Chris Mosdell
| Chris Mosdell | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Gainsborough, England |
| Occupation(s) | Lyricist, composer, poet, author |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Labels | Sony Music Japan |
| Associated acts | Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, Sadistic Mika Band |
| Website | chrismosdell |
Chris Mosdell is a British lyricist, poet, author, composer, vocalist and illustrator, based in Tokyo, Japan, and New York City, USA.
He has collaborated with an extensive array of musicians and artists, though he is especially known for his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and the poet Shuntarō Tanikawa. His interactive audio-visual album Equasian, featuring an experimentation with "VISIC" (visual music), melded his scientific background into a musical framework, and his Oracles of Distraction, a set of poetic cards set to musical coordinates, further expanded his lyrical idiom.
He has written lyrics for Sarah Brightman and Boy George; co-written lyrics with Michael Jackson, had his work covered by Eric Clapton, worked with the West African kora player Toumani Diabaté and the calligraphy artist Juichi Yoshikawa; and wrote the verse dance drama Amaterasu, the Resurrection of Radiance, that was performed with the City Ballet of London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (2001).
As "Mozz", Mosdell has also released a series of award-winning children's books, which he also illustrates.
A film about his life entitled "Ink Music: In the Land of the Hundred-Tongued Lyricist", featuring interviews with many of his collaborators and shot in Japan and the United States, was released in 2009. The documentary bills him as the "Lafcadio Hearn of Lyrics", Long term collaborator Ryuichi Sakamoto describes his interpretation of how Mosdell creates his varied works; "When I read his lyrics, I see him in a high school chemistry laboratory, making Molotov cocktails – his eyes lucid, blue and very clear."
Mosdell was born in Gainsborough, England and grew up in North Wales but left London for Tokyo in 1976 after completing a BSc (specialising in microbiology) from the University of Nottingham and withdrawing from a master's degree in pathology at the University of Exeter after realising his scientific leanings were at odds with his poetic interests. Arriving in Japan he became a script-writer for NHK, numerous radio programs, a reporter for Radio Free Europe, and a reader of the BBC World Service radio news. His plays The Sound Seller (1977) and The Star Polisher (1978) were both produced for NHK and his collected television scripts, Laugh Out Loud (Asahi Publishing), were published in 1979—an edition that is still a popular text in Japanese universities today.
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