Snowflakes Are Dancing
Isao Tomita got his start creating soundtracks for early anime series, but when it came time for his own work he went the same route as fellow composer Wendy Carlos: combining the past (classical) and the future (Moog synthesizers). His second album reinterprets Claude Debussy’s “tone paintings” using a dizzying array of technological techniques. Clips from “Arabesque No. 1” and “Clair De Lune” have been used by sources as diverse as a 70s PBS astronomy show and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but the record as a whole stages a spectacular wintertime ballet.