Music Downloads

ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━!!!!!

My El Cazador CD arrived via DHL today. Well, at this point, it might be more accurate to say yesterday. It came in just before noon while I was at work. "El Cazador Original Soundtrack 1", as it is labeled (not getting creative like they did with the Tsubasa Chronicle "Future Soundscape" OSTs here) contains 17 tracks for a total of 51 minutes, 1 second of bliss music. All keyboards and programming are by Yuki Kajiura, while various other musicians sit in for a few songs each, providing a variety of live instruments, from the ubiquitous string section to the swanky harmonica and the impossibly rocking accordion. Booklet and inner cover art consists of just various caps from the series; the front cover is a rather bland picture of Nadie and Ellis floating amidst rose petals. [I'll be able to provide some scans later, hopefully.]

Overall, this first El Cazador soundtrack is very solid quality, with Yuki Kajiura sounding a lot less restrained than in some of her other recent endeavors. The level of traditionalism and experimentation is about on par with her Madlax soundtracks, which is high praise. Many of the tracks, such as #1, "Maxwell's Witch", are sort of less interesting songs that get used often in the background of the anime; #14 ("hotel del sol") and #13 ("small fry") are all passable quality but not worth frothing over. There are a number of subtle but good tracks, such as the mood-setting acoustic guitar solo "ennui", the haunting pan-pipe piece "murderous intent", the rocking "hit it and run!", and the bluesy "ballad of a bounty hunter", each of which is definitely worthwhile in its own way - but it cost me $50 to import this thing (international shipping on CDs still feels like banditry to me). Thankfully, there are three songs of such incredible quality that I don't regret it at all:

• Track #6, inca rose, is the main killer in the soundtrack, for me. It starts with an entrancing melody played on what sounds like an organ, supplemented by plucks from an acoustic guitar, some beautiful pads, and a nicely layered techno groove. But there's also room for a heavenly chorus and some heartful electronic guitar solos. But don't take my word for it: download a 30-second sample clip!
  El Cazador - 'inca rose' Sample [30 seconds; 780k mp3]


• Track #12, el cazador, is the trademark action insert song. It starts out with a string progression and techno beat that sounds like it was plucked right off the Tsubasa soundtracks, which had practically dozens of this sort of thing, but within the first minute, that gives way to an acoustic guitar backing up Yuuka Nanri (the vocalist half of "FictionJunction YUUKA") in what appear to be Spanish lyrics. 1:31-1:56 also houses an accordion solo that puts "Romance" from the Noir soundtrack to shame. After a beautiful breakdown, it picks up where it left off and eventually finishes roughly where it started, which is not bad at all.


• And finally we reach track #17, forest, the only song on the soundtrack whose vocalist (Emily Bindiger) is labeled on the back of the case next to the track name. And for good reason: this is the same vocalist who performed some of the most memorable English-language tracks from the .hack//SIGN soundtrack, and the resemblance is crystal-clear. This halfway-upbeat song was used as an insert song for a powerful scene of episode 14. Strings, bell synths, a wonderful flute solo, and all the usual suspects are present here. The lyrics, as included in the insert booklet, are [apparent typos and all]:
  
  summer rain falls on the apple branches
  lights from heaven dancing with the shadows
  
  come take my hand
  let me be in your forest
  
  sometimes you think loneliness is better than pain
  and you sink deeper in your valley
  
  is this the place to be, in your memory?
  
  no, I never wanna lose you in the forest of the night
  in vanity's lair
  yearning for the angel calling
  hear the lonely prayer ringing through the land of rain
  across the thin air
  they sing voice to voice
  the ancient melodies
  calling you
  
  autumn goes by
  combing twilight into my hair
  I look back on the passing tenderness
  
  let me stay by your side
  In your memory
  
  no, you never gonna find me in the forest of the night
  In vanity's lair
  no more holly angel calling
  hear my lonely prayer ringing through the land of rain
  across the thin air
  we sing voice to voice
  the ancient melodies
  I'm calling you
  
  

Anyway, the gist of this is that if you're familiar with Kajiura, you probably don't require this review to decide whether or not you want the soundtrack. However, it's up to you whether you're willing to import it at that price. Roughly $30 for the CD plus $20 in shipping adds up to highway robbery (heck, for that price you could get an entire season of Emma), but for a soundtrack like this, I'm willing to suffer the cost.

So this comes a little bit late, but I might as well throw it out there - Anime Remix added a new song the other day, an old little sample-remix called "Totoro's Groove" by po! It's a goofy little groove with a chopped up sample from that fun old Ghibli movie, "My Neighbor Totoro". Not a totally complex or amazing remix, but it sounds pretty cool anyway.

