The score material is as stunning as ever and is worthy listening
Disadvantages:
Fly Me to the Moon again and again and again and . . .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
INTRODUCTION
The end of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion has always been one of the most controversial and hard to accept features of the series. As the grand culmination of Episode 24 came to its shattering conclusion, the remaining two episodes surprised and outraged just about everybody. With money running low, the studio didn't have the resources to finish the series as planned, which prompted the director to make a grand summary of the series and all of the psychological questions raised there instead. However, instead of new animation, the two episodes mostly consisted of still images, stock footage, as well as different techniques of sketches, watercolour paintings and imposed photos. The epic conclusion everybody was expecting caused many fans to fall flat on their face and be extremely discontented with how their favourite show ended with the most confusing of sentiments and leaving so many questions unanswered. Director Hideaki Anno even received death threats as a result, the constant bickering for a proper conclusion only ending a few years later when the movie The End of Evangelion was made to substitute the final two episodes (not that everything was actually explained even then, which led to even more wonderment and speculation).
With the series attention turning to a more psychologically introspective mode after the midway point, the same process also effected the musical approach. For the first fifteen episodes, composer Shiro Sagisu had been more concerned in providing music for an action series in the form of heavily tumbling and edgily modern action music, triumphally brassy orchestral fanfares, with laid back jazz and romantic piano to provide the more intimate moments. Combining the traditional large orchestra with modern electric and acoustic guitars, jazz bands and rock percussion, the effect was something really effective. And when you include the highly propulsive main title and hauntingly beautiful renditions of Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon for the end credits, its easy to see why I still enjoy listening to the music without getting tired of it even six months later (after all this isn't some cheap synth score that anime series so often tend to end up with).
With this change of perspective, the music reflected this change by opting more modern aspects in the Classical Concert Music sense. Instead of the propulsive action scenes and lighter musical moments, the score took a more introverted and calm sense in the style of many modern classical composer in overstepping tonality, while keeping a distinctly melodical feel in the form of Henryk Gorécki and Alan Hovhaness. Apart from the two previous volumes that still concentrated predominately on the more "traditional" music, this third volume almost wholly abandons these forms and presents mostly music from the end of the series, while filling out all the remaining cues not released yet (apart from maybe one or two separate moments).
THE SONGS: The Horror of Overindulgence
The songs will most likely be the aspect that will make or break this third album for you. The first two tracks are, like the second volumes "Yokan", image tracks. "Happiness is the Smell of Sin" and "Eternal Embrace" are both enjoyable, though ultimately somewhat forgettable Japanese ballades. They make for great makeweights and considering the rest of the album, there could have actually been much more of them included here, forgettable even as they are. The bigger impression is left by the song "Fly Me to the Moon". With three versions heard on the first volume and five on the second, the third presents us with a whopping 12 arrangements of the Sinatra song. With no respite between the different versions, it doesn't take long for one to really start disliking the song or go completely insane by the end. I personally like Fly Me to the Moon as heard on the first volume, but this kind of overkill with different mixes of the same song over and over again is just unnecessary. (And of course there are four further versions heard in the extension albums that followed.)
The most relevant are tracks 31-33 that feature the vocals of Megumi Ogata who voices Rei in the series. The more unusual versions include the "4 Beat", "Aya Bossa Techno", "Acid Bossa", "Off Vocal", "4 Beat Off Vocal", "Aki Jungle", "B-22A Type" (what the hell that is supposed to be anyway), and the eight minute long "Aya London Beat" versions. Also included are Yoko Takahashi's more standard take, but one has to say that most of these could have just as well been thrown out of the window. Thankfully all the songs have been grouped at the end, so its not going to be a big effort to push the stop button after track 22. Unless of course if you have some major masochistic tendencies then I would whole heartedly urge you to immerse yourself with these songs, and if that is not enough, then make a compilation of your own by including the eight other versions from the two previous volumes (and for more extreme cases, the further three versions from Evangelion Refrain and one further from the album 2nd Impact) for one continuous listen and be in FMttM heaven or hell (your choice of course which).
