Moving on to... Classic Soundtracks !

How about posting some BGM, instrumental music for a change ? I've been sharing a few albums of Jpop artists and speaking about the animation series to which they may have contributed songs, but I think it is time for you to enjoy a full soundtrack and let yourself be carried away by outstanding pieces of music specially conceived to provide background to a scene. In this sense, there aren't many composers out there better than Miss Yoko Kanno. I truly think this woman is just the epithome of talent, and if you don't know her, you are about to hear why.

Yoko Kanno (born on May 19 1964) had already worked in music composition for commercials and a couple of video game titles when she got a call from Victor Entertainment to do the music for an upcoming project they were readying: the anime adaptation of the shojo manga "Please, save my earth". The music was mostly credited to another composer and arranger, Hajime Mizoguchi. This man would become Kanno's long time collaborator and eventually her husband as well (awwww... :-P). On a side note, the soundtrack to PSME would also feature the vocals of no other than Miss Akino Arai herself.

The OVA series (Original Video Animation; that is, animation released straight on video) of "Please, save my earth" would make Kanno famous among animation fans in Japan, but her international consecration would come after being commissioned to compose the music for another celebrated OVA series: Macross Plus, in 1994. Since then, she has been a regular staff member of some of the greatest oeuvres in animation, either on TV or on the big screen. The list of projects she composed the sountrack for includes Cowboy Bebop, Brain Powerd, Wolf's Rain, Earth Girl Arjuna, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and The Vision of Escaflowne, among many others.

Precisely, today I'm posting the OST (original soundtrack) to the Escaflowne movie in which she collaborated once again with Mizoguchi. The movie was released in 2000, in the aftermath of the phenomenal success of the TV series of "Escaflowne". The motion picture offered a whole reinterpretation of the story seen on TV. Do yourselves a favour and if you haven't checked this series or the movie out, do it now ! It's from 1996, but it's still looking fresh... the true blueprint of a classic. Take a look at this special trailer released to promote the movie for Western audiences, featuring one of the main pieces of music of the soundtrack. The video is courtesy of solidsnake1mgs @ YouTube. It's in Japanese, but you get to appreciate the quality of the animation and of the score:

The Warsaw Philarmonic Orchestra and Chorus did a magnificent job performing Kanno's & Mizoguchi's compositions. As it was the case for the TV series, in the movie we still have plenty of camera music, but there is also pastoral, and some of those "weird" tracks Kanno is famous for, in which she combines percussion, samples of voices, made-up languages, etc. Kanno has been known for her experimentation in music and for her mastery of diverse music genres that she uses interchangeably for setting the right mood or ambiance on the scene.

In this soundtrack in particular, tracks 3, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17, 20, and 22 were composed and arranged by Hajime Mizoguchi; the rest are Kanno's. The file below includes ED song "Yubiwa" (Ring) as track 1, performed by Maaya Sakamoto. The English version of that song is plainly horrible, so skip that track ! (#25). Hidden track # 26 is another nice Sakamoto song, also included in her album "Hotchpotch", which I hope to post someday in the future.

Here's the soundtrack for you all; enjoy it and let me know your thoughts on it: