Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2025 January 20 • Monday

I remember browsing the laserdisc selection at Tower Records about thirty years ago and getting into a casual conversation with another shopper who insisted that I "had to" see Ninja Scroll. So far I've managed to get away with not seeing it, but its score by Kaoru Wada is the 840th Soundtrack of the Week.

The music is really good, blending the familiar small orchestra with traditional Japanese instruments.

A lightly rhythmic "Prologue" clears the way for a heavier and more aggressive evolution into "Jubei", with some sparse horn figures adding definition.

Creepy long tones from strings introduce "Eight Warriors of the Demon Clown", which also uses koto to great effect. Wind instruments pick up the melody and percussion comes crashing in later for Ifukube-like moment. The next track, "Blood Wind", is a continuation.

"Kagerou" is a long (8:22) piece that's mostly an unhurried combination of melody, mood and texture, with more effective koto playing and some lovely lyrical lines.

A couple of tense action cues, "Visions" and "Devil Shadow", come next, with the latter bursting into a terrific driving groove near the end.

An even cooler groove, North African or Middle Eastern it sounds like, is the foundation for "To Those Who Face the Wind", the first of the movie's two songs. Both were composed and sung by Ryouhei Yamanashi with lyrics by Shou Jitsukawa. This one, with its infectious and energetic feel and some impressive violiln soloing, is really great.

The same koto hit starts off the next two tracks, "Pursuit" and "Devil Swordsman", both short and powerful action/suspense pieces.

"Strategy" starts off as a pensive sort of piece, moves into an Ifukube-like passage and then ends with more hard-driving action pulse music. The beginning feel is then reiterated in "Reincarnation" and developed into a mysterious and lyrical melodic line.

The shakuhachi gets featured in "Struggle to the Death", which also continues the theme from the previous cue, before the "Epilogue", unsurprisingly similar to "Prologue".

The second song, "Somewhere, Faraway, Everyone Is Listening to a Ballad", is a more typical love song but still nice to listen to.