I accompany Lao Du to burn the letter that afternoon in my old house
Then I accompany Lao Du to recognize cowboy bebop from the beginning Chapter 26
Re-pick a note from the beginning, from the overlapping light and shadow
The vast expanse of water flows past, the breath of wind is remembered by me
Facing the past, listening to the voices of the past
Dedicated to the upcoming 20th anniversary of "cowboy bebop"
R: I watched "baby driver" in a movie theater this year. Yishui's groove tunes, whether used as foreground music or background music, were edited to fit the picture closely. Frankly speaking, I feel a little tired when I see it halfway through. The calculations are very accurate one by one, but the music and the pictures don't give each other extra points. In our Eastern dialect, it just lacks aftertaste. Until the end, when the young couple were about to flee, the barry white [never give you up] sounded, and I was pricked. At that time, I thought: This film will be chic when you give it to you. Then think again: Ouch, next year, 2018 will be the 20th anniversary of "cowboy bebop".
Du: It depends on whether the management gives me autonomy. Like this year's Blade Runner animation short film, I didn't speak on the soundtrack.
R: After the short film was broadcast, the response has been very good. Everyone is caring about this gathering of Japan’s most powerful group of original artists, but the soundtrack is not satisfactory. Flying lotus is very honest and uses vangelis's tone. Live, the final ending song is a brainless female vocal edm, ha ha.
Watana: Many media regard "macross plus" in 1994 as the first collaboration between myself and Yoko Kanno. In fact, the decision to choose the soundtrack is in the hands of Masaharu Kawamori. If I were to make a final decision back then, I would do it again. Squeeze Yoko to pick out even better and more powerful works. At the meeting that year, she asked our production team to listen to the [idol talk] first, which is very pure and authentic in the African American flavor; and then it is [voice], which is the kind of lyrical sentiment that will be appreciated by any era. song. On the surface, I pretended to be calm, and I was surprised: This girl can cross these two dimensions! ?
R: So when I was preparing for "cowboy bebop", I decided to have a thorough collaboration with Yoko?
Watari: Yes, 100% of the soundtrack of "cowboy bebop" is in my charge. Over the years, another misunderstanding of the media to me is the meaning of the title cowboy bebop. Cowboy naturally means that it is influenced by Western movies, but bebop does not mean how much this film has to do with jazz, let alone the film. How wonderful is the middle-jazz-style soundtrack. Hino Haojin often ran on me and Yoko at that time: You still jazz, I will kill you with my eyes closed! Bebop has a set of fixed sayings in the music circle. Since bebop, jazz musicians have not read sheet music, have begun to be free, and start to improvise and so on. Then I will borrow the term bebop to imply that this time I will break some of the conventions of tv animation production. , For example, there must be a solid action scene, rather than just relying on the camera to create a sense of movement. In fact, the title cowboy bebop was not the first choice at the time. At first, I wanted to borrow the title of Ozawa Kenji's song "流れ星ビバップ" (Meteor bebop), but the copyright of the record company was very complicated, so I gave it up later.
R: It means "freedom" or "improvisation". In many cases, it is just a word. Like the later works of john coltrane, different rhythms are used in parallel. The performance part must be carefully designed regardless of the score. Do you like Ozawa Kenji too? I have always been curious about how you formed your musical taste?
Du: I was born in the sixties. If you want to listen to popular European and American songs in Japan for 60 or 70 years, you'd better live in Nagasaki, because you can listen to US military radio stations in Nagasaki. In the early 1980s, mtv and tower records entered Japan almost simultaneously. At that time, tower records opened in Utagawa Town, Shibuya. As a result, in terms of music information, Japan and the United States have completely equalized the time difference. I remember that in 1990, other foreign record houses such as virgin and hmv also entered Japan one after another. In 1995, tower records moved to Shinnan 1-chome and expanded to an eight-story building. It was quite shocking at first glance. According to the store staff at the time, the number of albums in stock was about 600,000, plus those from Shinjuku and Shibuya. In other private record stores, my eyes are already a sea of music. Faced with a large number of CDs and vinyls, of course, there is a need for professionals to select excellent music albums. There is a music critic and dj named Toru Hashimoto in Japan. He edited a record guide called " "Suburbia suite", focusing on Brazilian music, Italian film music, French film music, black soul music, etc., completely broke the familiar master theory, which gave me a very big touch at the time.
R: So, in addition to the fact that musicians such as Kenji Ozawa, Keigo Oyamada, and Yasushi Konishi kept quoting their favorite Western music fragments in their works, this has led to the digging trend of Japanese music fans?
Du: I am a good example. It may be unbelievable now. In the mid-to-late 1980s in Japan, stevie wonder was completely ignored by the music media or critics. This indirectly caused me to be very alienated from the works of his old man for many years. It was until the release of the single by Kenji Ozawa in 1993 [天気読み】, everybody in the record store passed word of mouth: Isn’t this just Stevie Wonder’s 【Don't You Worry'Bout A Thing】? The old and new music seems to be dissolved. Taking this opportunity, Stevie Wonder has gradually recovered in Japan.
