A Kanyenda / Tangotreats Co-Production

The series of co-productions I have produced with Herr Salat must have made some impact, because at the beginning of this year, Kanyenda approached me with an interesting project; would I be interested in transferring some vinyl? By the way, the two records in question were in mint condition and featured rare scores by Kentaro Haneda and Seiji Yokoyama. Uh, let me think about this for about a sixteenth of a second - YES, PLEASE!

KENTARO HANEDA
Hanakanmuri no Ryu no Kuni - Visual Sound Series
The Starlight Symphonic Orchestra
conducted by Naoto Otomo and Katsuaki Nakatani




My transfer from Kanyenda's vinyl; made and edited at 24-bit resolution 96000hz before downsampling to 16-bit 44100hz for distributions. Tagged in Japanese and English. Includes a scan of the absolutely gigantic poster, painstakingly produced by piecing together ten different scans. Playing time 40:43.

FLAC (Compression Level 8) with High Resolution PNG scans (332mb) - https://mega.nz/#!5hBWyJiJ!BK7jhD0GM5aRgGIAbpmE5ZNyJlcXAV5SKNpozyn8seY
MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 at -V0) with Lower Resolution JPG scans (78mb) - https://mega.nz/#!RphEzZIY!NUPADRKOsI6suDhNdK2mzYXocyI96cNSxKAJH82dy9I

01 The Kingdom of the Flower Crown Dragon ~ Prologue (7:18)
02 Rosy Flower Moon (6:59)
03 Rondo of the Sleeping Knights (6:05)
04 My Name is Sindbad (8:14)
05 Esther - Theme of Love (3:49)
06 The Kingdom of the Flower Crown Dragon ~ Main Theme (8:18)

This is the second of Kanyenda's two vinyl records that he asked me to transfer - and as far as I'm concerned I saved the best to last. Kentaro Haneda helps himself to Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, and John Williams (amongst others) and shows us the "other" inspiration behind Masamichi Amano's Giant Robo theme (5:34, track 2) in this score. It's an immensely fun piece of work that can sound like a seventies gameshow, a 1940s swashbuckler, a glorious sci-fi romp, and a classical concert - sometimes all within the same cue. Hanakanmuri no Ryu no Kuni is a manga from 1983; this album was mistakenly tagged on VGMDB as an "Unused Prototype" but thanks to information from Orie, we now know the truth; it's an image album - essentially, the composer's musical impressions on the manga.

Once again, I had the pleasure of working from vinyl in very good condition - although this one wasn't as well cut as yesterday's Seiji Yokoyama album, despite being three years newer and ten minutes shorter. I still think it sounds very good.

(Original transfer 19th January 2015. Restoration 20-23rd January 2015. Booklet scans 20th January 2015, except Poster 22nd January 2015, Front Cover and Vinyl scans 8th August 2015. Final assembly and compression 9th August 2015.)

Once a again, my appreciation to you and your hard work :)
Just so you know... Visual Sound Series was Starchild Records the Equivalent to Image Albums on Nippon Columbia. It was very normal, Mangas to have Image Albums, working as symphonic poem or soundtrack for it. Very common in the 80ts.
That's your reason why Haneda did this. We was called/hired by Starchild for it, and here you have. :)
For example, most of Joe Hisaishi Image Albums for Ghibli movies were all inspired on the poems Miyazaki had written then regarding his movies. So Some times you might had same compositions in the final score, or not.
Alos, Image Albums are exactly what they say... they are Image to the Novel or Manga in terms of music. :)

Ah, thank you! VGMDB has this album listed as "Unused Prototype" so I hesitated. :)

Unsed .... ? it's more like an arrange or original album inspired in the manga.

@Orie: Damn, they really were invested in it if they made an image album with such talent.

I see somebody has now edited VGMDB to read "Original Work"... :D

AFMG:
Visual Sound Series of Starchild did not last long, Nippon Columbia were crushing them like bugs. They had more rights of immense manga and novel material then Starchild. We could say there was a war back then for it. Nippon Columbia had rights for image albums, digital trips roman trips. They were the leading front in in that sorts of musical play.
Other labels, like Pony Canyon, or CBS/SONY or even Toshiba Emi, would relay more in releasing soundtracks and drama recordings. Pony Canyon would release more Drama recordings (Sound Comic Series) regarding a manga instead of Image album. Sometimes you would have some vocal tracks as image songs. But in a way, it was poor production on it. Although I was disappointed with my Sukeban Deka Sound Comic Series (http://vgmdb.net/album/49573)recording, my pleasure was mostly found in the drama tracks instead. But that is beside the point.
Kohei Tanaka, Kentaroh Haneda, Seiji Yokoyama, Anzai Fumitaka, and much more, were all called out for these things. They were not really always bounded to make movie or TV shows soundtrack only. I have to say, getting inspiration from a Manga/novel to make music, must need kudos.


