GAME: Game and Anime Music Emotions :: Review by Jeriaska

	Album Title:	GAME: Game and Anime Music Emotions
	Record Label:	Electronic Arts
	Catalog No.:	877569005377
	Release Date:	June 30, 2007
	Purchase:	Buy at PianoSquall.com

Overview

Accommodate sixteen themes in the span of a single-disc soundtrack, Michael Gluck distills to its essence the effectiveness of contemporary game and anime music emotions. Maximal economy is exercised throughout the album, meaning none of the pieces impose themselves upon the listener a moment longer than required. An effective counterpoint to the looping found on most game music soundtracks, the pithy arrangements give each piece an ephemeral quality, most noticeable on the energetic battle mix that caps off the series of game arrangements. It should be stated in advance that GAME: Game and Anime Music Emotions is the product of an independent artist's endeavors to share his love Japanese popular music, contributing earnings from sales of the remarkably polished album to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Body

GAME begins with composer Yasunori Mitsuda's "Scars of Time" from Chrono Cross. Having served as a staple of orchestral game music, appearing everywhere from the PLAY! A Video Game Symphony performance in San Jose to the Eminence Symphony Orchestra showings in Melbourne and Yokohama, the lone piano arrangement grounds the listener in expected subject matter and even manages to fulfill the expectations met by a fifty piece orchestra. Following the piece's serene introductory melody, Piano Squall ramps up the pace aggressively, subsiding finally into a forceful reiteration of the main theme. The solo performance succeeds both in providing the needed emotional force and creating more graceful transitions between tempo modulations compared with most orchestral versions.

"TANK!" from Cowboy Bebop composed by Yoko Kanno involves less emotional variety, opting instead for a passionate involvement in reinforcing the compelling central theme. Set to the opening montage of the anime series, the piece initiates the nostalgic quality of 1970s spy thrillers and detective dramas. While noticeably missing the fast-paced percussion instruments that lend the original some of its driving energy, the more subdued arrangement does offer an opportunity to briefly transition into a relaxed interlude midway through the piece without feeling like an inertial break from Kanno's main theme.

Moving right along to a choice selection from Koji Kondo's repertoire, "The Athlete's Rag" plays up the apparent silent movie influence of the early Super Mario game soundtracks. One could easily imagine Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd running along to bouncy rhythm and thumping beats, just as just as easily as Mario or Luigi. In live performances, the charismatic quality of the piece has invited the audience to clap along, demonstrating the carnivalesque atmosphere that is shared by both these iconic examples of early bourgeoning visual media.

Switching over from scintillating energy to devastating pathos, "Cruel Angel's Thesis" straddles the line between the youthful energy of cartoons like Ranma 1/2 and anhedonic sci-fi classics like Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, emblematizing the uniqueness of the anime genre. The arrangement conveys the romantic intensity of the series, the excesses of happiness and grief captured by the apocalyptic story over the years. Both strains of hope and sadness are present in the dynamic homage to the adolescent heroes and their anthropomorphic vehicles of destruction.

Starting off a collection of role-playing game tracks, "Frog's Theme" from Chrono Trigger, serves as an ode to the game's emblematic knight errant, underscored by the ironic appearance of the squat, bug-eyed protagonist. The stoic character of which the piano arrangement serves as a choice theme piece, is all the more inviting by the contrast between his gallant behavior and his unassuming appearance. Limiting itself to a single play-through devoid of extravagant embellishments, the piece nails the emotional force of the piece, tempered by due recognition of the sword-wielding pond-dweller's self-effacing disposition.

A less obvious but nonetheless memorable selection from Chrono Trigger follows with "Battle with Magus." The climactic theme manages to capture the darker currents of the game's storyline, favoring delicate strength over violent emphasis, and persuasively embedding the antihero's lyrical theme in the midst of the fighting. Mirroring the way in which Magus remains forever a step emotionally removed within the game, even after joining your party, the arrangement preserves a balance between familiarity and mystery by creeping up gradually in tempo and fading out no sooner than all the thematic ingredients of the piece have been fully explored.

In a dreamy interlude diverging from the heroicism and calamity of the previous tracks, "Sadness and Sorrow" from Naruto boasts a degree of elegance over its source material, due to the excellence of Piano Squall's performance and the quality of recording used for GAME. Eschewing the somewhat presumptuous plucking guitar strings and howling woodwinds of the original track, the spare piano arrangement elevates the raw emotional quality with a tastefully minimalistic performance, allowing the piece to be enjoyed by those who do not happen to be invested in the drama of the animated series. In this way, demonstrated by this particular selection, the album attains its goal of broadening the scope of game and anime's musical appeal to unfamiliar listeners.

By no means an obvious choice for a piano arrangement, "Vamo' Alla Flamenco" substitutes castanets for a baroque classical style. The arrangement's angsty emotional currents are an indication of Shiro Hamaguchi's ability to bring out latent thematic properties missed even by the hard rocking rendition supplied by the Black Mages. Ending with an elegiac finale offers the piece starkly novel connotations, making it a unique and refreshing take on a classic that has received the attention of professional and fan remixers since the game debuted in 2000.

Evidencing the depths to which arrangers can plumb the most seemingly simplistic and dated of game music, "Korobeiniki" flushes out the emblematic Tetris theme. Building slowly for maximum dramatic impact, the piece begins picking up speed and force, reaching its crescendo in a sublime iteration of the simple tune that never seems to grow old. Reflecting the primordial effectiveness of the game's graphics and involving play mechanics, the arrangement proves that unforgettable aesthetic patterns need few elaborations beyond their basic design to prove lastingly mesmerizing.

