愛と平和 was Soft Ballet's first album to reach the Oricon Top 10, and this new level of success brought them to the attention of a bigger record company, Victor Entertainment. It was also named one of the top albums from 1989-1998 in a 2004 issue of the music magazine Band Yarouze. Though Soft Ballet left Alpha by the end of 1991, Alpha continued to capitalize off the band's success by releasing remix albums. These remix albums, Alter Ego in 1992 and Twist And Turn in 1993, were notable for featuring exclusively Western remixers, including big names such as Richard D. James (under his Polygon Window alias), 808 State, LFO, and Cabaret Voltaire among others. This was among the first times that a Japanese band had participated in such an international remix exchange, and these albums became the first Soft Ballet material that was circulated in the West. XEO Invitation Years Soft Ballet moved over to Victor Entertainment by 1992, signing to a newly created sublabel called XEO Invitation. Million Mirrors, Soft Ballet's 5th album, was XEO's first album release and once more they broke into the Top 10. Though some songs were circulated on XEO Invitation promotional samplers, no songs from Million Mirrors were released as singles in Japan. However, in a rare move, the band released "Threshold" as a 12-inch single in the United Kingdom, through Blue August Records. Soft Ballet released their first singles on XEO in 1993, "Engaging Universe" followed by "White Shaman", which proved to be some of their biggest hits and earning them guest performances on multiple TV shows. The following album, Incubate, showcased the most diverse collection of styles in the band's history. Incorporating alternative rock, jazz, EBM, and pure noise, the album could be said to contain both their most accessible as well as most abstract songs. Perhaps the extreme musical diversity was a sign of the band's growing inner turmoil, because the group took 1994 off in order for Maki and Ken to explore other musical endeavors. Maki teamed with Hisashi Imai of Buck-Tick, and a slew of British artists (including Raymond Watts, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Julianne Regan) to release an album as Schaft, while Ken traveled Europe to record a solo album. The trio regrouped in order to record for a new album and, in a first for the band, wrote most songs collaboratively. Up to this point, with the