The general theme of the album completely fulfills the supposedly 80’s detective theme of the animation (which the animation sadly fails at conveying, in my opinion). Although I think the form and arrangement of the music is well done with no repetitiveness in any areas, this album suffers from bad mixing. I’m wondering if it’s a function of the recording studio, because I’ve never heard any of Kanno’s music sound like it’s drowning in echoes or too much vocal effects. Some tracks like GO DARK and Highheel Runaway sound well-mixed, therefore the echoing sound might have been a deliberate attempt to convey drowsiness. But this effect, in my opinion, ruined the album for me.

Sample of Yin no Piano:

The rest of this review focuses on a track by track review of the album.

GO DARK - Probably what you’d expect from Yoko Kanno if you just listened to Cowboy Bebop. The 80’s detective movie feel that the director asked for is very much felt in this track.

HOWLING - Pretty much what you hear in the intro sequence. (but of course) It is a standard j-rock song, very energetic, and has a bit of Engrish in it.

Highheel Runaway - Again, another 80’s detective inspired track, with a hint of Latin beats which has a ballroom dancing feel to it. It fades off at the end, just like the Ragnarok OST tracks which are meant to be looped

Tenderly - After listening to this song, I could almost feel a very smooth flowing of the music in this album. After the dancey Highheel Runaway, this song is another jazzy piece with a laid back, smooth, flowing feel to it.
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Official news about this item could be found at the Victor Animation Page for the 4th OST.The OST 4 is officially called OST4- (minus) smooth in the shell. The CD will contain 16 songs that would add up to 49 minutes. If I’m reading the page right, it says that there will be only one track (no breaks) in this CD.

The USB flash memory stick which is in the design of a Tachikoma character, will contain 18 tachikoma songs (mp3), 65 tachikoma voice recordings, 15 voice recordings of Motoko and Batou (mp3), an OST promotional video/be Human TV CM (mp4), and 12 images (jpg).

There is also a disclaimer about the photos above, that they are only samples, and the actual product might vary.

As a final comment, not too many Japanese fans seem to be impressed with this release. Most fans who prematurely reviewed it in Amazon.com gave it a low one star, but only due to the fact that you could not avail of the OST 4 without buying the whole package, which includes ALL the other soundtrack CDs released before.

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click the image to view the CM video The new Citizen CM’s music is written by Yoko Kanno. It’s a watch brand so popular, I’m actually wearing one right now

The CM is about graduation, and the song is entitled “Long Goodbye“, lyrics by Tetsuo Asaki, performed by Yukari Yamasaki. The song is not yet in the Grand Funk website, but I’m pretty sure they’d put it up because it was recorded in that studio. The staff list in the Citizen CM website says so.
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First of all, thanks to Miku from Maayas.net for letting me listen to the full version. It was also through Maayas.net that I found out that there was a cover for this song.

I first heard about Mikuni Shimokawa from some fans pitting her against Maaya Sakamoto for reasons unknown to me. Most people thought that it was similar to the reason Kanno is being compared to Kajiura - they are both female, have the same work, and have the same initials. A rather odd reason to compare people, if you ask me.

But now I get where the comparison came from - Mikuni Shimokawa covered Yakusoku wa Iranai, which was originally a song performed by Maaya Sakamoto composed by Yoko Kanno.

Mikuni Shimokawa is most popular for her work for the intro and ending themes of the anime Full Metal Panic!, and looks less experienced in the field of music compared to Maaya, although I’m not a big fan so I might not know her full discography.

Moving on, here is her version of Yakusoku wa Iranai, which I cut up to give a short preview of how the song was rearranged. (more…)

(Warning: storyline spoilers in the post and in the interview)

The third and final installation to the English translation of Yoko Kanno’s Production IG interview has finally been published in the Production IG official English website. Read the first part here and the second part here.

While it is not clear from the interview if Kanno watched the whole Solid State Society movie or not, it seems clear that she watched some parts of it, particularly the final scene where Batou puts his arm around Motoko and she ponders about “the vast network”. She also based “Date of Rebirth” on this scene. In most interviews she relates that the music for animations that she does is usually done before the animation gets finished, and she bases her work on the story and the characters. I guess there are times when it’s not.

By the way, in the scene, Batou puts his arm around Motoko’s shoulder, not her hips. The image to the right is a screenshot of this scene.

One sentence that I find particularly controversial is “I sometimes wait for a coincidence to take place, use my body to create, or borrow someone else’s brain, and at times, my emotion goes out of control.” It’s not completely new to me that Kanno borrows themes from other artists, but reading these words straight from her makes me feel that she thinks it’s not that big an issue to do so. (more…)