LogFAQs > #962271964

89nd
Game: Atelier Shallie Plus: Alchemists of the Dusk Seas
Title: Sleeping Meteor
Composer: Hayato Asano
Nominator: @banshiryuu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-DFE7mNQM

i did not guess this was hayato asano when i first heard it, was surprised after listening when i saw the composer name. but in hindsight, there's a couple moments where suddenly it turns into blue reflection for like 10 seconds like 1:03 (which made me start laughing out loud when i comprehended this) and suddenly it all makes sense haha.

but really this does a great job at sounding like "gust" as in like, traditional gust, ar tonelico ii, rather than "hayato asano". you can tell it's him when you know (it has his wonderfully creative sense of harmony at a number of points! the flurry of thick chords around like ~:10 or ~:22 or ~:57-1:00 is an insanely cool feeling). but man that FLUTE is so "ken nakagawa" and i'm glad this calls back so faithfully to that sound despite asano's self-tropes. even the mix of electronic "blue reflection moments" and this more natural atelier feeling, is in itself, a mixture i associate more with what i love about older gust.

~1:47-1:58 makes me laugh because it is so much like uhhh this one song by one of my favorite prog bands (echolyn)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IoGCY90-2Q

i'm glad that part sounds like that echolyn song because i like that echolyn song...

[NOTE:REMEMBER TO MENTION THE OVER THE BARLINE STUFF OR WHATEVER AT THEBEGINNING] oh right so one of the other immediate things that makes me excited about this one is the way it starts. it feels like it's in 3/4 or 6/8 in that starting section if you follow the strings. but the drums are doing a constant 4/4 pulse atop them, and the reset of the phrase happens after 4 4/4 bars, making the grouping more like 3+3+3+3+3+1 (i guess more 'logically', a more normal 6+6+4, but the feeling to me comes across like a bunch of 3s that randomly get cut off after the first beat the last time. which feels a lot more COMPLEX than a thing you'd write as unchanging 4/4 would imply! even if groups of 3s that get cut off is honestly pretty normal, the layered and long-winded over-the-barline way this song handles it feels incredibly cool to me basically.)

it's kinda weird to realize how much hayato asano is like "edgy hitomi sato", on paper you'd think i like him more than her (they're probably like...tied...in my fav vgm composers ranking honestly), these weird major scale melodies a lot of people would decry as meandering and uncomfortably happy; endless thick jazz fusion chords; lots of epianos. this actually wouldn't feel out of place in pokemon arceus legends (GOOD SOUNDTRACK). but what makes asano the edgy version is that he adds punk-ish guitar energy into it randomly he should make the battle theme for [vs. Toxtricity User]. and it doesn't come across like my Least Favorite Thing (edgy guitar version of happy christmas song), instead it turns out to land more in the _Umbreon jazz-metal progfusion zone. of guitarists that have black hair that is Too Long that listen to allan holdsworth or pat metheny group but are still also in a metal band so then they put chords in it

whoa i never realized how cool and tense the harmonies at like 3:25 are until this stream of consciousness writeup just now

this is the kind of EPIC battle theme that actually does it for me. it can be hard to sell me on the style, but i like this one. i suppose i like a lot of incarnations of the style, and am maybe even specifically attracted to the feeling of Epic Battle. but it just has to be doing something i find special, and too often the category avoids anything i care about musically. but this song is loaded with things i care about musically! thank you!

i really need to brush up on my ateiler ost indulgence. for someone who acts like they like gust music, i'm really far behind. I've barely listened to anything newer than sophie or older than totori (tho i think atelier iris 3 is a contender for my favorite atelier ost, but that's the only one that old i know...). I know my exa_pico quite well! but atelier specifically, really need to catch up (and look to the past for stuff from before i got into it too). if anyone who knows my taste well has recs for what atelier osts to jump into next let me know!