SERALP02: Satellite Era presents “Seedful Things (20th Anniversary Edition)” - a revival of perennial demos written in 2001-2005 by Julian La Brooy, best known as Hitori Tori.
Out now on all major platforms:
For the first time ever, “Seedful Things” sees an official release two full decades after its conception. The 20th anniversary edition includes the original 13 tracks from La Brooy’s debut album as Hitori Tori, along with four unreleased tracks written in the same time period. The CD version also features an exclusive hidden track unavailable on digital platforms.
The year was 2005 when Julian La Brooy finally decided to plant the seed of his newfound Hitori Tori project. Based in Japan at the time, he recorded a batch of promising demos onto a pack of CDs to ship out to record labels abroad. Nearly four years of studying the craft of balancing aggressive breakbeats with comforting melodies was ready to be shared with the world. After running into logistics issues at his local post office that prevented the CDs from traveling anywhere, La Brooy gifted the recorded demos to friends surrounding his artistic endeavors. Unbeknownst to him, the CD would eventually make it onto SoulSeek, an infamous peer-to-peer file sharing network where its community tends to influence the growth of rare and obscure music projects. A hit beneath the interweb, the album was eventually uploaded onto YouTube, gaining even more interest and becoming a cult classic within the niche of braindance enthusiasts.
Before all of this, La Brooy had freshly become an inhabitant of Osaka, trading the crisp air and slower pace of Vancouver for bustling streets full of uncertainty. He got to see much of the region through weekly business trips, but favored acquainting himself with local bars and taking Japanese classes at the community center. Biking to music gear stores became a tradition, where La Brooy would find great deals on random hardware to add to his production flow. It was then that he purchased the same Yamaha A3000 sampler that got the ball rolling, or wings flapping, for what eventually turned into his debut album under a new alias, one that would progress his straightforward style up until then.
Trekking across the Pacific was the most important decision in propelling La Brooy’s sonic journey. After playing a few DJ gigs around town, he began frequenting the local Accelmuzhik parties to seek inspiration. He would find himself at Vibrant Recordings events during spontaneous trips to Tokyo, while absorbing an even more diverse music scene than imaginable - early breakcore, Japanese underground rap, chiptune, noise, and everything in between. After seeing Shing02 perform on his Vestax Faderboard in the Kansai region, La Brooy became obsessed with controllerism and using unconventional music gear as instruments for performance. It felt like every component was in place for his perfect production storm to land.
Since the original “Seedful Things” album was unearthed, much has changed as it has stayed the same for La Brooy as an artist. His consistent output of deranged audio has landed on worldwide record labels such as Kaometry, Occult Research, Concrete Collage, Evel, and your friends at Satellite Era with his most recent release dating back to July 2024. Though his signature sound of rustic braindance has evolved to overclocking breakcore, its original essence can still be captured and translated to the modern era. His ability to create shapeshifting soundscapes full of disorderly drums and memorable samples has always been what makes experimental electronic music so inimitable. What caught our attention nearly a decade ago when discovering La Brooy’s antics as Hitori Tori is surely what captivated others when sharing “Seedful Things” two decades ago. The fact that one could share art they were personally given onto the internet, so others could rampantly share it for even more people to unintentionally fall in love with said art is what still ignites us as creators today. It soon became a priority for us to pay homage to this fabled project somehow, birthed by human experience and an increase in access to the World Wide Web.
It is our utmost honor to finally give Hitori Tori’s debut album a proper home. Welcome to the 20th anniversary edition of “Seedful Things” - a celebration of experimental electronic music through the passage of time, only made possible by the virtual crate diggers that fuel it. Each track’s arrangement has been left as is, with the only enhancements coming from improved mastering technology in our arsenal. The album was centered around the development of drill ‘n’ bass, familiarized by the legendary sounds of Warp and Planet Mu in the 90s. This subgenre serves as sort of a neutral zone between braindance, drum ‘n’ bass, trip-hop, and electronica. The period of time that “Seedful Things” was released had electronic music at even more of a crossroads. As breakcore began making its digital footprint, the high stakes, high tempo movement was immediately met with artists like La Brooy displaying a warmer, more playful interpretation. Bending the unspoken rules at the time meant incorporating moodier atmospheres, fuzzier melodic sequences, and peppering in playful vocal cuts to lighten the mood.
“Seedful Things” is a vibrant ecosystem of distinct species coexisting. Each intersection seems as leftfield on its own as it feels tightly woven, merging influences from the internet and La Brooy’s environment into one. In tracks like “Yutaka,” he sampled one of his Japanese students playing with toy trains in class, only to end the track with field recordings of a nearby train stop. There are plenty of moments that are purely inspired by La Brooy’s routine commutes around Japan, surrounded by friendly strangers with distant birds meandering above. Occasionally, a few wrong turns would lead him on a side quest - “Walls Of Shibuya” was written after purchasing tea at an undiscovered shop that led to mild hallucinations. The project is riddled with relics of a distant yet familiar past, from vocal cuts of battlewax records, to the peculiar samples in “Breakfux Of Champions.” Here, he used clips from a contest held by Nautilis, the now defunct project of a household name in 2000s electronica, to create a glitched-out blend between hip-hop and breakbeat. La Brooy is also unafraid to pick up the microphone in “Ishibashi vs. Tennoji” and “Why You Drinking Booze?” as he turns simple interludes into displays of conscious rap, only with unconscious lyrics meant to be taken unseriously. Aside from the many crossovers, there are plenty of tracks that have recognizable styles, such as “Keihan Line” and “Aonepsco” taking on breaky drum ‘n’ bass aesthetics. “Stole My Tet” and “Chioal” provide lovers of trip-hop a nice place to roost, just before the album chaotically unwinds into the final few tracks previously unheard.
Pieced together, “Seedful Things” is more than just a showcase of what made the mid 2000s so incredibly special for computer music and its hoard - it is the hatching of a ravishing flock of birds preparing to take flight and spread seeds. At the time, La Brooy’s reemergence into the electronic world as Hitori Tori served as a digital breeding ground where old challenged new. Revisiting the album, with its distinguishable breaks that effortlessly complement drill ‘n’ bass and hip-hop, feels as important in progressing the current as it did in the past. The 20th anniversary edition gives its highest praise to our predecessors, while welcoming newcomers to uncover its pioneering sound.
The immortal backstory of “Seedful Things” will never grow old to tell, even after two full decades of its roots in bloom. Much has changed since 2005, but one thing certainly has not - meaningful art will always find the right flyway and migrate home. We will continue finding ways to renovate ourselves with age.
