Psyence
album by hide
Psyence is the second album by Japanese musician hide, released on September 2, 1996. It topped the Oricon Albums Chart and was certified double platinum by the RIAJ for sales over 500,000 copies. The album was re-released on the Japan only format SHM-CD on December 3, 2008.
Overview
Eric Westfall, one of the album's recording and mixing engineers, was told that hide requested to work with him after the musician heard some of Westfall's work and liked the guitar sounds.
When forming Zilch, hide and Kazuhiko "I.N.A." Inada did not preemptively divide the songs they were working on between hide's solo career and the new band. As such, an English version of "Damage" was first recorded before the Japanese version that appears on Psyence, but it was not included on 3.2.1..
The version of "Misery" that appears on the album is a remix of the original single. The version of "LEMONed I Scream" heard on the album is different than the one originally included as the B-side to the "Misery" single. Although "Lassie" is listed as "Demo Master Version", no other version of the song has been released.
Commercial performance
Psyence reached the number 1 position on the Oricon Albums Chart.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Psyence” is album by hide. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Psyence, album and hide, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “album by hide” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1748694. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 2008.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Psyence” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.