Geinoh Yamashirogumi Symphonic Suite AKIRA US Pressing (1994)

Making some ludicrously '90s jazz fusion

BIG SEXY DIGITAL PAN PIPES BABY ✨

Synth sound is Living Calliope on the Roland D-50, my favourite synthesizer patch ever ever.

If it's good enough for Enya and for Geinoh Yamashirogumi on the Akira soundtrack, it's sure as shit good enough for me.

Japanese Freaks / Weird Japan

Geinoh Yamashirogumi - 恐山 (Osorezan) from: 芸能山城組 (Geinoh Yamashirogumi) - 恐山 (Osorezan) / 銅之剣舞 (Dou No Kenbai) (Victor, 1976)

Geinoh-Yamashirogumi "Kaneda" from AKIRA live

Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a Japanese musical collective founded on January 19, 1974 by Tsutomu Ōhashi,[1] consisting of hundreds of people from all walks of life: journalists, doctors, engineers, students, businessmen, etc.

They are known for both their faithful re-creations of folk music from around the world, as well as their fusion of various traditional musical styles with modern instrumentation and synthesizers. For example, in the 1980s, MIDI synthesizers could not handle the tuning systems of traditional Indonesian gamelan music, so the group had to teach themselves how to program in order to modify their equipment. The album that followed, Ecophony Rinne (1986), was a new direction for the group: they had not previously incorporated computer-generated sounds into their work. The success of this album brought them to the attention of Katsuhiro Ōtomo, who commissioned them to create the soundtrack of Akira.[2] The soundtrack is built on the concept of recurrent themes or "modules". Texturally, the soundtrack is a mix of digital synthesizers (Roland D-50 and Yamaha DX7-II, both of which could, by then, be tuned to the Pure-Minor, slendro, and pelog tuning scales), Indonesian bamboo percussion (jegog, etc.), traditional Japanese theatrical and spiritual music (Noh), European classical, and progressive rock

Ecophony Rinne

I had a full boat yesterday, and wasn't able to do yesterday's post. The one I posted this morning for yesterday was Black Milk, by Massive Attack and Liz Fraser. Today's is one of the genre's classics. Dr. Shoji Yamashiro and Geinoh Yamashirogumi gave us 'Kaneda' for the theme to Katsushiro Otomo's adaptation of 'Akira' all the way back in 1988. It's cliche and hyperbole to say nothing was the same for Anime over here in the United States since. It's also entirely true.

And of course, that movie opens with Kaneda and his chooms lighting out into the nighttime in Neo-Tokyo on their bikes for a bit of the old ultraviolence. And as the holographic expanses over them cycle on, Kaneda's guys get into a tussle with an opposing Clown Gang in the streets and ridiculous speeds. And honestly, when you get on your Kusanagi and you're firing down the road at some ridiculous speed of your own; weaving and dodging through traffic that might as well be stationary in comparison, more than one of you are hearing this music in your head. So much CP can name this movie as its direct ancestor. It would be criminal not to include it here.

from  Yamato Gensho (1977)

Exultent pisces in cantics nostris