soundtrack

Open Sesame!: Chocolate Panic (1985)

2020/06/05

Let’s have a talk about cancel culture. I refuse to endorse any images that will promote racism of any kind. We punch up, not down, here. It’s for that reason I have to confront legitimately racist works, like the comics and anime behind Open Sesame’s! Chocolate Panic, with some modicum of introspection. Although the music…
Michio Mamiya (間宮芳生): Grave of the Fireflies Image Album (火垂るの墓イメージ・アルバム集) (1987)

2020/01/17

Right off the bat, I promise this review will be spoiler free. However, in this age of increasing troubling times, this seems like a good time to revisit Michio Mamiya’s score for 火垂るの墓, Hotaru no Haka (otherwise known as Grave of the Fireflies). Now, for those that have seen Isao Takahata’s animated masterpiece one can’t…
Masahiro Sugaya: The Long Living Things (Zoo Of The Sea) (1988)

2018/08/03

Masahiro Sugaya has always been an interesting composer. Based in Tokyo, it’s been his music that’s soundtracked dance theater group Pappa TARAHUMARA’s most known works. Masahiro’s music draws from a mix of minimal, ambient, world, and Japanese traditional styles. So, no one album or song can perfectly distill how varied (in mood and sound) each…
Miles Davis/Marcus Miller: Music From Siesta (1986)

2018/05/22

Marcus Miller, this is your redemption song. Marcus Miller. Marcus Miller, man, where do I begin? For so long, had I absolutely loathe what you did to one of my all-time favorite musicians. It was your slap bass that figuratively sunk Miles Davis’s career when he needed you the most — really. You were the…
Masahide Sakuma & dip in the pool: 黒いドレスの女 OST (1987)

2017/12/01

This is such a rare album, for a truly forgotten movie. Masahide Sakuma and dip in the pool’s soundtrack for 黒いドレスの女 (otherwise known as Kuroi Doresu No Onna/A Woman With A Blass Dress) hints at darker themes underlying the whole movie. The movie itself, one starring Tomoyo Harada, was a sexy noir movie based on…
Yas Kaz: Shinran/Path To Purity (1987)

2017/04/17

Originally recorded to soundtrack Rentarō Mikuni’s Jury Prize-winning Cannes film festival “Shinran: Path to Purity”, Yas Kaz’s own Shinran/Path To Purity does well to exist on its own, outside the cinema. Taking cues from the original story of Shinran, the Buddhist monk who promoted a very egalitarian method to spirituality/salvation, so does Yas Kaz transform his knowledge of Japanese…
Michel Legrand: Brian’s Song (Themes & Variations) (1972)

2017/02/15

ho knows what’s going on in the air? Something in it is stirring me to share this wonderful compilation of music brimming with ideas that seem so gauche in our time. It seems like the sweeping, uber romantic, and grandiose music of Parisian Michel Legrand only gets fleeting kudos whenever someone speaks of French music in general, and film…
Joe Hisaishi: 吉祥天女 Kichijoutennyo/Kisshō Tennyo (1984)

2017/01/20

Now here’s someone’s backstory I can’t even begin to try to tackle. To be brief: pioneering Japanese composer and musician/violinist Joe Hisaishi might best be known for his timeless work soundtracking the vast majority of Studio Ghibli’s films and all of Hayao Miyazaki’s oeuvre. We all can fall in love with his music from Princess…
Leonard Rosenman: Barry Lyndon Soundtrack (1975)

2014/12/16

Kubrick and friends – 1975 Now here’s something a bit out of step with the times. We all know Stanley Kubrick correct? Notorious perfectionist and quite intelligent artist whose muse seems to wander to and fro. In 1975, he treated film goers expecting some bit of shocking thrills to a bit of shocking melodrama. Barry…