Lyricist Chris Mosdell began his career writing for legendary Japanese artists Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sheena & The Rokkets, Sandii & The Sunsetz, Sadistic Mika Band, The Mad Capsule Markets and Pink Lady before making his name internationally with songs for Michael Jackson, Sarah Brightman, Boy George and Eric Clapton.
More recently Chris Mosdell has written for anime soundtracks (such as Ghost in the Shell, Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, Texhnolyze, Wolf’s Rain) and worked with some of Japan’s hottest new acts, Radwimps, Natccu and Sadistic Mikaela Band feat. Kaela Kimura.
He has worked with the West African kora master Toumani Diabate, the famed taiko drummer Miyuki Ikeda, collaborated on film scores, operatic works and was commissioned to write the election theme song for the Social Democratic Party of Japan. In addition to winning the Gold Prize at the Tokyo Music Festival for his lyrics, Mosdell has been awarded the Yuki Hayashi-Newkirk Poetry Prize and, most recently, the Grand Prize for Poetry at the Boulder, Colorado, Festival of Literature.
The innovator of “visic”, a development of visual music, his groundbreaking work culminated in the interactive audio-visual album Equasian. In collaboration with the poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, he also wrote The Oracles of Distraction, a set of ideographic cards adjoined to musical functions; composed the musical soundtrack for the gallery installations of Graham Hancock’s best-selling book, Fingerprints of the Gods, and was commissioned to write the scenario/script for the verse dance-drama Amaterasu: The Resurrection of Radiance, that was performed at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Chris Mosdell – Official Website
