LogFAQs > #964298022

17nd
Game: Super Dragon Ball Z
Title: Kami's Lookout
Composer: Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso, Yousuke Yasui, Masashi Yano, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Hiroto Saitoh, Takayuki Aihara, Wataru Ishibashi
Nominator: @UF8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f5bKiPua6s

"obviously yasuhisa wataanbe AAAAHHH choir but also middle eastern sitar randomly in the middle of the song, random dissonant bells low etc"

THIS SONG. So I had a pretty immediate reaction the first time I heard this that it sounded exactly like Yasuhisa Watanabe. But I wasn't able to figure out the composers this game even had yet, but once I found the list and saw that Yasuhisa Watanabe was in it well...I smiled.

Its not technically confirmed to be him and there's like 8 composers. I know some people are really convinced this is Wataru Ishibashi but I don't buy that (mostly because this...literally just sounds like yack. And even if ishibashi can be similar he never goes for quiiite this type of sound realm) ((there are OTHER songs in this game where i'd call it ishibashi's work no question. but this track feels unquestionably yasuhisa watanabe to me...i apologize if if somehow winds up not being him and i'm speaking as if it's him the entire time, but i am pretty confident here...))

Really this takes me back to 2009 and all the positive feelings of filling my music player with senko no ronde after gamevop had introduced me to yack from puchi carat. Really one of the most influential musicians on my taste to come in so many ways---never before had i heard modern jazz composition sensibilities merged together so seamlessly with TRANCE music.

At the time I discovered him I probably would've legit said my two favorite genres were trance and jazz fusion. . .but like those two things always felt at odds with each other. When I was in jazz bands and I had a more modern tune I could play synth in rather than piano/vibraphone....even if I could play a variety of synth sounds I never felt "allowed" to specifically do trancey supersaws or futuristic delay echo drenched synth bells or whatever. Why couldn't I play chord comping to others solos on gated trance loops!?!? It didn't feel allowed even when it probably would've been something that could fly, but I still wrote this all off as completely separate things. Jazz and trance couldn't mix even though I desperately wanted to hear them mixed

But then yack came along and let me know that no---jazz mixed with trance IS allowed. You can totally have a trance song with improvised TECNO STAB 5 solos. There's nothing in the way of merging this sorta harmony and structure but with a "ARMIN VAN BUUREN - COMMUNICATION" aesthetic.

God...this is so yack like some of these chords and chord changes are exactly the same as certain senko no ronde tunes im pretty certain

I can't name exactly which ones I'm thinking of but the song it reminds me the most of in at least an loose "the same feel" way is probably Senko no Ronde DUO - Raven Candle:

https://youtu.be/96uhflcAGG8

I finally got to play senko no ronde recently, because a friend of mine (uf8) convinced me to do so with him and I found it pretty fun despite the janky net play. So much of it is just the atmosphere of this beautiful futuristic synth realm. But all that also just matches the setting really well, and it was cool to see that in action

the actual structure of kami's looking is very fulfilling to me. it starts as expansive pads/strings, immersive bongos and all that. adding layers like the choir and that almost militaristic snare drum? you know i never thought about it, but yack's approach to breakbeat-y stuff is actually kinda more like a CHOPPED ELECTRONIC LOOPS version of live solo snare drum patterns or something

EXAMPLE (senko no ronde - assemble):
https://youtu.be/HZWXaw9ZSwg&t=27

anyway kami's lookout adds elements in a very very GOOD way of doing that to me, it's an initial LOOKOUT VIEW, like that's so cool, you can see as far as the eye can see...which is so far. but then you're getting more closed sections of calm a bit later to set different tones (more expression of natural instruments, etc). it expresses it's chord progression with lots of shifts between major/minor and tonal center changes and all that that i always love and it makes a big deal thru other layers about when the "scales that work" change which ones they are an highlight the NEWLY ALLOWED NOTES in very cool ways. i'm always appreciative of that as a thing

something about the kick at :15 when it comes in at the same time as these swelling brass...and choir. (EDIT: I just realized this could be interpreted as talking about assemble...i was talkinga bout kami's lookout but a similar thing happens at :15 in assemble too!)

it's just powerful and beautiful!!! i feel like i am in the heavenly chamber,. . there's so many layers that fill the space and i feel my body instinctively /relax/ in the same way you do when you feel like it's really cool looking at very distant positions on the horizon from a vantage point where it looks cool when you do that (like a "lookout") . both the production and composition centered around these dense chords really envelop my soul in a soothing way that is so important

i think it's interesting that i can say that while the track IS still energetic, and i can imagine it in a fighting game. but energy doesn't have to be separated from serenity. you can beat someone up while you are in a semitransparent dome filled with flowers; and you can have a aerial fight in the explosions the sky blows up but you see a lot of clouds up high and that's pretty and that's what ace combat is all about like that