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Anime Music, Themes

Science Fiction music is always fun, and one of the best sources is opening and closing theme songs of various Sci-Fi shows. Personally, I love all the soundtrack, incidental, and interstitial music as well, but most folks only remember the theme songs, so that is the primary target to go for on any given show. One of the groups that perform such themes to the point they are recognized internationally is AKB48, or The Akihabara 48. Last month NHKWorld Premium played a documentary, called the AKB 48 Documentary (what a surprise, huh?) all about them and their music on Sunday the 9th, and it was quite tasty. Even if you don’t speak the language you will enjoy the music, I promise.

Running a Windows 7 OS and looking for some Anime themes? They have a few good free ones over at VikiTech, like this Full Metal Alchemist theme. Just as in earlier windows versions, a theme is more than a wallpaper instance for your desktop. Each of these themes include a number of switchable wallpapers, custom icons, and sounds from the show. They also made the Anime Angels theme, and others for Naruto Shippuden, Nartuo, Bleach, and a number of others. In their Theme Gallery they ave other categories as well, including Games, Movies, and Space. Not all of them are for straight download; some of them you can only access if you either subscribe to their newsletter or friend them on Facebook.

J-Rock

J-Rock comes in a variety of forms, many of them going Thumpa Thumpa in a loud voice. Some of them are not quite so intense, like Yuki Kajiura’s Song of Storm and Fire, and her Yume no Tsubasa, which you may recognize from an anime series. Then there is Maaya with a J-Pop song that was never so sweet as this version, even if it isn’t the jazz vocal riffs she is known for. And then an uptempo J-Pop ditty followed by a J-Rock tune by May’N; enjoy!

Anime Music

Some of the best music comes from Japanese Anime and I have a few to share today. My all time favorite composer is Yoko Kanno, so the tracks are hers, from the original movie Ghost In The Shell. They start with Inner Universe, followed by Lithium Flower, and then finally the Opening Theme song, all from the first film. So this is the music of a single movie, from a single composer; imagine how much more is out there, waiting to be discovered!

Singularity Music: 6

The first video is from a band that lost their instruments but refused to stop playing. New York Cities Atomic Tom took music creation apps from their smart phones, hit the subways, and recorded another version of their local hit. If you like the song, you can download it free on iTunes. I am sure Steve Jobs thinks it is another advertising campaign generated by his company. The second track is from Future Music Camp Mannheim 2009, and features 2 conductors direction 12 people running the Brian Eno music app Bloom. They ran the camp again in 2010, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was coming around again this year.

Music for Anime: Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi has built some interesting music for some quality Anime productions, most notably for Hayao Miyazaki’s incredible animated stories. Miyazaki is the world famous co-founder of Studio Ghibli,, and some of the wonderful stories that Joe built the scores for include Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle. From which list you will no doubt have figured out that Disney Distributes Ghibli in the US, because their quality for amazing animation is on a par. And Joe has been doing some of the best musical scores for Ghibli, which is a bit more complex than it might at first seem.

We all know that every good Movie and TV show, whether live action or animation, has an opening and closing theme that ideally sets the tone and expectations for the program as a whole. And we all realize (even if we don’t notice it on any specific show) that within any good program there are variations of one or both of those theme songs that enhance scenes emotionally and make it obvious that we are in a chase, or combat, or romance, or one of the other standard kinds of situations. The ones that become easiest to miss are also the ones that stitch together the presentation at the most basic level; the interstitial music, the tones or brief riffs that introduce a transition from one kind of scene to the next. Trust me when I say Joe Hisaishi has mastered all of those musical flavors, and built some of the most complete and inspiring sound tracks for each of the projects he has taken on. Just in case you still think you don’t already know who he is, this short selection of tracks should prove otherwise to you.

And for those in the audience that thought if it wasn’t Rock-N-Roll I wasn’t interested, you were mostly right. But I haven’t heard orchestral music twisted around and tied tight to a story line like this since I sat in the audience and had Leonard Bernstein play Peter and the Wolf for me live one day; that kind of experience really does change your perspective.

Silly Music

What could be more silly than a Ukulele Orchestra doing rock? Perhaps a Kazoo Band, but not much else to my mind. So here are a few silly Ukulele songs to hold us until I can gather together a few of the other tunes.