Tsushima Masaki: Crystal Tokyo, Moonlight & Rain, Trancient Moonscapes

Note: If you're just here for the mixes, just scroll down to the bottom of this post and you will find some links to download my mix sets.

I decided to write this because of a lot of the stuff flying around on the Internet about no one knowing who I was and things like that. I'm too lazy to make my own web site just to post this, so I decided since I never use my blog, I'll post this. I wouldn't expect more entries though.

The basics are I am NOT Japanese. I do like anime and a lot of Japanese culture, but no, I'm not ethnically Japanese or anything like that. I am actually African born in Zambia. Right now I live in BC, Canada. I read some comments on some Japanese forums and people suspected I was using a Japanese project name to stir up interest in Japan, that wasn't really my intention. My name was born from my MSN Gaming Zone nickname back in the late 90s and then it stuck as my Internet alias as "Timeless Enigma" Tsushima Masaki.

I made all of these mixes DIGITALLY. I wish I could use turntables and mix for real but this was the best alternative I had available.

The chronology of my mixes goes like this:

Crystal Tokyo (September 5th, 2002, Version 2 "Remastered" October 2nd 2002)
Background on the mix: The name of the mix matches the name of the futuristic utopia somewhere in the 30th Century featured in Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, one of my all-time favourite anime and one of the main series that introduced me to anime and manga. The name sounded nice and catchy.
The original name of this mix was actually something like "Autumn Seasonal Sessions" or something like that. The mix actually started out with me helping out someone else with mixing, and as an example I mixed a couple tracks together and sent it over. Those tracks were I believe 1 (Far From Over), 2 (Liberation (Temptation - Fly Like An Angel)), 3 (Southern Sun), and 4 (Caught Me Running) and then it grew from there.


Moonlight & Rain (July 25th, 2003)
Background on the mix: I'll start off on the name again. This mix was named after the collection of stories written by Akinari Ueda. As a group the stories were called "Ugestu Monogatari" or in English "Tales of Moonlight and Rain." I had recently read the book at the public library and I enjoyed it very much. Moonlight & Rain was originally intended to be a 2 part set. One part would have been titled "Moonlight" and the other "Rain." They were each supposed to have different moods. I never got that far unfortunately (or fortunately?) and produced this instead. This mix took me a LONG time to complete. Here was the original tracklist intended.

Original Tracklist
1. Airwave vs. Rising Star - Sunspot (Original Mix)
2. Solid Sessions - Janeiro (Pronti & Kalmani Vocal Mix)
3. Blank & Jones - Watching The Waves (Moon Remix)
4. Sander Kleinenberg - My Lexicon (Full Length Version)
5. Lexicon 4 - Reach Me (Original Mix)
6. Indigo - Sensacion (Main Mix)
7. Armin van Buuren feat. Ray Wilson - Yet Another Day (Original Mix)
8. Signum feat. Katana - Moonflow (Original Mix)
9. Saints & Sinners - Peace (Oliver Lieb Remix)
10. Ayla presents Yel - Sun Is Coming Out (Pegelklub Mix)

(Un)fortunately mixing was unsuccessful between tracks 9 and 10 and I found it very hard to make it work. Then I lost all my work and had to start from scratch.

Version 2 Tracklist
1. Airwave vs. Rising Star - Sunspot (Original Mix)
2. Solid Sessions - Janeiro (Pronti & Kalmani Vocal Mix)
3. Blank & Jones - Watching The Waves (Moon Remix)
4. Corderoy - Sweetest Dreams (Greg Murray Vocal Mix/Ferry Corsten Remix)
5. Sander Kleinenberg - My Lexicon (Full Length Version)
6. Indigo - Sensacion (Main Mix)
7. Armin van Buuren feat. Ray Wilson - Yet Another Day (Original Mix)
8. Signum feat. Katana - Moonflow (Original Mix)
9. Saints & Sinners - Peace (Oliver Lieb Remix)
Still missing a couple of tracks?

