Hiroshi Watanabe (musician)

Infobox musical artist

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Name = Hiroshi Watanabe
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Background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
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Alias = Quadra, Kaito, Tread
Born = 1971, Japan
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Genre = House, Techno
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URL = [http://www.hiroshiwatana.be/ www.hiroshiwatana.be]
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Hiroshi Watanabe (born 1971) is Japanese house and techno musician.

History

Hiroshi Watanabe is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston majoring in Music Composition. After his graduation he worked as a DJ in New York City at clubs such as "Save The Robots", "Tunnel", "Twilo" and "Speed".

The US Billboard club play chart No.1 award arrived with "Kimara Lovelace /Circles", No.3 with "Everyn Champagne King /One More Time" and the maxi singles sales chart No.5 with "You've Got To Be There /Nite System" in 1998. He released numerous tracks under the Hiroshi Watanabe and Nite System projects on New York labels such as Deeper Rekords, Nitegrooves and BPM King Street Sound. Moreover he released an E.P. and the album "Sketch From A Moment" on Frogman Records under the alias Quadra, as well as the album "Beatmania -Beat Indication" on the Japanese label Konami, under his real name. Hiroshi Watanabe has also left his mark in the video games department, as he has given tracks for one of the most famous games "Beat mania" -Konami (which one can find in arcades and Sony PlayStation) achieving pretty big sales. In March 1999 he decided to settle in Japan where he has been acting as producer for Japanese artists and making an even bigger impact with his many remix projects.

His new alias Kaito was a 2001 initiative, under which he released "Beautiful Day", "Everlasting", "Awakening", the albums "Special Life", "Special Love" and "Soul of Heart" on the German Kompakt Records.

At that same period he started a new deep slow house project called "Tread" with the assistance of graphic designer Takehiko Kitahara and so far "Tread" has released 4 albums from Japanese "Norm". In 2003 he released under the alias "32 project" the "Root of World" EP on the highly acclaimed label, Ibadan Records.

He continues giving live performances as Tread and Kaito, but also continues DJing, where he uses his name Hiroshi Watanabe, throughout all popular Japanese clubs. In 2002, he gave a fantastic performance at the Sonar Music Festival in Barcelona, at Vision in Switzerland and at Popkomm in Cologne, Germany. Moreover, the talented Mr. Watanabe has also made music for films, he's composed television jingles as well as music for theatre plays, fashion shows and more. His talent in the fine arts is proved even more so intense since 2002 when he started working as a photographer. Ever since, he has held several Photo Exhibitions at certain galleries and clubs in Tokyo. His first Photo Album accompanied by the "Tiny Balance" DVD with an original soundtrack was released in Japan in September 2004 by Colorve.

He also composed a few songs for the Bemani series.

Recently, he composed a song for the anime Eureka Seven, titled "Get It By Your Hands."

Discography

Quadra

*"Sketch from a Moment" (1997)
*"Beatmania Beat Indication" (1998, collection album of his work in Beatmania series)

Hiroshi Watanabe

*"Tiny Balance" (2004)
*"Genesis" (2006)
*"Life,Love" (with Keiichi Sokabe) (2008)

Kaito

*"Special Life" (2002)
*"Special Love" (2003, Beatless edit version of "Special Life")
*"Hundred Million Light Years" (2006)
*"Hundred Million Love Years" (2006, Beatless edit version of "Hundred Million Light Years")

Tread (with Takehiko Kitahara)

*"Tread" (2002)
*"Tread2" (2002)
*"Tread3" (2003)
*"Tread4" (2004)
*"Tread5" (2005)

Bemani works

*Quadra
*DJ FX
*Nite System
*Crunky Boy
*DJ Oddball, Deep Emotion

External links

* [http://www.hiroshiwatana.be/ Official website]