Vinphonic
10-03-2017, 06:03 PM
The Legacy of Japanese Composers
Hayato Matsuo
Hayato Matsuo is a classical trained anime and game composer and a disciple of legendary Japanese composer Koichi Sugiyama. His music has classical influences written all over it and he is brass acrobat par excellence. Other noticeable influences include the legendary Kohei Tanaka and Hollywood legends like John Williams.
His magnum opus HELLSING is unfortunately not available in complete form (and in best quality) and his joyful Hollywood bombast of Keijo!!!!!!!! is still unreleased. But at least I got that out now.
But aside from that he gave us two of the best scores of the anime medium, (HELLSING and DRIFTERS) performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic. HELLSING is an operatic tour-de-force for one of fiction’s greatest characters (Vlad) and is filled to the brim with Star-Wars-level action and bombast. It might not have the lyrical but melancholic yet delicate love theme from Kilar's Dracula or the complex narrative of Williams Dracula but it still towers them for the sheer bombast and operatic beauty, even including the work of Karl Maria von Weber (I love "Der Freisch�tz" so props to the staff for using it in the OVAs). DRIFTERS in particular just oozes Star Wars like nothing in the anime medium before. It’s the best Star Wars score not written by Williams since Shadows of the Empire.
If we venture further in time we discover that Matsuo was luckily given enough budget to write some grade A film scores. Street Fighter Zero is a homage to classic 70s orchestral magic and Magic Knight Rayearth is an operatic stageplay with concert-grade symphonic suites intersected by beautiful chamber pieces. One of his best. Haunted Junction and Kaitou Saint Tail are fun orchestral adventures with the former being inspired by Tanaka and the latter being more classical influenced.
Les Mis�rables is a formidable detour into the wonderful classical film score world full of imperial splendor and romantic moments. A joyful period piece of work.
The World God Only Knows is a continuation of this style but sadly with less budget but if you can stomach the fake it’s just as excellent, just a bit more playful and romantic.
Phantom Blood is a tragic case because that score would have worked so well with a symphonic ensemble. Still, the good music can triumph over audio limitations so it’s still worth a listen in my opinion.
Spirit of Wonder is a more eclectic album but still full of wonderful classic film score moments.
The last two albums focus on his role as arranger and orchestrator since he’s quite busy in this field of work. Shenmue is a great orchestral album mainly to the excellent arrangements by Matsuo. His commissions include his work for the legendary Game Music Concerts as well as some other solo projects such as the orchestral arrangements for FFXII.
Here we have a composer that needs more projects asap, if Drifters is any indication then his best (career) years are perhaps upon us.
LINK IN DESCRIPTION (https://mega.nz/#!EqwgSIKJ!NWtyEA_DcWI6iOmoie2-L7Ng0OzDdvIaT-yFsERpvyM)
New Releases:
Keijo!!!!!!!! HiP WHiP GiRL
Studio Orchestra
Sample (http://picosong.com/w5jB4/)
Download (https://mega.nz/#!DvQAhSLY!aq6dL2vbJw9-gU20xZ4JQiXAjH0THKpRPDJ1AA2GRII)
Took me a while but if they won't do it you gotta make one yourself. I found out the dub audio track is a lot better to isolate than the Japanese so I've worked with that. Some pieces are even so devoid of SFX that its almost soundtrack quality. As you can imagine the battle tracks are full of sfx but its still far more listenable than Hellsing.
Hayato Matsuo doesn't disappoint. It's surprisingly more classical in the tournament/action aspect than his Captain Tsubasa which has far more whimsical and romantic pieces but also much more delicious horn play and since its over 50 episodes another session imminent. By cheer volume Captain Tsubasa might have even more of this delicious 80s style but I feel he was also really excited to work on this project (shame it tanked, but soundtracks usually are released regardless of popularity, so its a chain of unfortunate circumstances).
Since Matsuo (buddy of Hitoshi Sakimoto) is a keyboardplayer from the 80s and 90s, you definitely hear it in this score.
