greyduck.net

You thought we were done with the soundtracks, perhaps? Oh no. One more time, folks.

What is it?

Last Exile O.S.T. is the first of two soundtracks for studio Gonzo’s Last Exile anime series from 2003. It consists mostly of instrumental material by the trio called Dolce Triade, plus the voiced opening and closing theme songs (among others).

How does it sound?

The answer is a cloud age sampler mix:

Why this pick?

The anime, Last Exile, didn’t make the cut for last year’s project. The entire point of this weekly writing thing is to hold forth upon things that might be enjoyable and while parts of the show are a delight, other parts are a slog and having watched it twice I still have to consult the Internet to remember how it ends.

But wow, it sounded good! So here we are.

Which songs are the highlights?

There are some delightful pieces in here, and one’s enjoyment of them aren’t reliant upon association with a particular scene or character in the show. Songs like “A Morning In Norkia” and “Flyin’ To Fly” don’t require context at all, for instance.

Some of the instrumental content is of an almost Ren-faire quality, pennywhistles and tambourines and such. Other pieces are martial themes done in full orchestral style. It’s a mixed bag, but of the good kind.

One nice thing about the instrumental selections (luckily the bulk of the content on the record) is the composer managed to avoid motif abuse, which is to say that no one thematic or character motif element gets overused. (I’m looking at you, soundtrack to Pacific Rim…) And only one track, “Silverna,” feels made up of multiple discrete pieces.

At any rate, as with all soundtracks, your mileage track-by-track will always vary.

Which songs don’t work so well?

It being a soundtrack, some bits are only useful in context. But where this particular record falls down is on the songs with vocals.

I don’t like the full version of the opening theme, “Cloud Age Symphony.” I wish there was a half-length edit available on the record, maybe relegating the full-length rendition to the tail end of the track listing or something. Bits of it are nice but the full six minutes of it, with all the weirder elements included, is just too much too-much-ness. When you’re watching the show and get the minute-or-so opening credits version you might think, “This is interesting and I want to hear more.” No, you almost certainly really don’t.

“Prayer For Love” is another voiced piece, and it doesn’t do anything for me either. It tries for “pretty” and achieves “pretty boring.” In fact, all of the voiced tracks are skippable. Take for example “Skywriting,” which is trying desperately to tap into a Beach Boys vibe of some sort. Yikes.

Which album did you almost pick in favor of this one?

I considered the other Gonzo show soundtrack in the library, that of the earlier series, Vandread, but it wasn’t much of a contest between the two. The other show may be more fun overall but in terms of pure musical value, Last Exile wins by a landslide.

Any final thoughts?

Should you watch Last Exile? I didn’t recommend it last year, and I have a hard time recommending it now. I won’t insult the show by describing it as a triumph of style over substance. There’s plenty of substance, it’s just somewhat impenetrable and occasionally baffling. Sure is pretty, though. As an early exercise in melding computer-generated with hand-drawn animation in a big-budget-weekly-show kind of way, it’s occasionally dazzling to watch. (Vandread used a lot of CG as well but usually in separate shots from the hand-drawn stuff. Last Exile worked to blend them together.) There’s a reason it’s considered one of Gonzo’s masterworks.

If you have the time, I’d say, go for it. But if it doesn’t grab your attention in the first few episodes, don’t feel bad about dropping it.

Deciding the roster for this year’s project required a number of decisions regarding artists who appear under more than one project. David Bowie could’ve been represented in the roster by Tin Machine. Several people were represented by Genesis. Robert Plant could’ve been represented by Led Zeppelin. Chris Cornell was represented by Audioslave but I could have selected a Soundgarden record instead.

And then there was the question of what to do about Sting.

What is it?

Ghost in the Machine is the 1981 album release by The Police, aka That Band Sting Was In For A Few Years Early On.

How does it sound?

Every little sampler mix is magic:

Why this pick?

And here we go.

My intention for this project’s album line-up was to balance out 52 records across four decades, more-or-less evenly, as close to 13 selections per decade as I could get. Due to the way other artists’ selections (for various reasons) filled up later decades rather quickly, this meant that for Sting it was always going to be something in the 1980s. But… I don’t feel strongly enough about his first two solo records to focus on those, and for all that it’s the much-renowned last hurrah of The Police, I don’t actually like Synchronicity that much. Is that a blasphemous musical opinion? Okay. I don’t mind a bit of blasphemy on occasion.

Through a weird kind of process of elimination, then, I picked Ghost in the Machine. It’s still almost entirely a Sting record, but not as much as Synchronicity while still more so than the first few albums from the band. And some of the non-Sting bits here are among my favorite Police tracks.

Which songs are the highlights?

“Spirits in the Material World” and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” are, of course, stupendous pop songs. I still like them, more so now that it’s been a while since they were on the radio every single day.

“Invisible Sun” and “Secret Journey” are my favorite two songs on the record. “Omegaman” (by Andy Summers) and “Darkness” (by Stewart Copeland) are good tunes in their own right, and make me wish that The Police hadn’t devolved into The Sting Show quite so quickly as they did.

I’ll throw in an honorable mention for “Demolition Man” as well. It’s better in its later live renditions but the original has some charm to it.

Which songs don’t work so well?

Why am I not a bigger Police fan? Because I don’t really like reggae, and “One World (Not Three)” leans heavily on that style. The band’s whole early sound was a kind of reggae-rock hybrid, the sort of thing No Doubt would try to do with ‘ska’ in a later decade. No, I didn’t like them all that much, either.

I’m not sure what about “Too Much Information” puts me off, but it puts me quite off. Probably the combination of vocal delivery and repetitiveness. Sure, we’ll go with that.

I go back and forth on the mostly-French-language “Hungry For You.” This time around, it’s back rather than forth.

Which album did you almost pick in favor of this one?

I considered Zenyatta Mondatta, the album just prior to this, but I really can’t stand “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” In which case, to stay in the 1980s, I’d have gone with the sophomore solo record from Sting, …Nothing Like The Sun. Hey, my very first big-name concert experience was at a truly awful venue (the old Civic Center) in downtown Seattle in support of that record.

Were my memory any better I’d write up my concert-going experiences, but. Alas.

Any final thoughts?

One thing about Sting’s pop song crafting sensibilities I didn’t learn to appreciate until much later is that punk quality of getting in, landing the hook a few times, then getting out again briskly. Several of the songs here clock in under three minutes and only a few run past the four minute mark. In my teen years I wanted every song to last forever, hence the massive collection of extended remix singles, but now? I admire a song that doesn’t wear out its welcome. (Admittedly, the longest track here is “Demolition Man,” which… could probably have been half to two thirds as long and been better for it.)

I’m gettin’ old, I guess.