 | Album Title: Sailing to the World |
| Record Label: Sleigh Bells | |
| Catalog No.: SBPS-0003 | |
| Release Date: December 25, 2002 | |
| Purchase: Buy Used Copy |
Overview
In 1998, Yasunori Mitsuda left SquareSoft and decided to go freelance. Was this a smart and successful move? Indeed, he lost a reasonable number of fans, but gained more freedom and choice. His first major work after Chrono Cross was Tsugunai: Atonement and, only a few months later, Mitsuda worked on a Taiwanese PC game, The Seventh Seal, composing only 11 tracks for the score. Its album release was titled Sailing to the World, and contained all tracks from the game, minus one battle track. The album had a variety of different styles, a reflection of the diversity of the world, but like An Cinniùint, the album was only appreciated by a select few. But what is so special about the album that makes it stand apart from most other Mitsuda releases? Why was it so underappreciated, and, most importantly, what are my thoughts on the album? By decoding each track separately, you shall soon know.
Body
The first piece on this album is “The Door,” a musical mystery not so drenched in Mitsuda’s standard fashion. It’s clear that this track was partially inspired by An Cinniùint; the crystal-clean atmosphere particularly suggests so, while the synthesizer programming is reminiscent of the top-notch work found on the Irish-inspired score. The most peculiar thing about this mysterious theme is that it doesn’t sound like Mitsuda at all, but more like something Hitoshi Sakimoto would create. When it begins, the rich string samples and the harp sound awfully similar to those in the Vagrant Story score. The pattern doesn’t change; as it progresses, the choir enters and once more portrays striking similarities to Sakimoto’s genius. But even though it may sound alike instrumentally, Mitsuda made the piece his own by including an original composition that is welcoming and, not to mention, relaxing to his fans’ and listeners’ tastes. One can quite easily cross the composition with the overall ethereal sense of An Cinniùint and the musically variable Chrono Cross; however, it’s a piece of work and style that Mitsuda rarely touches on, and, from personal belief, he pulled it off insanely well. On another interesting note, the final minute sounds moderately analogous to Motoi Sakuraba’s compositions on the Star Ocean series. This rich track can easily be summed up as a mixture of experience, experiment, and ingenuity. Mitsuda’s piece is nothing short of excellent.
I can’t help feeling that the song “Sailing to the World” is somewhat one of the composer’s weaker numbers. One of Mitsuda’s best friends, Tomohiko Kira, helped create the piece (guitar only), underlining Akihisa Tsuboy’s violin exceptionally well, and with the help of the “wide” and ambitious melody, his guitar makes the track sound very exotic at the least. The instrumentation is fine, so to speak, but it’s missing something which makes tracks like “Radical Dreamers ~Unstealable Jewel~” stand out in the crowd. Plain and simple, it sounds as if the instrumentals are on the mediocre side. Now, the most fascinating thing about Mitsuda’s decisions on this album is that he made Komine write lyrics using a made-up language, much similar to what Kawai does a month later on “Prologue” from the Xenosaga Original Soundtrack, but it actually comes to sound like Japanese, although that may be because of the singer’s accent. Nevertheless, regardless of the good performance and vast instrument use, it can’t stand up and ends up being titled only an above-average composition. “Melody-Go-Round” is a soft instrumental variation of the enchanting theme. Mitsuda uses an appropriately mellow flute to replace Koko Komine’s beautiful and unique voice, and, to be completely honest, I feel it suits the texture and surroundings of the themes better than the vocals. Surprisingly, the piano addition highlights the flute perfectly, bringing out the beauty in it and matching the vocalist’s own purity from the main theme. The backing synthetic chorals are hauntingly divine, especially because the flute’s melody is so beautiful and rich. When all three acoustic instruments come together and unite, they create a perfect balance of simplicity.
For Mitsuda, “Melody of Aqua” is the piece that you’ve been waiting for. Yep, we still get a taste of that classic music from our Yasunori amid the diversity. “Melody of Aqua” is quite simply summarized in the title: it’s a melody of water, and since water is, at most, calm and soothing, the piece follows this terminology. The harp appropriately paints the image of a large mass of aquatic marine life, all living in total harmony, and with the sleigh bells, an automatic sense of completeness comes to mind. It’s a perfect effect. Of course, the Celtic flute enters to liven the scene, performing a short but melodic interlude that is pleasant to hear. We then travel back to the ideal aqua world with the smooth but largely synthetic violin and its short ambient-melodic routine before collaborating with the Celtic flute. The main problem is the short playtime. The piece lasts for about 1:32 before repeating; in its 3:19 total time it could have developed and presented itself far better. Sadly, this isn’t the only track that receives this poor treatment, as about seventy percent of the album follows suit. All bad things aside, this is one pleasant and friendly theme that shows the more sensitive and simple side of Mitsuda.