Hayato Matsuo
Hayato Matsuo is a classical trained anime and game composer and a disciple of legendary Japanese composer Koichi Sugiyama. His music has classical influences written all over it and he is brass acrobat par excellence. Other noticeable influences include the legendary Kohei Tanaka and Hollywood legends like John Williams.
His magnum opus HELLSING is unfortunately not available in complete form (and in best quality) and his joyful Hollywood bombast of Keijo!!!!!!!! is still unreleased. But at least I got that out now.
But aside from that he gave us two of the best scores of the anime medium, (HELLSING and DRIFTERS) performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic. HELLSING is an operatic tour-de-force for one of fiction’s greatest characters (Vlad) and is filled to the brim with Star-Wars-level action and bombast. It might not have the lyrical but melancholic yet delicate love theme from Kilar's Dracula or the complex narrative of Williams Dracula but it still towers them for the sheer bombast and operatic beauty, even including the work of Karl Maria von Weber (I love "Der Freisch�tz" so props to the staff for using it in the OVAs). DRIFTERS in particular just oozes Star Wars like nothing in the anime medium before. It’s the best Star Wars score not written by Williams since Shadows of the Empire.
If we venture further in time we discover that Matsuo was luckily given enough budget to write some grade A film scores. Street Fighter Zero is a homage to classic 70s orchestral magic and Magic Knight Rayearth is an operatic stageplay with concert-grade symphonic suites intersected by beautiful chamber pieces. One of his best. Haunted Junction and Kaitou Saint Tail are fun orchestral adventures with the former being inspired by Tanaka and the latter being more classical influenced.
Les Mis�rables is a formidable detour into the wonderful classical film score world full of imperial splendor and romantic moments. A joyful period piece of work.
The World God Only Knows is a continuation of this style but sadly with less budget but if you can stomach the fake it’s just as excellent, just a bit more playful and romantic.
Phantom Blood is a tragic case because that score would have worked so well with a symphonic ensemble. Still, the good music can triumph over audio limitations so it’s still worth a listen in my opinion.
Spirit of Wonder is a more eclectic album but still full of wonderful classic film score moments.
The last two albums focus on his role as arranger and orchestrator since he’s quite busy in this field of work. Shenmue is a great orchestral album mainly to the excellent arrangements by Matsuo. His commissions include his work for the legendary Game Music Concerts as well as some other solo projects such as the orchestral arrangements for FFXII.
Here we have a composer that needs more projects asap, if Drifters is any indication then his best (career) years are perhaps upon us.
LINK IN DESCRIPTION (https://mega.nz/#!EqwgSIKJ!NWtyEA_DcWI6iOmoie2-L7Ng0OzDdvIaT-yFsERpvyM)
New Releases:
Keijo!!!!!!!! HiP WHiP GiRL
Studio Orchestra
Sample (http://picosong.com/w5jB4/)
Download (https://mega.nz/#!DvQAhSLY!aq6dL2vbJw9-gU20xZ4JQiXAjH0THKpRPDJ1AA2GRII)
Took me a while but if they won't do it you gotta make one yourself. I found out the dub audio track is a lot better to isolate than the Japanese so I've worked with that. Some pieces are even so devoid of SFX that its almost soundtrack quality. As you can imagine the battle tracks are full of sfx but its still far more listenable than Hellsing.
Hayato Matsuo doesn't disappoint. It's surprisingly more classical in the tournament/action aspect than his Captain Tsubasa which has far more whimsical and romantic pieces but also much more delicious horn play and since its over 50 episodes another session imminent. By cheer volume Captain Tsubasa might have even more of this delicious 80s style but I feel he was also really excited to work on this project (shame it tanked, but soundtracks usually are released regardless of popularity, so its a chain of unfortunate circumstances).
Since Matsuo (buddy of Hitoshi Sakimoto) is a keyboardplayer from the 80s and 90s, you definitely hear it in this score.