Akira (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [24bit / 192kHz]

Resenha do Álbum

For the thirtieth birthday of the release of the animated movie Akira, Milan Music republishes the soundtrack composed by the collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi. The success of this manga published from 1982 to 1990 is such that producers notably coming from the Tokyo Movie Shinsha studio decided to adapt it into an animated movie in the middle of the 80s. They entrusted Katsuhiro Otomo, known for his participation to the anime Robot Carnival in 1987, with the directing of the movie. The director then contacted Geinoh Yamashirogumi for Akira’s music, so that they would provide extracts of their cult album Ecophony Rinne, released two years earlier. Skillfully overseen by the scientific researcher Shouji Yamashiro (the pseudonym of Tsutomu Ohashi), Yamashirogumi gathers a hundred or so members from diverse professional backgrounds (engineers, students, musicians…) and aims at recreating traditional music from all over the world, by mixing acoustic and synthetic music. Their preferred formation is the gamelan, the traditional Balinese orchestra that includes impressive percussive paraphernalia—from the xylophone to drums, to metallophones to gongs. But rather than giving Otomo some preexisting tracks, Yamashirogumi instead presents completely new tracks for this animated movie that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo and is about the adventures of Tetsuo and Akira, two young people who possess psychic powers. Other than Indonesian percussion, the soundtrack gives prominence to digital synthesizers characteristic of the 80s like the Yamaha DX7 and the Roland D50, with tribal voices samples (let’s cite the impressive and strange Doll’s Polyphony), but also to genres as contrasted as Noh and progressive rock. Finally, we have to underline the fact that this music was composed and recorded before the making of the movie, and not with the support of the picture, which makes it even more interesting to listen to from a purely musical point of view. © NM/Qobuz