THE SCORE: The Real Deal
Now forget about the songs. The main attraction on this album is the score. Like I already said in the introduction, Shiro Sagisu's score for this third volume concentrates less on the action, and more on the psychological points. The score material however does not instantaneously open with this kind music, with the first score cue "Normal Blood" being the highly soaring "Beast II" cue from the second volume, only played with a touch more speed. Although it is basically the same cue, it does make for a smashingly energetic opening, particularly since the Beast theme is quite enjoyable amid the more action oriented moments. Likewise the second cue, "Harbinger of Tragedy," is nothing more than a remix of the cue "The Beast" from the first volume, only highlighting the electric guitars rather than the orchestra, it is a nice enough version though not nearly as good as the original. But apart from these two cues, there is absolutely no other action material to be found on the entire album.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MUSIC: Unearthly Eeriness
The psychological tracks consist just about half of the score material on this album, beginning with "In the Depths of Human Hearts" that features little twinkling bells, piano, and meandering cellos with a few bangs of a drum, all bringing to mind György Ligeti and Steve Reich. "Do You Love Me?" is a very interesting choral track that has a very statically fluctuating melodic line to which an electronic chorus is imposed over, making the overall soundworld truly unearthly and very interesting. "Splitting of the Breast" and "Mother is the First Other" are somewhat similar with a female chorus (accented by the synth choir) singing cleanly polyphonically and just as unearthily. The latter also includes small twinklings that you could expect to find from the music of a space documentary (this is why I like to call this track "Gentle Partical Logic").
"Introjection" and "Depression" are both very eerie cues that begin Shinji's self search in Episode 25. The choral writing in "Depression" and the lone female voice in "Introjection" (howling very much like a ghost actually) beautifully highlight the hidden recesses of the human mind in the misty corners of consciousness. And when the memory starts to work does a church-like choral melody appear at the latter half of "Introjection" like a faint remainder of the old world. "Separation Anxiety" takes the exotic percussion from the second volume's "Borderline Case", ups them to more prominence and adds the sounds of a sitar, thus creating a very strange, though quite fascinating, world of imagination.
The last remaining track that falls into these parameters is "Infantile Dependence, Adult Dependency" which is my absolute favourite of the psychological music. Starting with a simple four-note organ-motif with bells, Sagisu soon starts piling the layers on with strings, different percussion, guitar and brass that just increases the feeling of tension every moment of the way. This music is particularly effective during the last scene of Episode 25 as Shinji is told in his mind by all the other characters that the nightmare world he is living in now, a world where there is nobody else but himself, has been his own creation, born out of his own wishes to be free from the pressure of other people. The downward spiralling strings in particular accent the horrific feelings of the realisation of his own wishes.
REMAINING SCORE: The Odd Tracks
The remaining score material consists of the odd thematic material associated with a few individual moments and fun little details. Rei's theme makes two appearances here as very attractive piano solos in "Hostility Restrained" and "Crime of Innocence," the latter in particular being a nice alternative to the first volume's "Rei I". Fly Me to the Moon likewise makes two appearances as the love theme for Misato and Kaji in "The Sorrow of Losing the Object of One's Dependence" (a piano solo) and "Those Women Longed for the Touch of Others' Lips and Thus Invited Their Kisses" (phew, that must be the longest track name I've ever heard; this one also includes the strings). They are much more tolerateable than the song arrangements and actually are worth a listen.
The only piece of really romantic underscore is served in "Three of Me, One of Someone Else," which is another cue I really have no idea where it belongs to. It's a nice and calm piano melody that stands out on this album for its more easy melodic appeal, being somewhat similar to Ritsuko's theme. Classical music also plays a large part in the latter half episodes with sizeable chunks from Händel's Messiah and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony being performed without pause in Episodes 21 and 24. However, there was also a small piece of classical music Shinji performed on his cello earlier in the series, which can be heard in "Childhood Memories, Shut Away", the snippet being a 30 second excerpt from J.S. Bach's Prelude from the First Cello Suite, very nice indeed.
The two tracks entitled as "Background Music" are also quite fun. "Background Music III" can be found from a TV series the children watched, a kind of film noir saxophone piece. "Background Music II" is the more amusing, however, being used as the music in a video game. It opens with a strident guitar intro that leads into a spirited appearance of the famous theme from Elmer Bernstein's western score for The Magnificent Seven. This is followed by the main EVA action theme before the Bernstein theme appears again. It is a very amusing spoof of something extremely familiar and tying it in with the actual score, although only the middle part was actually used in the series.