R: Hehe, one of my own experiences is related to Koyamada Keigo. Around 2009, a friend recommended a double folk song group from the 1960s in the United States called Alzo & Udine. A friend introduced that their album was republished in Japan in the 1990s. I didn’t take it seriously at first. There were too many albums republished in Japan, and there were also a lot of parallel imports. Class, the result is shocking when I hear it! The combination of twelve-string guitar and percussion is one meter, and the melody line is as beautiful as God's gift. I was curious about how this album was unearthed in Japan? The excavation of works of this level is definitely not a willful act, it is definitely a deliberate act of a musical person! It wasn't until this year that I happened to hear Keigo Koyamada's first album after flying solo. The [perfect rainbow] was inspired by Alzo & Udine's [Hey Hey Hey, She's OK]. No wonder, no wonder.
Watari: Koyamada Keigo, Ozawa Kenji, Hashimoto Toru, including nujabes, they are all a group of people, and then I became good friends with Hashimoto, and nujabes. After the death of nujabes, Toru Hashimoto and I were on vigil at the mourning hall. Toru Hashimoto recalled that he met nujabes at a free soul underground party in the mid-1990s. At that time, nujabes’ favorite song was Friends Of Distinction [when a little love began to die], nujabes opened its own record store guinness records in Shibuya in 1995. Around that period, nujabes also wrote articles for "Suburbia suite" under the real name seba jun. At that time, nujabes was in his early 20s. what. This year, Kenji Ozawa returned from New York and came back again. He asked Taiyo Matsumoto as the art designer for the singles. Because of the evil boy theatrical version, Taiyo Matsumoto is familiar with the group of my old buddies in studio 4c. Called me too. The last group of people got drunk and pointed at me and Ozawa Kenji and said: "Cowboy bebop" is not a cartoon that inherited the spirit of Shibuya!
R: Hahaha, you guys really drink high! This statement is novel enough. Many iron fans think that you were extravagant and self-willed when you made "cowboy bebop". You first set up Yoko's music, and then use the pictures to match the music, so you made a music-led film. But everyone on earth knows that the budget and production time for TV animation are extremely tight. How did you and Yoko cooperate back then?
Du: This is not my waywardness. Everyone misunderstands me again. For American dramas that are currently being produced, such as "Game of Thrones", there is almost half a year to a year from shooting to the final broadcast. They have time to make the soundtrack one after another. However, the production process of Japanese anime tv is completely different. While the latest episode is being played every week, the next episode is also being worked on. The soundtrack must precede the visual part, otherwise it will not catch up with the broadcast deadline.
R: In other words, this kind of cramps and restrictions actually lead you to use the picture to match the music?
Watari: Yes, some of the tracks are even my naked essays for Yoko. For example, in the twentieth episode of "Pierrot Le Fou", I would like to pay tribute to pink floyd, so I asked Yoko to play [on the run] directly, and finally even the track name in the original soundtrack also used on the run. Another example is the seventeenth episode of "mushroom samba". This entire episode is a tribute to black films in the 1970s. I arranged for the male and female supporting roles to be called shaft and coffee. The character design is consistent with that in the 70s film. Jingzi reminds me: This can't be without the elements of "superfly", right? I discussed with Yoko that I can no longer copy curtis mayfield like pink floyd this time. In the end, Yoko will continue to use the "superfly" style, and also start with a bassline with a split rhythm, and then add other instruments. Became the soundtrack of the seventeenth episode of the train gun battle scene [mushroom hunting].
R: According to you, the soundtrack of "cowboy bebop" is really a bit of Shibuya's old and new spirit, which is widely used by me. What I admire about Yoko is that she seems to have a music map in her heart. Why does this map exist? It is supported by her abundant sense of music and complete knowledge of music theory. Many years ago, I had a catch phrase: Yoko Kanno is the benchmark of the music circle, and musicians who think they are more professional than Yoko have no reason to slack off their work. But this is a joke now. It is now the era of selfie music. Listening to music on streaming media and painting a photo wall on Instagram are essentially the same.
Watana: Yoko usually doesn't bother to explain music theory to me. When our director describes the music of his dreams to the soundtracker, he often only provides some very vague and emotional words. It is said that when Angelo Badalamenti created the soundtrack of "Twin Peaks", David Lynch said to him: Imagine you are alone in the woods at night , You can hear the sound of the wind passing through the trees, a beautiful and sad girl slowly appearing in the depths of the dark jungle... This is replaced by ordinary musicians. Cowboy Chapter 10 "ganymede elegy" isn’t there a chase scene in which a jet drives a spaceship and captures the old lover and the current bf of the old lover. I told Yoko at that time: I want a piece of music, a little old, a little bit old Sad, but there must be a little bit of relief for those who come here, the clouds are light and the wind is light... Yoko is very fast, so she gave me a sample of the song the next day.
