Akira Yamaoka

Master of aural gloom and suspense, the Japanese musician and composer Akira Yamaoka is best-known for his work on the soundtrack for the Silent Hill video game series, where he used a mixture of ambient, trip-hop, rock, and industrial to chilling effect. The Niigata-born Yamaoka, who names Depeche Mode, Metallica, and Angelo Badalamenti as his influences, initially wanted to be a designer, and graduated from Tokyo Art College, but fell under the sway of artists such as Mick Karn of Japan and Steve Strange of Visage, who, in Yamaoka's words, "combined the notions of Art and Mu...