Someday I'll Think of A Title

The Album, Pt. IV

ivanosorio — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:45:06 +0000

Even though I was pretty much decided to let this slide for a while, now, being part of a metal act, it just pushed me right back at it. I can’t really take just writing metal stuff, it seriously give me headaches. So I was looking at the whole concept of things once again. And I think I have got some STRONG changes to make on the overall way I’m organizing this.
For instance, I think I just might fuck up the concept of it being a neo-classical album all together. I am listening to a lot of Electronica and Post-Rock right now, and I am “hearing” a lot of stuff that could sound awesome, but I am holding back from doing it because it would mess with my grand-design, and seriously, I don’t think it’s worth all that anymore. I also plan on not using the piano as much as I had envisioned it at first (which was a lot, having in mind that in the very beginning of this project, this was supposed to be a piano-solo album). I hear parts here and there in which the piano is just saturating the melody and king of taking from it, rather than adding.
I don’t really know where this is headed now, I will have to reconsider a lot more than what I was already revisiting, but I imagine that it will be very well worth the effort on getting this to sound the best way I can. I am also thinking of embracing the concept of doing a concept album once again. I think it might make my life easier in ways of making the songs sound more cohesive within each other and the whole. We will see about that in the near future.

Tekkon Kinkreet

ivanosorio — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:19:04 +0000

I have this habit of doing some stuff for the silliest possible reason. That shows off a lot with my music/movie downloading routine. I have downloaded full discographies of bands just because “the band name sounds so freaking cool”. On movies I tend to get even more random then that. This one is an example. I downloaded this (and still have a bunch of others on bookmark) the day that Karagarga went HD, there were like 6 movies by then, so I just decided to go and grab anything that looked even remotely interesting. And even though I hit the movie mainly for the pure and simple fact of it being in HD, upon reading the info I was pretty confided that I would dig it.
There are a couple of things that need to be mentioned though: Starting by the fact that this is probably one of the best looking animations I have ever laid eyes on, the scenery just looks SO GODDAMN GOOD. Something like this defines what HD is all about for me. Another is that there is a really particular style to the animation, hard to describe it, but it is there. And it doesn’t really “match” with the mega-detailed background, in the sense that most characters seem to be drawn so over-simplistically, BUT it DOES match perfectly in some weird way, and even though the background is gorgeous, I never really shifted my attention from the main characters. All this considered, that is a feat.
Onto the movie itself, Michael Arias (the director) does something that Japanese movies in general can do pretty well, and that is to tell 389420 stories at the same time, although the main focus relies on characters Black and White, two orphans that live on the streets. Everything is connected in a way that most would not believe possible in a movie; there are lots of parallel stories that come together for a slip second and then go to follow their on way again. It’s not the hardest movie to watch or to get into, but it can get tricky if you are not used to it. Something that really bothered me at first, is that the movie, being 1h50min long, takes a really long while to really get started, and I did stopped it mid-way because my brain was sort of melting from class, but the “oh wow, awesome” part was just around the corner. Although action is somewhat plenty, this is a movie that’s worth on its story, characters and how it develops.

(A small note on image quality: I’m not sure on who is screwing with me right now, but either wordpress or photobucket – maybe both – has some SERIOUS issues with .png files. Thing is that .jpeg cannot be trusted to judge quality of an image, because of the heavy compression it does to achieve small file sizes – this snapshots were 2mb each on their original .bmp format -, so bear with me here and don’t pick on the HD factor. Pictures are only here so that you can have a notion of what the movie looks like).

Updates

ivanosorio — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:33:01 +0000

Pretty much a month has gone by and it’s not that I forgot to update, it’s just that I was either too damn busy studying calculus (which is a hell of a lot easier than I thought, by the way… I think I have G to thank for that on some levels) or just without really that many stuff to write about. Anyway, thing is, after much considering about the album and such, I decided to take my sweet time with it and put the thing on a hold for the time being. I can barely sit my ass at the computer and not be working at something else to even think of writing, sucks by time.
Another reason for me holding that project for a while is that I have just joined a new band as a keyboard player (just = two weeks ago, or something of that effect). It’s taking quite a lot of my spare time as we sometimes just go to the studio (which is basically a house in the middle of nowhere) and jam until things come out. They are great players and awesome people; it has been a REAL while since I have been this excited about playing on a band. Plus, they seem quite focus on their goals and I think some awesome stuff is going to come out of this one. I am working on a band logo right now; it’s coming about slowly but surely (my life would be a lot easier if they were not so anal about things they don’t really understand, but anyway…)
So, until I have a little bit more extra time, solo project on indefinite hold. I will post news here if I somehow come up with some new stuff or end up writing songs on a night fever that ends up going to the album (believe me, it happens).
I piled up a lot of movies from my vacation time, and there is an extended holiday starting tomorrow, will try to watch at least a couple and post the reviews here, some seem VERY interesting, it’s just that time is lacking. I specially want to see some of Zhang Yimou early work (that I have downloaded in almost full), and a film called “Swing Girls”, about some chicks trying to put together a jazz band, seems like a really cool and funny movie.