The final moments in the series in Episode 26 bring the musical evolution right back where it begun, to the "Cruel Angel's Thesis". The cues "The Heady Feeling of Freedom" and "Good, or Don't Be" are both instrumental performances of the main title music (the first arranged for string orchestra and the latter for piano and guitar), which is quite nice as it ties in the main title song not heard anywhere else in the score before as part of the musical canvas, perfectly rounding out the score as the moment of self understanding dawns for Shinji.
THE ALBUM: As an Item
The album comes, like the two others, with a ten page booklet with comments from the director, lyrics for the songs (should you wish to sing along with the oh, so complicated lyrics) and pictures from the series. This third album does have its faults that are more substantial than the previous two volumes combined. The actual score material, although featuring very little action music and concentrating pretty much on the more modern concepts of today's classical music, is still as strong as ever and is well in keeping with the overall tone of the series. Whereas the previous two volumes music was more action based, the score on the third volume thankfully now presents the more subdued music from the latter half of the series and as such makes this one a very good buy. The big problem is that so much space is donated to Fly Me to the Moon. Not that any score is sacrificed really; there are only one or two bits of score material not released anywhere, but 12 versions of one song one after the other comes pretty near in driving a sane man up the wall and this is really the main reason why I have made a two disc compilation of the score material for my own personal use so I don't have to change discs so often and can avoid all the different arrangements of the song apart from the four-minute standard one on the first volume as a finale. But trying to listen to all of these songs in one sitting almost makes me want to bang my head against a wall and it does start to feel like brain washing after a while.
Availability is the same as with the two others: very obscure. Geneon originally published these in Japan, from where BMG bought the rights for international distribution. After that I have seen the records been labeled with Pioneer, Starchild Records, and a couple of others, so it is best to just hunt down a copy from Amazon, where used and sealed albums seem to go at around £6-13. Sound quality has always been high with these discs and the same is maintained here, with the recording being crisp and clear all round, with beautiful dynamics coming across the board very well. For anyone interested in the music, or has the first two volumes, this third one is a must buy. It is not as substantially excellent as the two others, but the score material is really good and is well worth the price of admission. Now just "Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars…".
Score as heard on album: ***** Songs as heard on album: ** Music as presented on album: **** Overall: ****
TRACK LIST
1. Shiawase wa (Happiness is the Smell of Sin) (Yoko Takahashi) (4:34) 2. Eternal Embrace (Yoko Takahashi) (5:22) 3. Normal Blood (1:57) 4. Harbinger of Tragedy (1:39) 5. Childhood Memories, Shut Away (0:36) 6. Those Women Longed for the Touch of Others' Lips and Thus Invited Their Kisses (2:20) 7. Background Music II (1:34) 8. Background Music III (2:33) 9. In the Depths of Human Hearts (2:23) 10. Hostility Restrained (1:39) 11. Three of Me, One of Someone Else (2:21) 12. Crime of Innocence (2:26) 13. The Sorrow of Losing the Object of One's Dependence (1:31) 14. Do You Love Me? (2:21) 15. Separation Anxiety (2:28) 16. Introjection (2:28) 17. Depression (2:35) 18. Splitting of the Breast (2:15) 19. Infantile Dependence, Adult Dependency (3:01) 20. Mother is the First Other (2:25) 21. The Heady Feeling of Freedom (1:51) 22. Good, or Don't Be (1:23) 23. Fly Me to the Moon (Yoko Takahashi TV version) (1:08) 24. Fly Me to the Moon (4 Beat TV version; Yoko Takahashi) (1:07) 25. Fly Me to the Moon (Aya Bossa Techno TV version; Aya) (1:06) 26. Fly Me to the Moon (Acid Bossa TV version; Yoko Takahashi) (1:06) 27. Fly Me to the Moon (4 Beat Off Vocal TV version) (1:06) 28. Fly Me to the Moon (Off Vocal TV version) (1:07) 29. Fly Me to the Moon (Aki Jungle TV version; Aki) (1:06) 30. Fly Me to the Moon (B-22A Type TV version) (1:06) 31. Fly Me to the Moon (Rei - Episode 23) (1:08) 32. Fly Me to the Moon (Rei - Episode 25) (1:08) 33. Fly Me to the Moon (Rei - Episode 26) (1:08) 34. Fly Me to the Moon (Aya London Beat; Aya) (8:10)
Music Composed, Arranged and Conducted by Shiro Sagisu Produced by Hideaki Anno Music Recorded and Mixed by Kohoichi Suzuki Music Recorded at King Record 1st.
