1/31/2023 0 Comments Tron legacy soundtrack analysis![]() One of the fun things to take notice on this release is that while listening to tracks like “ Intruder 3” with headphones, the sound travels from one channel to the other. Composed by KCE Japan Sound Team and Tappi Iwase (who wrote the main theme), the music waltzes between heroic and foreboding as we can go from to slow crawl to high intensity in the span of a few seconds. It didn’t need to sound symphonic to sound big, and even 20 years later, this propulsive synth soundtrack still gets the heart pumping. While it wasn’t recorded with an orchestra (like Michael Giacchino did with The Lost World: Jurassic Park), the music still conveys the thrill of a Hollywood score while using mostly electronic instruments. If you were a fan of action movies in the ’90s, it’s easy to note which scores inspired this Konami classic: Hans Zimmer & Nick Glennie-Smith ( The Rock), Mark Mancina ( Speed), Harold Faltermeyer ( Top Gun) and, to some extent, Eric Serra ( Goldeneye and The Fifth Element). ![]() The auditory backdrop added so much to help make this game so immersive, compelling and indelible…and that was in addition to all those signature Hideo Kojima elements (Meryl’s codec frequency being located on the back of the CD case, and the ingenious way to take down Psycho Mantis). The music is a tapestry of bright and steely synths, complimented by a brooding chorus and electronic beats that almost serve as unexpected sound effects. One major component helping cement Metal Gear Solid as a modern classic was the music which gave the entire adventure a cinematic presence. It was persistent, driving, ominous, and helped make it feel like the stakes were high, with danger literally around every corner. Really, everything about MGS raised the bar for continuing entries in the series as well as video games across the board. Even by today’s standards (standards it defined, let’s be honest), it is still tough to top. While most people never appreciated Takemitsu’s achievement in its original, greatly truncated album, Kritzerland’s new, complete release of his score (complete with jazz Karaoke and furious drumming by Tsunami) is a chance to discover one of the 90s most intriguing scores.In 1998, Metal Gear Solid took the world by storm with its story, and genre-bending gameplay. The tantalizing results are very much the sound of an alien in LA, conveying his country’s age-old identity with a distinctively strange grasp of a murder mystery score, two musical identities that make for a soundtrack of startling mystery and erotic beauty. Yet there’s a Japanese sensibility at play in Takemitu’s use of his country’s Koto, flutes and ethnic drumming. But it’s just the jumping off point for RISING SUN to venture into beautiful, impressionistic weirdness with the horror movie sound of a Theremin-like Ondes Martenot, eerie reverberated percussion, tingling strings. A sexy, smoky sax gives erotic heat to the film’s murder mystery, with the kind of brass feeling that could be right out of an old school Warner Brothers picture. One of Japan’s most revered movie composers for his work on KWAIDAN, WOMAN IN THE DUNES and RAN, Takemitsu’s sole work truly stands out for his mastery of the distinctly American genre form known as film noir. Where most Hollywood “Asian” movies usually kowtowed Orientals into secondary positions below the American actors (though mixed up a bit in this case with the brogue of Sean Connery and the urban cool of Wesley Snipes), we can credit RISING SUN director Philip Kaufman for bringing some level of authenticity to this thriller’s cultural melange by hiring Toru Takemitsu for his sole Hollywood film.
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