Last Day of Freedom

ivanosorio — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:07:00 +0000

I have been meaning to update this for quite a while now, but the things I wanted to post about are kinda dragging A LOT to happen (those include, but are not limited to: me watching a movie I am postponing to see for more than a month now, my writing or recording more music, or anything of cultural relevance). But I was here, ignoring the movie for a little longer, and I stumbled upon a picture I found while I was thinking of the design for this thing here, and it’s truly a great piece of Japanese art, so I thought I would share:

It’s called “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”, it’s a woodcut painting, measuring 10×15, done in 1831. There are a fair share of reasons why I think this rocks, but I’ll keep them to myself, for now at least. Found it here amongst some other pictures while trying to get source pictures for my album artwork that I was about to start idealizing, but I just am not in the mood anymore (ah, if my Computer Graphics teacher could see me and my laziness now… Sorry, man… I swear that on better moods I put all that you taught me to better – or any, in this case – use).
In other very exciting news, today is also my last day of vacation (yes, they postponed the beginning of classes for whatever reason), so, tomorrow. “Game Over” for the social life. Will try to take the best of the day and finish watching that damn movie (I started watching it last night, but the thing is 2h16 long… That’s just a TAD too much), maybe force myself to write a few lines of music, trying to get ideas started, wheels moving, and all that crap.

Ninjo Kami Fusen

ivanosorio — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:02:00 +0000

God only knows just how much I stalled to watch this one. It was one of those impulse downloads that just grabbed my attention from the get go. Then again, I am a moody person when it comes down to actually watching stuff (or listening, or almost anything else). But today I was presented with the PERFECT scenario for watching a movie that could be horribly bad and tedious. I woke up at 9pm (yeah, really), had dinner, just finished with a song yesterday (took the easy way out… Decided to go with an interpretation of Bach’s BWV 147 “Jesus Bleibet Meine Freude Jesu”, then decided not to use it at all, and will be writing something again someday… But that’s a story for another day) and wasn’t in the mood to start composing another. So I decided to just get it over with and watch this thing.

A little bit on history for you. “Ninjo Kami Fusen” (“Humanity And Paper Balloons”) is the last film by Yamanaka Sadao, as he went to war the day the film was released theatrically. He died in battle at the age of 29 and most of his films were lost after that. On the film itself, although somewhat unknown outside Japan, it was considered by many critics and filmmakers to be a milestone (Akira Kurosawa included).The story is set on the 18th century and focus on the life of Unno, a ronin trying to get his life together, and his neighbors. Now… REALLY. This is not an easy movie to watch. Many, many, many cultural references which WILL seem completely obscure if you are not REALLY into Japanese culture (after all, 1937, the world was not exactly globalized, so they weren’t pulling any punches regarding culture, part of why the movie looks and feels so real). I thought it was ridiculously dragged at first, the story just seems to wander aimlessly and doesn’t show any signs of going anywhere, anytime soon. And you might even take some sweet time (took me about 20 minutes) to realize how the hell was the main character, as there are loads of parallel stories being told and the schemes that are being pulled off are not that obvious sometimes. I really thought it was boring and almost gave up watching it as it hit the 40 minutes mark and I was still not really getting the fun of it. But then something just happened and the story started to make a whole bunch of sense. It is not about an epic tale of a samurai, it’s the story of a dude that’s miserable. You gotta have this ridiculously clear in your mind when watching it. There is no epic turn around, there is no violence; it is a drama (and a DAMN GOOD one at that). Although it could be a little bit shorter and it drags quite a bit, this is a great film. Photography is excellent and Yamanaka did a great show on making the sorrow of the characters show even when they were smiling (simple and effective acting is also a great point here).
I don’t think there is a better entry point to Pre-War Japanese films then this, but I wouldn’t advice someone to go from a ’00 movie to here either. Once I discover better ways to take this in, I’ll be sure to note here, but until then, it’s a great one for the brave that want to see what is out there.