Composer: Hideki Taniuchi
Year (of original media): 2007
Genres (partial): Alternative Rock, Gothic Rock, Downtempo, IDM, Punk, Post-Rock, Metal, Ambient, Dark Ambient, Classical
Additional Info: Soundtrack for season one of the anime, the second season has its own soundtrack album. Official release.
Ok, so I've been wanting to do this one for awhile now, a listening list of soundtracks. Considering I literally work doing soundtracks, it should come to no surprise that soundtracks are one of my absolute favorite styles of music, specifically those used in anime and Japanese video games. They add so much to the media that they're applied to, yet are often overlooked despite many soundtracks being excellent as standalone music. This is the first post of this listening list, so I will try to lay some groundwork here for my intentions with it and how it will function. If possible, I will want to try to cover actual published collections of works (whether those be digital uploads and/or physical media). This isn't always possible though, so sometimes I will have to use fan-made uploads/playlists; this information will be under "Additional Info" at the top of the posts. If possible, I will also include where the OST can be streamed, as well as a playlist of my favorite tracks from it (all links at the bottom of the post). When I list the composers, I am listing the main composers of the actual OST; not the composers for any anison that are included on the album (and I wont be covering these included anison, I am focusing solely on the BGM here). Additionally, these will be full on reviews, so expect longer posts. Additionally, this isn't like normal listening lists where its to explore a discography, its more just so I can be a nerd about OSTs, as well as an excuse to deep listen a lot of OSTs (I love them, and I also study them to improve my own OSTs). I do not believe in negative music reviews, nor rating music, so you will see none of that here.
Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji is an insanely good anime from the 00s, seriously the best gambling media ever made, and one of the most captivating suspense anime that I've seen. For those who haven't seen it, its about a down and out young man who finds himself in extreme debt, and having to duel it out with gamblers and an enormous crime syndicate to try to gamble his way to financial freedom. The show is absurdly in-depth, and is just awesome. Anyways though, the soundtrack is by one of my favorite anime composers, Hideki Taniuchi. Their work is insanely good, also doing a lot of the music for Death Note (one of my favorite OSTs), as well as the other high-stakes gambling anime, Touhai Densetsu Akagi. Their soundtracks are iconic, with a really unique sound that always stands out, mixing alternative rock, electronic dance music, IDM, punk, ambient, metal, and more; often with a very noticeable gothic overtone to it that gives it such a cool sound. I absolutely love their approach to soundtracks, and the stuff they make is always insanely good.
For me, the tracks that stand out the most are the guitar heavy tracks, whether they be brooding gothic alternative rock, or more upbeat punk-ish tunes, they all absolutely slap. The songs are full of absolutely incredible riffs, Taniuchi has such a knack for really gripping riffs that pull you right in and give the shows they compose for such cool atmospheres. I really love urban sounding OSTs, often urban elements are like, hip-hop or jungle (which I do love), but to give it a rock-based urban sound is really cool. Lots of these tracks have repeated melodic and harmonic motifs, accompanied by both acoustic and electronic drums (that play both rock and dance music rhythms, one song even has a disco/house groove that hits hard with the uplifting rock guitars). Other tracks shift through a variety of ideas, giving it a nice evolving sound. I really love their guitar heavy approach, with many songs having several layers of guitars, both all doing their own thing, but in total harmony as well; and no matter how busy it gets, it never becomes messy/disorientating/anyotherbadthingforanostunlessitsintentionalofcourse.
In addition to the rock tunes, are more electronic focused tracks, these are awesome. Moody chords and melodies played on really nice sounding synths, as well as traditional instruments like piano, strings, and guitar. The melodies and harmonies are often accompanied by drums, often in the IDM territory (something else that I love about their soundtracks, all of the IDM influences). These tracks really remind me of old Autechre stuff at times, it hits that exact same form of melancholy to me, and I love it. One of the tracks too opens with the same chord of Mu-Ziq's Twangle Frent (I wonder if it's intentional, as they have re-purposed IDM motifs in OSTs before). In addition to other music similarities, one of my favorite tracks on the album, Child's mind, begins with an awesome downtempo IDM post-rock thing very akin to B. Fleischmann's album, The Humbucking Coil, before crescendoing into thick and emotional post-rock chords (reminding me of some of Otomo Yoshihide's soundtracks). There's a lot of killer tracks on this, but one I want to point out too is Man racetrack, both the title and the music is so incredibly sinister and foreboding, its such a hopeless sounding track, is so befitting of the anime.
Now, that's the disk one of this album, and it has a whole other disk. The second disk largely consists of the more downtempo, ambient, contemplative, and score type music (some of this is also on disk one, but it seems to be the main focus of disk two). A lot of this second disk is made up of tension cues, full of tense string clusters, and a lot of intentional dissonance, and is for more hardcore OST fans as there's a lot of pure production music here. Often these strings are accompanied by other elements, such as techno or IDM percussion, as well as piano and electronic pads. There's a lot of heavy horror elements here as well, I love the foreboding sound. I love the unique approach to leitmotif as well, instead of using a melodic idea, it often has processed vocals saying sound effects (such as zawa), which is a common element in the anime itself, it fits so nicely. This side of the album does have some rock tunes as well, but typically more experimental and atmospheric than disk one. There's a lot of ambient songs on here too which are really cool. The standouts for me on disk two are the foreboding tension cues that include percussion, these are really well done, and quite cool. The album in general, and especially the second disk, also features some alternate mixes/versions of tracks; is always neat when they include these as not all soundtracks do. There's some sound effects on here interestingly as well (sometimes composers have to step in on SFX work, but its not always included in albums). All in all, this is an amazing soundtrack for an amazing anime.
Mini-album art review: I always think the covers for OSTs are really interesting, and they have a wide range of designs. I quite like the cover art on this OST, the facial expressions are a trademark of the anime, so Kaiji front and center staring down the viewer works really well. I also like graphically dense OST covers (like a larger central image, as we have here), especially with a big logo, just looks nice, and the clean artwork is really good.
Links:
Album streaming link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kk4FDj_1cJlGTOM0XmEwr5NEw0g9LuECM
Himeko's favorite tracks playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvB4ha5o455tLV9TRcZP52cjnh5lWUXbU
VGMdb page: https://vgmdb.net/album/27021
MAL page: https://myanimelist.net/anime/3002/Gyakkyou_Burai_Kaiji__Ultimate_Survivor
Complete playlist of favorite tracks of OSTs covered in this listening list: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvB4ha5o455szOdif2qihz4henIPBvhtJ
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