About the Album "Mori no Hito/Forest People"

Somehow or other, I got interested in the forest, and I ended up wanting to make forest music. Around November last year, after I released Mod’ Fish, I started working on the story for Mori no Hito, and using fragmentary beats. At first, “the sound of the forest” was a really abstract idea, but little by little I started to write “forest songs.” When I go into the forest and sit quietly under a big tree and close my eyes, I start to feel like I’m enveloped in and protected by an immense power, and I feel really calm. Also, I understand how small my life is, and I start to feel like I’m becoming a part of the forest. As the sun slowly sets, I can feel the signs of the small animals and goblins in the forest, and the beautiful faeries. And when the night falls, the forest is very scary. While I was writing the story, the first track that I wrote as a song was “Goblin Forest.” While I was listening to the demo for this song over and over, for some reason Mr. Sakurai from Buck-Tick, whom I met last year, popped into my head, and I coerced him into writing the lyrics and doing the vocal. I sent a very rough A-DAT tape of 2 mixes of the song to Tokyo, with the message, “the theme is the forest.” [note from Cayce: Mr. Tsuchiya was based in London at the time of this album's release] When it was finished, it ended up being the most wonderful song on the whole album. I'd like to thank Mr. Sakurai from my heart for so faithfully helping to make this album.

This planet called earth was once the forest of the universe. So, every so often, people from other planets come to visit this one. So, if we go strolling in the park, or other nearby woods… In the truly far-gone past, when this planet was a much more beautiful forest, maybe people from other planets came more often to play here. If the forests vanish from this world, we will also vanish, and the balance of the universe will crumble. I think that people on this planet should think about the forest a little bit more.
 

August 1998, Masami Tsuchiya.