Music info: VGMdb
Listening: YouTube
Info
Alright, so this weekend Splatoon 3 added a new boss to Salmon Run called Megalodontia, which if you’re familiar with prehistoric animals you might recognize from the name is a big shark. Its Japanese name is ジョー, which is a transliteration of the word “jaw,” as in Jaws. But due to the way that Japanese transliteration of English words works, specifically with respect to how multiple English vowel sounds can be mapped onto the same Japanese vowel, ジョー is also how you would write the name Joe, so a lot of people, myself 100% included, are calling the boss Joe because it’s extremely funny to call it Joe.
So anyway, I decided to relisten to this album, which Joe Hisaishi released under the artist name JOE.
I randomly found this album for cheap at a Japanese bookstore in Hawaiʻi ten years ago on vacation and bought it because (1) Hisaishi is cool, (2) the cover art rules, and (3) it was $5. At the time I was really only familiar with Hisaishi’s generally piano and/or orchestral film scores and original albums, so when I put it on in the rental car’s CD player and was immediately blasted by weird synthesizer music, I completely lost my shit and had to text a friend. What in the hell was this and where had it been my whole life??? Well, turns out it was just in his ’80s discography the whole time! With other synth music! A stunning revelation.
This is a heavily ’80s synthesizer album with three live performers playing percussion, dulcimer, and strings on an unspecified amount of tracks. There’s a range of different vibes, going from “weird” to “driving music” to “pretty” to “chill,” with a big dose of minimalism incorporated into a few tracks (this is also something he was exploring at the same time through other outlets, like MKWAJU). Most of the tracks here are original compositions for the album, but two were written for commercial campaigns, one of which was a Japanese cologne brand called XANAX, which is extremely funny to me. I still find this to be a great album that’s a lot of fun, definitely recommend it as a look into his earlier music if, like me at the time, you’re not as familiar with it.
Recommended tracks:
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“SYNTAX ERROR” is a bunch of loud, percussive weirdness
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“ɑ-BET-CITY” sounds like it comes from the intro of a TV show with an overhead city streets montage
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“DA-MA-SHI-E” is a Japanese term for trompe-l’œil, which seems like an appropriate title for an orchestral minimalist piece
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“MÖBIUS LOVE” would 100% work as a PS1/2 waterway dungeon theme in an RPG
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