R: It was the [ELM] with a male voice and a guitar we heard later?
Du: Yes. I am very surprised, how can she accurately describe my feelings and emotions so accurately? She was very troubled and replied with two sentences: You think some emotions are very empty and unpredictable, but they can all be controlled by the rationality of music. Since you want to be ancient, sentimental, and calm, then I will write in the dorian style commonly used in British folk songs. That's not it. I was dizzy at the time! What dorian, how much your sister (laughs)! Remember the song [green bird] in the fifth episode of Spike's fall? It’s heavenly and church-like singing. The last episode of the closing song [blue] also used a similar chant at the beginning, which contrasted with Yamane Mai’s explosive singing later. I wondered how she even wrote this gospel tune very smoothly. ? Later, when I asked, I realized that it was Tongzi Gong. She was in the Catholic kindergarten since she was a child and had been exposed to the organ very early (laughs).
R: The fifth episode of "ballad of fallen angels" is equivalent to the first chapter of the storyline of spike. The middle chapter is the two episodes of "jupiter jazz", and the second chapter is the last two episodes of "the Real Folk Blues". In fact, to be honest, you still prefer the role of spike. As long as the soundtrack on the plot line is full, the song "rain" that sounded when Spike walked to the church in the fifth episode is also a favorite of many people.
Watari: Actually there was no soundtrack for the church scene at the beginning. There was a scene in my mind at that time, similar to Julia in summer time. I asked Yoko to write a vocal song for this scene. I didn’t expect Yoko to be full of inspiration. I handed over a dozen songs in one breath, including "rain". The atmosphere of this song and the scene in the church was a perfect match, but there was an auditory conflict between the lyrics and the conversation between spike&vicious. In the end, I gave priority to the song. Cut off most of the conversation. In the two episodes of "Jupiter Jazz", Keiko Nobumoto showed the entanglement between spike, Julia, and vicious through a yin and yang person like gen and a former comrade of vicious. Some people said that "cowboy bebop" is a space road movie. Regardless of the plot, Shinmoto Keiko still had her consideration when creating the script.
R: "Jupiter Jazz" is my favorite chapter in all 26 episodes. It can be pulled out into a separate chapter. The soundtrack of this chapter is too extravagant, like the flash of "words that we couldn't say", heavy metal voices like steve conte have a lot of attention in the United States. To put it bluntly, there is no particularly obvious recognition. But his low voice is particularly stingy. I bragged with my friends at the time: This song is on the sting album, and it’s okay to be the number two title song! When Spike picked up gen and asked Julia’s whereabouts, it sounded [space lion]... The first time I saw it, I was completely silly, the afro-style percussion and female vocals, the distant saxophone, wow... TV animation soundtrack can actually be used To do this? This the fuck is actually a tv animation? If the soundtrack of Ghost in the Shell 95 is the Dinghai Shenzhen of the theatrical animation soundtrack, then [space lion] is the backbone of the "cowboy bebop" soundtrack and even the tv animation soundtrack. Musicians sometimes encounter a very weird phenomenon, his work level will be higher than his own music level. When Motoko came up from the bottom of the sea for snorkeling in GAME 95, Kenji Kawai plugged in a psychedelic electric guitar. The tone of the sound was accurate, the deep-deep-fierce realm, he will never have it again. It has been reached, and it is far from as good. The same goes for Yoko's [space lion]. This level of work must rely on the aura of genius to support you step by step.
Watari: I will take Yoko to accept your reputation (laughs). I also put a lot of effort into "Jupiter Jazz". In the previous episode of TV animation, the first half of 10 minutes, the second half of 10 minutes, plus the opening and ending songs, it’s only 25 minutes, I thought either I would bebop again (laughs) )? In the last seven minutes, from the dead gen floating alone to the planet Titan, to the dialogue between the Indian elders and children in the valley, to the scene gradually leaving the world and rising to the universe, I let the movement of [space lion] ring through these seven minutes.
R: It's really bebop and solo (laughs). When the drums stop, a line of black subtitles is played: do you have a comrade? This is the first eulogy I think of when I heard that Nuajbes passed away. For works like [space lion], the cost of recording all the soundtracks should not be a decimal, right?
Du: Nearly 20 years have passed, and I can't remember the specific amount for a long time. I remember that when steve conte came to record [call me call me], Yoko invited a whole string orchestra, cello, viola, violin and so on. There were almost 30 musicians, and steve was staring at him. He had never followed him in the United States. The string orchestra has recorded sound, how can you ever see such a battle? In his concept, only superstars like frank sinatra can get this treatment. He kept talking that day: It is said that the Japanese economic bubble has burst and the economy is in recession. Why are cartoons so rich?
R: No wonder he was able to sing to the point where he was able to sing like a mountain in the end, coupled with the dangling figure of ed's arms in the setting sun, that kind of desolate background...
Crossing: そうですね (laughs)
View more about Cowboy Bebop reviews