If you want a successful piece, “Rhythm of Red” is a near-faultless example. The theme is of Spanish nature, and has a fairly simplistic set of instruments for Mitsuda to work with, including a guitar and a live performer, orchestral synth samples, and various percussion instruments. This time, Kira didn’t return to perform with his guitar, but instead left the honours to Matt Washimi, who replaced him and did superbly. The melody is admittedly simple, but full of rich emotion, and flawlessly transmits into the strings of the acoustic guitar, making it a very easy listen indeed. The name of “Path to Enlightenment” obviously suggests that Mitsuda has crafted another of his well-liked and praised “holy” themes, but on first listen, I was severely let down. Why Mitsuda included this questionable track is beyond anyone’s knowledge, but it stinks of filler. To break things down quickly, this track is heavily ambient, though not boring, with a large synth percussion ensemble and a set of ancient instruments for a tad of melodic addition. If you liked Mitsuda’s ambient work on the Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack, then I have high hopes you’ll like this one too, but, to me, compared to most of the other assorted and musically interesting pieces, this one doesn’t cut it.
“Confrontation” is the first of the two dark and action-oriented pieces on the album, and is easily the weaker of the two. As is undeniable, Mitsuda taps into his Xenogears experience once more to create this dark, moody, and expressive track with a very oppressive atmosphere. As we all know, the composer has never been known for crafting masterful battle themes, and, sadly, this theme follows rather closely to the usual tradition. Like always, Mitsuda employs a militaristic style, keeping the piece well balanced, although the compositional emotion can vary at times. For example, darkness surrounds the opening like the plague, but as it reaches the 1:00 mark, it keenly transforms into hope. With “Point of No Return,” we get something much better. Like others of its kind, this one is strictly in a tight orchestral style, with a few little bits and pieces along the way. As the dark journey takes flight, we begin with a sinister church organ, lightly leading us into the dark, repetitive orchestral motif which remains similar throughout its entire 5:00 length. Although the composer less frequently approaches this style, he adds his own flavour with the random voice sampling. It is very well known that Mitsuda likes to have wailing voices over his compositions, and at times these additions can sound right out of place (particularly in his battle themes), but I feel the opposite and welcome the effect for this track.
“Reincarnation” is the second vocal track on the album and, without doubt, the better of the two. Koko Komine returns to sing for this ethnic piece, with Tomohiko Kira arranging the guitar parts. Every instrument performs its duties almost perfectly, especially the piano and the electric violin, which first appears toward the center of the track; Kira performs lovely repetitions you can feel clearly. Regarding the melody, it’s one you need to listen to a few times before it becomes likable, but you don’t need time to adapt to Komine’s wonderful voice—on this track she performs brilliantly, and the idea of manipulating her voice several times accomplishes the initiative of a world and its voice. Again, the language is made-up and flows well with the instrumentals, so don’t mistake it for Japanese. As said on the previous track, the chorus is the most breathtaking part of the song, when Komine enters following one large, epic drum pound to symbolize and make you feel the end is here. This is one of the more breathtaking moments from Mitsuda and impresses well enough that it can send shivers down the spine. Kira also gets his moment to shine with the guitar breakdown at 3:30 just before the big finale. “Reincarnation” is a godsend to Mitsuda fans, no doubt about it. This is a piece that you wouldn’t expect from the composer, but it’s so influential and easily blows every other track on this album out of the water. It’s something you need to hear to believe, and a prime, first-rate reason why you should purchase this album. It’s that good.
Summary
Mitsuda’s Taiwanese album is truly something to be admired, and something to learn from. While we get a whole array of different kinds of styles and instruments, the development of the themes could have been much better, as seen mostly in “Melody of Aqua,” “Path to Enlightenment,” and “Hope.” The average listener won’t mind as they are likely to simply enjoy the music for what it is. It’s also clear that Mitsuda borrowed many styles from previous scores like the Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack, Xenogears Original Soundtrack, and An Cinniùint, but when fused together, it sounds wonderful. I was surprised by both of the vocal tracks; one being extremely well produced and the other only average, but neither was the typical love ballad that Mitsuda seems to be addicted to. Komine was an excellent choice for a vocalist, being superficially better than Eri Kawai and more tolerable than Noriko Mitose. I felt that with real Japanese lyrics the songs could have been better and more meaningful; still, I appreciate the creativity asserted very much indeed. The question remains now whether this is the ideal album for you. Well, as said before, you’re not going to find extremely awesome pieces throughout the entire album, but if you’re the person in your family who likes to relax and appreciates a variety of musical styles, then this album is your lucky day. For Mitsuda fans, this is another quality album released from Sleigh Bells, so don’t be closed-minded and pass it up because the composer isn’t working for Square anymore. Overall, this is an album for almost anybody to enjoy. Experiment and be amazed! Mitsuda scores again!
