Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2017 March 06 • Monday

One of the must successful and memorable pairings of film directer and soundtrack composer is certainly that of Kihachi Okamoto and Masaru Sato.

The 455th Soundtrack of the Week is from one of their collaborations: Sato's music for Okamoto's Blue Christmas (Blood Type: Blue).

This is a very different score than the other Sato work I'm familiar with. While there are some cues that use horns and strings in such a way and have such a shape and structure, particularly in the rhythm, that they suggest Sato very strongly, there are also these dreamy and spacious cues for synthesizer and tabla that don't remind me of anything else from his body of work.

And even among the orchestral passages there are novel, for Sato, uses of electronic instruments, most likely to add more sci-fi elements to this story of aliens from outer space.

The title of the movie is realized as a cheesy pop vocal number that I find almost impossible to take. The melody is repeated throughout, though most often with instrumentation that makes it easier to take.