What's more fun about this remix is what it signals for Anime Remix, which is that straight-up remixes - not just rearrangements - are now fair game for the site. Anime Remix, which has been hosting rearrangements of anime songs since 2002, made a decision that, legally, straight-up remixes weren't any less of a gray area than rearrangements, so catchy little songs like "Totoro's Groove" are just the beginning of what's possible. Check it out:

This is a bit of a follow up to a couple entries ago. Basically, starting at episode 20, Death Note has new opening and ending themes by Japanese metal band Maximum the Hormone. They're already drawing praise and criticism for the style, which is much more hardcore metal than the previous pop-rock themes by Nightmare (Thanks for the correction, Souzou!). Personally, I like the first pair a little better, but there's definitely something exciting about the blood-pulsing energy of the second opening. The visual style of the OP sequence is pretty interesting, too. Ryuk and MisaMisa are totally awesome in it. Take a look:

Edit: Youtube link moved, since the first one went down.

As for the ending theme, "Zetsubou Billy", I'll just give you a 30-second demo download.
Death Note 2nd Ending Theme Demo [.mp3, 742kb]

First off, let me apologize for the utter lack of posts in the past couple weeks. We've been following up various leads, and some of us are finding our free time less copious than usual: My spring semester started, and OverCoat (I'm glad to say) got a job. Congratulations! That's enough apologizing, though: let me introduce you to today's feature, a new type of article we're trying out: a remixer interview. Kicking off this process, I've interviewed Fray, also known as Nathan Monteleone of Arlington, Texas. Fray has one Anime Remix and one OC ReMix to his name, and has been an active member of the remixing community for some time. To let you in on a secret, I'm a big fan of his and find myself singing along to Shine embarrassingly, all the time. Then again, it seems like a lot of people who listen to the song have that experience.

mDuo13: Hello, Fray, and thanks for joining us. You've got one complete anime remix so far, yes? Care to tell us how you got into anime remixing in the first place?

Fray: Well, I remembered seeing the website in people's sigs on OCReMix. Seeing Haibane Renmei revived my interest in anime, so I hit up AR looking for Haibane remixes. And since I'd already been involved with video game remixing, the transition to anime was pretty natural from that point.

mDuo13: Ah, so how long have you been involved in video game remixing?

Fray: My first attempts go back to around early 2002, culminating in me actually getting a remix past the judges' panel on OCR in 2004.

mDuo13: So, what sort of musical training do you have?

Fray: I took 10 years of piano lessons starting around age 7. For all that I never got to be nearly as good as I should have been, but I could play some pretty technical pieces by the end of it. Scott Joplin rags were always my favorite. I played bassoon throughout high school, plus a few other wind instruments... and then completely slacked off of music in college after I got kicked out of the community orchestra there for being a bum.

mDuo13: *laughs* Bassoon, really? How is that?

Fray: Bassoon? It's really a fun instrument to play. Looks bizarre, sounds about as strange, and attracts lots of attention. There are a few problems with it though -- One, they're expensive as all hell, as are the reeds. To top it off, you can't just buy a reed and play on it, you usually have to do some work on them with a special knife, etc... Two, they're quiet, so no one hears you most of the time in an orchestra, and three, they're delicate.

mDuo13: Ah, well, that's too bad. I take it you haven't played any bassoon recently, then?

Fray: I've been wanting to use it in a remix sometime, actually. But I'm horribly out of practice -- you're right, I haven't played it in a couple years.

mDuo13: I look forward to seeing it. Anyway, that brings me to another question: what hardware and software do you use for mixing?

Fray: First, a disclaimer: I have more money than I have free time. As such, I have way more gear than is really necessary, and much of it I haven't used to the fullest. So if you want to get into remixing, don't think you need even half this stuff. People have sounded better than me using less than $100 worth of software.

mDuo13: *laughs* I'll keep this in mind.

Fray: So! I use Cakewalk Sonar 5, Producer edition as my main software. It's one of the best MIDI sequencers out there, and the audio stuff is starting to contend with the big daddies. I use it for just about everything -- recording my outside gear, fixing mistakes in MIDI tracks, mixing, effects, all that. It's also got some really nice software synths that come with it (Pentagon I is my favorite).

