Hiroshi Takaki, Slavek Kowalewski, et al – AKB0048 Original Soundtrack (MP3/FLAC)

MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 -V0 – my encode from WAV original downloaded from Japanese blog) – (GO4UP – multiple mirrors): GO4UP : Upload everywhere ! (http://go4up.com/dl/1UuY1NbpqrGv)
FLAC coming up in a few hours – I’m off for dinner now…

Oh, yeah, baby! It’s HERE! Are you listening, klnerfan??? 😀

So, who’s have thunk it? Crappy cash grab anime designed to hook even more people into the merchandising trap of AKB48 – a hyperpopular (in that particularly Japanese way) J-pop girl group. Riiight.

What we have is a fairly flimsy sci-fi plot (in a future dystopian society, music is forbidden, so a bunch of girls with crazy coloured-hair, inspired by this crazy band from hundreds of years ago – AKB48 – form a new
girl group to spread music and joy through the universe and have big space battles at the same time… or some crap like that) providing numerous excuses to play songs by this group. A score no-hoper, if ever there was one. All pop songs and some cheap electronic trash to fill in the gaps, right?

Only, it’s not – it’s a surprisingly muscular symphonic score by none other than Hiroshi Takaki, interspersed with really, really BRILLIANT orchestral versions of AKB48’s biggest smash hits. Takaki uses the cheesy J-pop melodies very deftly indeed, leading to pieces like the very first on the album – Heavy Rotation – which is three minutes of joy filled with wonderful little sci-fi flourishes and endless melody.

The orchestra is probably a little bigger than your average TV anime orchestra, and they get a nice workout. The recording is kinda odd in places – it sounds like one of those "every musician recorded in a different place on a different day then glued together in the mixing studio" scores that has some fairly odd sonics as a result; a nicely recorded, naturally reverberating string section, mixed with strangulated, nasal, and dry sounding brass, close-miked to a point of claustrophobia. It’s absolutely forgiveable, in any case.

You even get some straightforward sci-fi underscore (track 8, for example) – a smashing little action cue.

I have tagged everything according to VGMDB – accordingly, the symphonic versions of AKB48 songs are credited to their original composers and not to Takaki, who’s role in these tracks is clearly more than that of a mere orchestrator. I thought this was still a good idea, though, as I wouldn’t want to denigrate the efforts of the band members… so let’s just go along with the fact that it’s essentially a Takaki score very substantially based on somebody else’s melodies.

Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen! 😀

https://mega.co.nz/#!WABxzARB!fOybbEV_GIhp8D2_kkeXIz-v0PZqJ958L56WJZtGx3Y

Also, I actually listened to Ginga no Oasis properly the other day. What a stunningly beautiful piece of music – I simply cannot BELIEVE I didn’t notice it before. Masterpiece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryN93a34QxE