Akira Soundtrack
Monday, January 23 by Brian Pan
Posting again because I'll be out of town until Saturday.I watched the 1988 anime Akira for the first time last weekend. This weekend, I listened to the entire soundtrack.
Akira is an anime movie classic that is amazing to see, especially realizing that each frame of cel animation is hand drawn. Painstaking attention to detail is valued in traditional Japanese culture- from the pristine appearance and movements of a geisha, to the sparce, precise notes of traditional music. I think it's that aesthetic that inspires the dedication it takes to create a two hour film, one frame at a time.
Akira was the first successful anime movie in the US and is a movie that inspired many other animes, and sci-fi in general. The kinds of breathtaking cityscapes like the computer generated city in Appleseed were first seen in Akira. A lot of Neo's powers in the Matrix look very similar to what Tetsuo is capable of as his supernatural powers begin to develop. And the music of Akira, heavy with drumming and chanting, has obviously influenced the music of current anime like Naruto.
The soundtrack of the movie is very original sounding. Accoring to one of the Amazon reviewers, this is one of the first soundtracks to be digitized and cut and pasted into the movie for a soundtrack. The music provides an interesting background and at times it comes to the foreground to provide dramatic accents to the action.
The movie's first scene is a dramitic cityscape and a nuclear detonation that begins WWIII. The dramatic beginning of "Requiem" then opens the movie. Shortly after, "Kaneda" provides a background to our introduction to one of the main characters. I don't remember where "Dolls' Polyphony" is in the movie but I had to include it because I like it so much and I drool to think about how it sounds in ernie's Sennheisers. Mmmm, sweet, crisp trebles...
Sorry, more electronic music. Prefuse 73 is definitely easier to listen to, but this soundtrack is interesting in light of the movie and significance to Asian pop culture.
Requiem (Sorry a 20MB upload for a couple of drum beats....but they're really good drum beats) :) (updated link 1/23)
Kaneda
Dolls' Polyphony
Prefuse 73
Saturday, January 21 by Brian Pan
When I was in Florida, I got a lot of good music from ernie. Including a handful of tracks from the Prefuse 73 album One Word Extinguisher. I finally got around to listening to it and I really like it. I didn't find too much on the internet so I got a bunch of albums from a kind Trencher who yousendit'ed to me. : )
Hopefully I'm not stealing a post from ernie but I thought I'd post while the albums are still available to be downloaded (next 7 days).
The music is a blend of electronic music and hip hop. It's fairly experimental, which is to say, it's at times more of a musically composed set of electronic sounds than a song with a usual melody. A few of the songs are more straight hip hop sounding with raps over electronic backgrounds.
Anyway, here's the file, it's a compressed rar file.
http://s64.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=25AWGEC88O4V53IIQKEAMC3LWX
And here's a bit more from the allmusic bio:
Prefuse 73 is the alias of Scott Herren, an experimental hip-hop producer whose material often features MCs buried in the mix to become more a part of the sonic texture than a focal point. Herren began his career working in commercial studios in Atlanta, but later went on to more experimental work.
EDIT: Hmm, some of the rips are pretty poor. Start with Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives. It'll blow ya mind.
Alicia Keys - Unplugged and unedited
Wednesday, January 18 by Brian Pan
Reader's Digest's December 2005 issue with Alicia Keys on the cover has a short interview. The full taped interview has been made available online at RD.com. It's two parts and is about an hour long. Alicia talks about growing up an only child of a single parent, Hell's Kitchen in New York, her first piano, her nine Grammy's, and of course song writing. Check it out if you like Alicia Keys:
The podcast XML
(which points to these two MP3s)
Side A
Side B
Also, MTV Unplugged is back with Alicia Keys. The Unplugged album is availible now (although with Sony DRM).
White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
Monday, January 16 by Brian Pan
The White Stripes are an indie duo from Detroit, Michigan. Meg and Jack White make awesome, simple, straight-forward rock. Their simple style remind me of the Black Keys, but more rock-and-roll versus Bluesy. I still haven't figured out if they are husband/wife or brother/sister. (I think they like it that way.)
In 2005, they released Get Behind Me Satan, expanding on their driving, catchy sound. This time Jack provides a good amount of piano as well as guitar and vocals.Their website has a bunch of cool videos.
The Denial Twist (mov)
Doorbell (mov)
A cute song from an earlier album "White Blood Cells": We're Going To Be Friends
Friday, January 13 by Brian Pan
Hi everyone! Everyone is signed up except Jeff who's in Vegas right now. Hopefully this will be a good way to share our thoughts on music with each other. I'm excited!
Here's that other blog I saw: http://mynewmuse.blogspot.com/. I emailed one of the guys that posts there and he said it started with a friend sharing music with iTunes on Thursdays at work. After they separated, the blog was a way of continuing the tradition by posting once a week.
Here's some file hosting possibilities for our music: