Soft Ballet was officially formed in 1986 when Ken Morioka and Ryoichi Endo (who had already been working together in a band called Volaju) joined with Maki Fujii. Together as Soft Ballet, the trio's combination of light synthpop with hard European-style EBM attracted attention for being a unique presence on the then-current Japanese music scene. After releasing a handful of songs on indie labels, the group was signed to Alfa Records in 1989 and immediately released their debut album, "Earth Born". The album proved to be a success and the band toured extensively for it, leading to a concert being filmed professionally and released to home video early the next year. In this time Ken and Maki assisted famed video game composer Yuzo Koshiro with his soundtrack for "The Scheme".