My Roland RD-600 is my main MIDI Controller; it's a stage piano, so it's got builtin sounds of its own -- they're pretty nice, but kinda limited to pianos, EP's, and organs. It has a few synths and things, but they're kinda crappy, so I turn to other sources for many of my sounds. The main draw, for me, is the keyboard feel. I wouldn't say it's a convincing replica of a real piano, but it definitely allows for very expressive playing, so generally, I lay down tracks using it. For some really simple stuff I'll click the notes into Sonar with a mouse, but generally I record MIDI off the RD-600.

A lot of the other sounds come from a Roland XV-5050 rack synth. It's more a jack of all trades; it's got everything from strings to brass to wacked out synths, and all the patches are very editable too. I also use a dave smith evolver -- it's a monophonic synth. It has real analog filters and oscillators in it, but it's got digital ones too - it's a hybrid. I use that when I want cool leads and basses, because it has a lot of its own character.

mDuo13: Anything else?

Fray: That's the main stuff. Other than that I have an Oktava MK-219 mic that I picked up on the cheap at Guitar Center. They were blowing them out for like $70. Oh, and autotune (haha). Couldn't live without that. I have decent pitch but I can't control my voice very well. Recently I got a novation remote 61 MIDI controller, which sits directly on my desk -- that can be really handy when I'm going back and forth between playing things on the keyboard and making edits in Sonar. The RD-600 is so huge that there's no way for me to access it and my computer keyboard/mouse easily at the same time.

mDuo13: Yeah, I can imagine.

Fray: Drums I usually get off my XV-5050. It has some really nice sets on it, but to be honest, I've never quite found a drum setup I'm comfortable with. I've tried a bunch of different ways of going about it, and all of them seem to be more of a pain than really necessary.

mDuo13: I see. So, what's your remixing process like, in general?

Fray: My best ideas definitely start with me banging around on the piano. I pick out the chords (or some variation on them) from a theme I like, and the remix usually grows from some way of riffing on that. From there I generally just layer stuff on for a while - synths, strings, that sort of stuff. I'll put down some real simple drums to begin with; the final drum part tends to come last. I probably should, but I never think much about the overall structure of the song from the beginning. I more lay down a section and think "ok what would sound cool after this?" I feel like I'm still in the noob phase when it comes to remixing process. I think I get away with it because I had so much music training in elementary-high school.

mDuo13: Now I wish I had actually stuck with piano lessons for more than a couple months.

Fray: I might add that I don't really think about effects much until the end. To me, the music is in the notes more than the production tricks -- which is not to say I don't enjoy the work of people who focus more on the latter. It's just how I think when doing my own work.

mDuo13: That makes sense. But, the real question is, why does it take you so long to make a single remix?

Fray: Damn good question. *laughs* Ultimately I think it's a matter of time. I serve too many masters, if you catch my drift.

mDuo13: I think a lot of us are familiar with that feeling. Do these other ''masters'' include any other musical stuff, like playing in a band?

Fray: Well, I was pretty involved with a band over the last year, although I just quit. I played my last show with them last weekend. Also, being married takes up quite a bit of time (but in a good way). Warcraft 3 also chews up quite a bit, at least if you play it like I do.

mDuo13: So tell us a bit more about this life outside of remixing. What do you do for a living? What's your wife like?

Fray: I'm a programmer for a living. I work for a defense contractor, so sometimes the work is interesting, and sometines it's mind numbing. Ultimately I'd like to do something else with my life; I'm not particularly crazy about the defense industry. My wife's a scientist for Mary Kay cosmetics. We met in college, on the first week actually. A couple months later I asked her out and we've been together since. She's quite literally the only girl I've ever dated. Guess I got lucky on the first try ^.^ I was kinda starting a relationship with someone else at the time, but I ditched her because Amanda was hotter and smarter. *laughs* Writing is her real passion, by the way, not science.

mDuo13: Writing? Do tell.

Fray: Yep, her foundation is gothic romance, although she's been pushing her stuff in a slightly more literary direction... In the Romance world, if you wanna get published, you kinda have to follow these preset formulas. She's taken more to ignoring those and writing whatever the heck she wants. She posts some of it up on her livejournal.

mDuo13: I wish her luck. More to the point, is there any chance of getting her involved in a future remix?

Fray: Actually, yeah, she has a really cool soprano voice that I'd love to use in a remix.

mDuo13: What sort of remixes do you have in the works, anyway? Anything right now?

Fray: Yes, two. One's a remix from the game Crystalis - that's sort of your usual epic trance video game affair. I still love that style, even if it's been beaten to death a bit. And the other one is a Chobits remix that's very much styled after Ben Folds Five ballads. It has its genesis in a compo very, very long ago.

mDuo13: Is there anything else you want to add before we go?