At this point, at about 3 am, I had just given up, and I had been ready to just burn it to CD and express my apologies to everyone who had been expecting a stellar Crystal Tokyo Part II (I still don't know how Crystal Tokyo got all that popular). I wisely decided to just go to sleep. The mix's name was going to be "Burning Up and Falling To Pieces" to illustrate my loss of focus and dissatisfaction.

That same day (about 9 am or later), I found myself mixing again. I needed to avoid the unsuccessful mixing of Oliver Lieb's Remix of Peace with the Pegelklub Mix of Sun Is Coming Out. The reason why this transition didn't work is because they were too different of tracks and I didn't give myself enough transition time.
So I thought "a mellow track to another mellow track", then the next track came to mind, and eventually, I finished off the set. And most of you know the final tracklist right?

The mixing between 10+11 is probably my favourite.

However... I still had the feeling that I had lost my way, lost the meaning of the mix, I didn't know where it was going, so I named it "Moonfall to an Unknown Destination." I had managed to complete it but I still thought I had lost sight of my original goal.

A couple weeks later, I said "You know what? I really like this mix, who cares if it's not what I planned", and I renamed back it "Moonlight & Rain."

The mix didn't have the same energy as Crystal Tokyo, as I put some more mellowed/chilled/melodic elements instead of straight melodic/uplifting. One of my friends had termed the mix "vocal chill trance," but this is definitely not a chillout mix.

I really concentrate on the opening and closing tracks, because I like a mix to start off right, and I want the listeners to feel as if the mix is complete, and they're not dissatisfied, thinking that something is missing). I try hard to make the opening special so that it's memorable. It doesn't have to have a bang (I usually start my mixes with calmer songs), just has to get the listeners into the mood.

On Crystal Tokyo, I put in the hardest remix of Seven Cities there was to end the set with a bang, as most people have heard the tune (it is one of Solar Stone's most widely known titles).


Trancient Moonscapes (December 31st, New Year's Eve, 2003)
Background on the mix: Well, you'd think someone would have something better to do on the eve of a New Year. There was a party going on upstairs but at the time I wasn't really in the mood. I had actually been holding off on this mix for almost 5 months, and I finally got it done on the 31st. My aim was to create something cooler. Like taking a scenic route to a destination. Unfortunately I believe only the first half of the mix exen came close. You'd probably notice that after track 6, more upbeat music came into the formula. I had actually run out of the mood I was trying to give out so I had to turn to more uplifting forms of Trance. The name of the mix was originally supposed to be "Live @ Chillaire Lounge" but I scrapped that. I don't remember where Trancient Moonscapes came from really.

So that is about it really.

Also, if anyone has a tracker of their own where they could host my mixes that'd be even better since I have a limit on how much I can upload per month.

As to whether I'll make a mix again... maybe in the summer.

Here are some links to people hosting my mixes:
Crystal Tokyo only @ (dead link) http://www.spinspoon.com/Tsushima%20Masaki%20-%20Crystal%20Tokyo.mp3

All mixes @ http://www.crazychomp.com/Tsushima%20Masaki's%20Mixes/
and http://ftp.dbnetworkz.com/tmasaki/
Special thanks to Jeff, the first poster on this blog for hosting all my mixes. Try not to hit his server TOO hard. I really appreciate you hosting Jeff!

Another special thanks to Ben who is also hosting my mixes. Now Jeff's server won't get hammered!

It'd be great if you downloaded from Jeff's site, then became a seed on the torrent below!

The TORRENT ftp://mixes:themixesofmasakism@masakism.mine.nu:3000
Please try not to leech and leave.
Btw, please, please don't use Internet Explorer for hooking into my FTP, since you need to be passive, and IE doesn't go passive, try Mozilla Firefox or Filezilla FTP client (which is 100% free) @ http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

If you have a bit of bandwidth and want to host, let me know and I can add you to this list.