"Bratja" from Fullmetal Alchemist continues the Slavic theme set down in the masterful reimagining of the Tetris track. Simple but effective, the piece manages to convey the emotional depth of the original theme even without the profound impact of the exquisite Russian vocals. Again choosing spare and effective orchestration over provocative or excessive ornamentation, the piece is mastefully effective in conveying the theme's emotional intensity.

Adapting a fully orchestrated piece to a solo piano arrangement carries its own challenges, but perhaps equally challenging is the task of bringing 8-bits up to the standards of modern day game music arrangements. "Dr. Wily's Castle" amplifyies the memorable qualities by ushering in a pitch and timbre beyond the means of the NES sound card. Immediately following the memorable initial chords of the piece, the piece transitions into a lyrical portion of the piece, fraught with the emotional energy brimming just beneath the bleeps and bloops of the primitive Nintendo sound card. Not intent on sticking around a moment longer than needed, the pithy arrangement ends suddenly, leaving the listener with the impression of having witnessed a crystalline form of Mega Man nostalgia taking shape.

Say what you will about the cloying quality of "Every Heart" from Inu Yasha, the arrangement carved out by Piano Squall boils the original composition down to the essentials, leaving an impressively evocative piece for the listener to experience. The effect of leaving out the vocal track and siphoning the melody through the filter of one focused instrument creates an emotional experience entirely more authentic and memorable than what was found in the source material. The arrangement offers another example of how solo performances well implemented can elevate an orchestral piece to new levels of artistic quality.

"1000 Words" is the theme from Takahito Eguchi's last game music project for Square. Final Fantasy X-2's vocal theme illustrates the delicacy and lyricism that made Matsueda a distinctive if somewhat uncharacteristic voice among the game company's music department. The piano arrangement works more successfully than the vocal track in summing up a repertoire of pieces that were never entirely satisfied with playing to the conventional rules of turn-based battles and fast-paced CG cut-scenes. Serving as a heartfelt attempt to vindicate the merits of game and anime music, the piece serves as a lasting memory to the singular contributions of the composer and arranger team.

"Kiss Me Goodbye" is another piano arrangement of a Final Fantasy vocal track. Nobuo Uematsu's ending theme for Final Fantasy XII has a romantic quality consciously departing from the stoic character of a game noticeably devoid of romantic involvements. The quality of the arrangement is served by an effective narrative irony that with the game's conclusion the main characters mainly go their separate ways, feeling less closely united upon their victory than during their struggles against tyranny. For fans of the title, the emotional quality of the arrangement is better served by the spare and unsentimental treatment provided by Piano Squall, fully reflecting the somber quality envisioned by the game design team that notoriously struggled and broke apart during the project's development.

Unexpectedly showing up close to the album's end, "The Prelude" emerges as a nod to the traditions of the canonical Final Fantasy series. A straightforward rendition of the classic theme, it serves to reinforce the elegiac quality of "Kiss Me Goodbye," and involves little in the way of elaborate orchestration. More a reflection of the quality that made the series unforgettable to individuals than a fashion statement marketable to groups, the arrangement maintains the stirring imagination that was present behind the earliest conceptions of the series in the days of the NES.

"Ending Theme" continues the subdued and powerful strains of the previous Final Fantasy arrangements, substituting bluster for straightforward representations of the series' strongest thematic aspects. Here, the unadorned arrangement restrainedly conveys the emotional strength of the piece as it appeared in the earliest chapters of the series. Far from the expectations of a blockbuster hit, the brief theme is evocative of listeners' fond memories of the closing chapter of Final Fantasy IV, resonating with a time when Square was first coming into its own abroad.

Having remained with the previous two tracks largely faithful to the thematic material, "Final Fantasy Boss Medley" takes greater risks in combining several of the most lastingly memorable battle tracks of the series' history. Starting off strong with Gilgamesh's infamous "Battle on the Big Bridge" from Final Fantasy V, the medley speedily transitions to a slowly building main theme from Final Fantasy VI, recalling to mind the snow-driven peaks of the Narshe mountains and hulking Magitech mechs plowing through the snow. Quickly, the piece introduces the space battle with Zeromus from Final Fantasy IV and the boss battle with the four fiends from the same game, only to use the driving rhythm as impetus to leapfrog to the final fight from Final Fantasy VIII. The arrangement pauses just long enough on each theme to establish them independently, while gliding at unexpected moments to pieces of mounting tension and greater stakes, finally taking root in an extended homage to "One Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII. Suddenly, just as abruptly as it began, the piece ends fittingly enough with a bar of fanfare.

Piano Squall ends his remarkable album with an original synthesizer arrangement that serves both as a personal signature and an honor to Nobuo Uematsu's musical legacy. The piece demonstrates the economical efficiency of the rest of the album, clocking in at a miniscule minute and a quarter. Masterfully summoning up conventions from the Final Fantasy canon, the quality of the synthesized instruments is a remarkable balance of nostalgic and contemporary quality sound samples. Staying true to the distinctive quality of the series, the composition takes its influences from a variety of genres, from fusion, to rock and jazz, placing a sense of fun and adventure above all other concerns. The piece firmly establishes the composer's style in the tradition of Squaresoft role-playing games and their unforgettable character.

Summary

With Game and Anime Music Emotions, effectively Piano Squall has demonstrated that he has steeped himself in the classic themes of anime and games, and has mastered the use of the piano as an instrument to convey his deep enthusiasm for the joys of the mediums. An essential collection for any fan of Japanese contemporary popular culture, I hope the album will compel other independent artists to get imaginative and share their creations with an increasingly interactive global community.