Tango:
I was the one to edit the vgmdb entry ;)

@tangotreats And obviously a big thanks to you again for such amazing work.

@Orie How you know so much? When one can read about this? It's fascinating to know this details.

Huge thanks for this!

Thank you very much, tango.

In Japanese musical industry, I love all these 'classic anime era' score composers but Kentar� Haneda is actually my favorite of all.
Thanks again for this amazing Image Album soundtrack in lossless, tangotreats.

A lot of people have a hard time with this kind of music - perhaps the Yokoyama style more than the Haneda style... but I bloody love it!

:)

Thanks a lot!

!!!!

Absolutely wonderful. What a graceful, lovely and adorable vintage sound, even the vibraphone has the motor on *melts*... some moments are even on par with Phoenix 2772 and that is perhaps the highest praise I can give a japanese score, and as soon as the last track hit the 4:00 minute mark :D:D:D

You have my gratitude for this share, always presented with great care and love for the music. LOVING IT.

Thanks!

I have yet to listen to this album or the Yokoyama one, but I'm so glad to finally to be able to share them with everyone. I remember that I bought this album because I read in a japanese blog entry dedicated to Kentaro Haneda albums that it was one of the best Kentaro Haneda's works, it was mentioned along with other albums, one of which I plan to share it with you very soon.

Firstly, all my recognition to tangotreats. Without him and his absolute mastery in the art of vinyl transfer, this share hadn't ever happened. I contacted him because I wanted to share the music in these records in all its glory, that is, at the highest quality possible, and there is no better person for that job than tangotreats. I think these records deserve all that and more, great music needs to be shared and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

I will post my impressions on these albums when I have some time, but these look definitely good, judging by your comments.

Thank you both! I'm enjoying these immensely. I had little hope of finding something of Haneda's that was new to me. And you found a work that is not only beautiful, but fully representative of his personal style, and now a personal favorite. It's good folk like you who are making it possible to save and share these treasures years from now. I'm waxing sentimental now, but you know what I'm saying. Cheers, guys!

Wow, this album is without doubt there with "Macross Suite" or "Grand Symphony Yamato", my two favourite Haneda's albums.

All the praise was well deserved, this album is quintessential Haneda and a pure joy to anyone that cherishes the style of 80's or late 70's anime scores. What I've always found amazing in a composer like Haneda was his proverbial versality, his instinct to mix so different music styles and make them work, he was a genius of first magnitude. In this score, or rather image album, Haneda not only delight us with superb and grand orchestral cues, but also surprises us with badass guitar interludes and tropical rhythms.

I can imagine the story of the manga which this album serves as soundtrack, at first it may seem a typical girl fantasy tale, with dragons, princesses and romance and with healthy doses of humour. The music describes so well the setting that isn't too hard to get a picture of the adventures that the protagonist go through. The list of influences, almost all classical composers, is vast, I find the most obvious to Rimski‑Korsakov and his Scheherezade, this album could be considered as a sort of modern symphonic poem.

The range of moods, emotions and feelings that this album explores is astonishing. I mean, you got regal themes, exotic harmonies, blatant comic moments, sinister sections, fairy-tale melodies, adventure themes, sentimental piano playing, and even sci-fi sound effects that bring the album to its grand climax. This album is as diverse as it gets, with its episodic narrative one can never foresee what's next.

A majestic journey.

thank you so much for all the work & more HANEDA !!!! :)

Might go a bit explicit here... since just today I got time to listen to this.
I grabbed my...self(balls). This is really marvelous. "Phenomenous" to say more. Oh Haneda, although you are not with us, your musical legacy will live on.
This might be my favorite (number1) Visual Sound Series so far. Although my recently acquisition of "Sound of Music 5oth anniversary" , has nothing to do with this, I just could not stop imagining in my head certain scenes from that movie with this Haneda work. I know nothing about this manga, but my mind kept going back to Sound of Music movie, in which I did find it played it well with some key scenes.
I am not going to say what track I love the most. It is a tough call. I like everything, enjoy everything in here. Though... I must point the band part of track 3 and 6. This is why I say I was born to live and love the 80ts, and that symphonic entering in the middle of the band part and ruling the house. Damn, this is awesome.

I need to seriously dance Tango with tangotreats while this album plays, and chaneg partner to Kanyenda...... because this is my way of saying thanks to you both? xD

thanks

Re-Up Link by Enigma0066:


Reup tangotreats!
Hanakanmuri no Ryu no Kuni / Visual Sound Series [K28G-7274] (Flac, Cover) [Download (https://mega.nz/#F!joZi0baJ!QsmmBI2ac3y8WmW34Ousyw)]

Just finished listening to this album. I see lots of people here saying that this is one of Haneda's best albums, and I have to agree with them...this album is stunningly beautiful! My favorite part is 4:01 of Track 6 :)

Thank you. Great worl. Very appreciated. Gracias. Gran trabajo. Muy agradecido.

Any others with trouble accessing? Intrigued.