The percussive new age soundtracks of '80s and early '90s Japanese TV, anime and manga built alternative worlds and pushed boundaries in the process.
When Japanese composer Yas-Kaz left Tokyo for Bali in the mid 1970s he had little idea of how influential his trip would become. In studying the storied art of gamelan, the jazz and avant-garde percussionist opened a door to a world of sound and rhythm left behind by the West. The music he and his contemporaries made would become known as new age. It also happened to soundtrack the golden era of anime.
Awash with money and with the prerogative to entertain the burgeoning middle classes, anime in the 1980s experienced a creative and commercial boom. Not constricted by generic expectations, production houses such as the now renowned Studio Ghibli were able to experiment liberally with both form and content. And with it came the space for composers to be similarly adventurous.
'TV, Anime & Manga New Age Soundtracks 1984-1993' charts this moment across eight tracks spanning classics of the genre and previously unknown rarities. The collection brings together music that found kinship in electronic and acoustic instrumentation, often combining spiritual or environmental themes with percussive, varied and highly refined syncopations of non-Western musical traditions.
Among them is ‘Kaneda’ by Geinoh Yamashirogumi, the shape-shifting group of self-styled musicians, anthropologists and computer scientists that masterminded the soundtrack to game-changing dystopian anime Akira - and with whom the sound, tuning and breakneck speed of Balinese gamelan has become indelibly entwined.
Reflecting the desires of the era to reach beyond Japan’s borders, many of the soundtracks featured were commissioned for narratives set in distant lands or alternative worlds. There’s violinist and composer Norihiro Tsuru’s ‘Farsighted Person’, written for The Heroic Legend of Arslān, set in ancient Persia; Yas-Kaz’s own ‘Hei (Theme of Shikioni)’, for period sci-fi manga & anime series Peacock King - Spirit Warrior; and two tracks - 'Tassili N’Ajjer' and 'Fiesta Del Fuego' - from Yoichiro Yoshikawa’s soundtrack to NHK’s proto-Planet Earth series The Miracle Planet.
Such was the variety and quality of the music produced, if there is a guiding principle to the tracks collected here it is a sense of escapism and adventure that came with the confluence of modern electronic instruments and a fascination with percussive traditions.
Elsewhere, pioneering children’s TV composer Chumei Watanabe’s ‘Fushigi Song’ (performed by a vocal group Korogi ‘72) offers a trippy and infectious groove with sonic similarities to Don Cherry’s ‘Brown Rice’; little-known jazz-funk library group Columbia Orchestra showcase the best of Tokyo’s session musicians on ‘Hearts Beats - Theme for Andrew Glasgow’; before lawyer-turned-composer Kan Ogasawara closes out the compilation with a dramatic flourish on ‘Gishin Anki’.
Following on from Time Capsule’s acclaimed deep-dive into the world of manga & anime synth-pop in 2022, this vinyl only collection is set to broaden and diversify an understanding of how soundtracks shaped the sound of new age music in Japan for a generation.
STAFF COMMENTS
Matt says: Market leaders at this stuff, Time Capsule's latest episode transports us into the world of Anime & Manga; but if these Japanese animation houses are unknown to you fear not! As the sounds contained within are a mystical adventure in their own right.
TRACK LISTING
A1. Korogi ‘73 - Fushigi Song 4:31
Taken From Space Sheriff Shaider TV Soundtrack (1984)
Composed & Arranged By Chumei Watanabe
Licensed By Nippon Columbia Co.,Ltd.
A2. Yas-Kaz - Hei (Theme Of Shikioni) 4:40
Taken From Kujakuoh Kikansai Ongakuhen Anime Soundtrack (1988)
Composed And Arranged By Yas-Kaz
Licensed By Pony Canyon Inc.
A3. Yoichiro Yoshikawa - Tassili N'Ajjer 3:29
Taken From A Dream Of Aku-Aku, A Soundtrack For TV Series The Miracle Planet (1988)
Composed And Arranged By Yoichiro Yoshikawa
(P) 1987 EMI Music Japan Inc.
Published By: NHK Publishing
Licensed Courtesy Of Universal Music Operations Limited
A4. Norihiro Tsuru - Farsighted Person 4:58
Taken From The Heroic Legend Of Arslān III, IV Original Manga Soundtrack (1993)
Composed And Arranged By Norihiro Tsuru
Licensed By Sony Music Entertainment UK
B1. Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Theme Of Kaneda 3:11
Taken From Symphonic Suite Akira (1988)
Composed And Produced By Shoji Yamashiro
Licensed By Victor Entertainment, Inc.
B2. Yoichiro Yoshikawa - Fiesta Del Fuego 3:29
Taken From Cyprus, A Soundtrack For TV Series The Miracle Planet (1988)
Composed And Arranged By Yoichiro Yoshikawa
(P) 1988 EMI Music Japan Inc.
Published By: NHK Publishing
Licensed Courtesy Of Universal Music Operations Limited
B3. Columbia Orchestra - Heart Beats - Theme For Andrew Glesgow- 3:28
Taken From Palm - The Sea Shouldn’t Exist Manga Soundtrack (1986)
Composed And Arranged By Norimasa Yamanaka
Licensed By Nippon Columbia Co.,Ltd.
B4. Kan Ogasawara - Gishin Anki 5:05
Taken From Yume No Ishibumi Manga Soundtrack (1985)
Composed & Arranged By Kan Ogasawara
Licensed By Pony Canyon Inc.