Fray: I'd like to say that I seriously love the remixing scene. Compared to playing clubs in a band, I feel like there's a much greater appreciation for musicality and creativity. I've always found it really inspiring, and I might have let playing music slip out of my life entirely if I hadn't been introduced to places like OCR and AR.

mDuo13: Well, thank you very much for joining us, and good luck with your remixes. I'll be sure to post them here when they're finished.

And that's that for our first interview. It was a lot of fun putting it together, and I'd like to extend my thanks to Fray for lending me a bit of his time, and to all of you reading it. If you're interested, Fray's two remixes are a Morrowind remix called Fear Not and a remix from Voices of a Distant Star, Shine. Fray has also generously granted us permission to host a direct download for Shine:

Fray - Voices of a Distant Star 'Shine' [mp3, 4.73mb]

First off, if anyone was wondering where I was this past weekend, I took a little vacation and visited some friends down in San Diego, kicking off the trip with a visit to see The Hush Sound with Murder By Death and a couple other bands that really don't compare. Anyway, suffice to say that The Hush Sound and Murder By Death were both amazing and my friends and I have several complete sets of signatures. I mean, come on, how often do you get to see someone plucking an electric cello in the middle of a Western-esque rock song? Plus there are lots of really good singers overall. Thanks, OverCoat, for taking care of the blog in my absence. It looks like we've made it to one week old without any major problems!

As for more unrelated news, this weekend also saw the release of both the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. My friend and I went to camp out for the Wii, but apparently we weren't hardcore enough because by the time we got there, all the lines were too huge already, and we didn't end up getting one. It sounds like overall, both launches went about as well as can be expected, which is to say that Nintendo's was a little less messy than Sony's - with supplies like that, it was bound to be trouble for PlayStation diehards. Personally, I think I'd rather have had my Wii signed, like the guy on the right. Update: Apparently the guy is a very dedicated gamer and pretty well-known on the east coast, named Isaiah Triforce Johnson. Yes, he got his middle name legally changed.

So today I have the honor of presenting you, our faithful readers, with an older anime arrangement but a good one you might not have heard. A little more than a year ago Trenthian sent in a late entry to Anime Remix's annual Halloween contest. It never did get posted to that site, so I'm posting it here instead, because as Trenthian himself says, "I forgot how pimp this mix was."

Beginning with a pretty neat piano but soon bursting into a a pulsing electronic melody, the song is incredible: it's unmistakably Rei's theme from Neon Genesis Evangelion, but the groove is completely different and a lot of fun. Several layers of synths, filtered piano, and a persistently rockin' beat make this one remix you don't wanna miss:
Trenthian - Neon Genesis Evangelion - Rei i

So, one of the things that we're glad about here on Nekomimi Music is that, being a blog and not a "ReMixing" site, we aren't limited by the constraints of those websites. And one of those things we have the freedom to post, while other great sites don't, is mashups. For those of you who aren't really familiar with the mashup phenomenon, Wikipedia describes it pretty well, but I'll give you a basic run-down: you take the music of one song, and the vocals of another song, and put them together. Well, TheMacAttack (remove "SPAMSUCKS" for email) of Melbourne, Australia has brought us our first mashup, with the music of Scryed's opening theme "Reckless Fire" combined with the a capella of Gackt's Vanilla (thanks for the correction). The result works almost startlingly well, and you'll probably wonder if the lyrics were made for the song. There's also a little bit more than Gackt thrown in: a recording of the War of the Worlds drama, and a little rapping by 2 Brothers on the Floor, which also fits uncannily. For those of you who haven't heard Reckless Fire, it's a pretty awesome song to start, with Spanish as well as electric guitar, orchestral hits, a cheesey horn section, and a solid techno drum beat powering the whole thing. According to TheMacAttack, he was just brushing up his multimedia editing skills and doing some mashups for fun when his friends requested this - and the result was a surprise even to him.

I guarantee you'll be rocking along with it, so download it now!

And if you're as much a fan of it as I am, you might also be interested to know that TheMacAttack has several more a capellas of anime songs (including stuff from BECK and Chobits, among others), and he's totally willing to pass them along to would-be remixers and mashup creators for their use in making new stuff. And, of course, we here at Nekomimi Music would only be too happy to post it.

Rock on, and may the cat ears be with you.

P.S. I had some problems posting entries, dunno why. It seems to be fine now. And yes, there was some downtime earlier. Hopefully I will be able to afford a real host sometime.