as the electronic rock band P-Model in 1979. Originally met with success, they turned to decidedly uncommercial post-punk and experimental rock after Hirasawa went through an adverse reaction to his fame. With Hirasawa at the forefront, the band went through various lineups and achieved some popularity in the Japanese independent music scene. In 1989, Hirasawa launched his solo career. Unbound by the restraints of a band, his albums were marked by a refusal to stick to any particular genre. He continued to evolve his sound while concurrently working with two different iterations of P-Model until the group was disbanded in 2000. He has actively been releasing new music since. While Hirasawa is mostly remembered in Japan for the first two P-Model albums, he has achieved international recognition for his soundtrack work, particularly for the adaptations of the Kentaro Miura manga Berserk and the work of anime director Satoshi Kon. Compositions Hirasawa's music takes from such concepts as analytical psychology, advances in digital technology, the philosophies of yin and yang, and principles of nature versus machines. As an avid fan of science fiction novels since the 1970s and an eclectic reader overall, he's been inspired by the works of Frank Herbert, Carl Jung, Hayao Kawai, Kenji Miyazawa, George Orwell, Wilhelm Reich, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Theodore Sturgeon, Nikola Tesla and Kurt Vonnegut. A constant source of inspiration for his music has come from Thailand. On a 1994 trip to Phuket, Hirasawa went through a "Thai shock", amazed by the country's culture, namely its transsexual cabaret performers, some of whom he would invite to be singers on his albums and guest performers in his concerts throughout his career. After many trips back to the country Hirasawa grew to be increasingly identified with the transsexual population, incorporating their