[Album] Ibara REMIX TRACKS (INDV-0111)

Catalogue Number : INDV-0111
Publisher : INH
Composition: Shinji Hosoe
Arrangement: Tatsuya Uemura, WASi303, Hyakutaro Tukumo and A' & Namihei
First Printing: August 03, 2006
Price: ¥6,090

- Playing Time 18:47
01: Weapon Select
02: Show Time / Re-Arranged By Tatsuya Uemura
03: Bonds Of Steel / Re-Arranged By WASi303
04: Rose Garden / Re-Arranged By Hyakutaro Tukumo
05: Endress Train / Re-Arranged By A' & Namihei

Ok, so we're done with the info bit. Onto impressions...

Aside Weapon Select, which is an in-game tune not put on the OST, the rest are obviously the arrangements.....

And what breathtaking arrangements they are !!!

Miss the glory days of the classic Falcom JDK Band and the Konami Battle Albums ?

It's sorta back here, tho it's former Toaplan and Technosoft stars that handle the majority of the arrangements. There is a member of Success responsible for the majority of the Psyvariar music, you can guess who it is.

Tatsuya Uemura, responsible for games like Out Zone, Zero Wing and other Toaplan games, really cooked up a great power-rock remix of Show Time.
At any case the theme is easily recognizable and very, very enjoyable to hear.

WASi303 is the Success composer if you haven't figured out yet. His remix of Bonds of Steel includes a great chip-tune passage that works really well between the techno-rock parts of the arrangements.

Now it's Hyakutaro Tsukumo's turn to shine... If any of you loved his work on Thunder Force V, Blast Wind and Hyper Duel, you're in for quite a tasty treat. With the use of great drums and an orchestral intro, by the time the guitar rips into the scene, you just know it's going to rock out seriously. It's my personal favorite of all the four arrangements.

As for A' & Namihei's involvement, he/they was/were involved in the production of Thunder Force VI before it got canned. The remix of Endress Train is by far the most surprising of them all... since it doesn't really rock out like the rest of them. Instead, it's a beautiful rock ballad which is similar to what was done with Requiem for the Nameless Victims on Dracula Batlle 1. While it isin't as intense, it certainly keeps the whole synth-rock feel intact at any case. It's just a really awesome way to end the disc on a great note.


Personally, I have no qualms with any of those tracks, each of them has their own unique features which makes them stand out from each other.

As far as synth-rock arrange albums go, this is how I like it. Fair use of guitars and synths, but also a bit of experimentation thrown in for good measure.

5/5 easily

Where can one get this tiny but incredibly awesome arrange disc ?

It's included with the INH Set of Ibara The Lunatic which comes with a region-free DVD of super-play videos and a very nice booklet filled with art of all the characters and enemies/machines.

It's available at VGM World here.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

On August 29, I was reading the Wikipedia article on Tatsuya Uemura, a composer I rather fancy. At the time, the article said that, after Toaplan folded, he eventually joined Cave, the game company responsible for such shmups as the DonPachi, ESPGaluda, and Mushihimesama series. (That statement has since been removed.)

I was intensely curious about that, since it was the first time I'd heard he worked for Cave. I was fairly certain that he hadn't worked on the soundtracks to any Cave games, but just to be on the safe side, I decided to ask Dragon God if he knew of any Cave Uemura soundtracks. That conversation started like this:

9:10:33 PM chz16: How much do you know about Tatsuya Uemura, a.k.a. Toaplan musical genius?
9:10:40 PM zttfanatic: Not much
9:10:54 PM zttfanatic: I've only heard his Outer Zone music
9:11:13 PM zttfanatic: Tho I'll be hearing a remix of Ibara from him soon
9:11:23 PM chz16: =o!

I knew about the Insanity DVD series, but I didn't know there was one an entry for Ibara, and I espcially didn't know there was an arrange album included with it. Since this was Uemura's first new work in twelve years, my ears immediately perked up. When he said that Hyakutarou Tsukumo, an ex-Technosoft rockmeister whose only real work lately has been the occasional remix over at Factory Noise & AG, also had an arrange on the album, I began to drool with anticipation.

And now the day is finally here.

~~~~

The CD starts off on a low note with the weakest track. Why Weapon Select didn't make it into the OST, who knows, since there was more than enough room for it. The track isn't too bad; it's a grungy synth affair with a nice, meaty bass. It gets the groove on, but it's not terribly impressive. Still, I would argue that the best place for the weakest track of an album is at the beginning, so that not only does it lead into tracks of higher quality, but also it prevents disappointment later.

~~~~

So we move along to track 2, the arrangement of Show Time by Uemura. Show Time is one of my favorite tracks from Ibara, and after a slow, synthy intro with an oddly-placed girl's laugh, the track starts proper at 0:13, sounding a lot like the original, except slightly slower. Expansive material comes in at 0:39 with a new, light melody that leads into the main Show Time melody at 1:03. It has the same synth as the original, but it's quite a bit lower in pitch, which in addition to the slower pace give it more power than in the original.

And then we have the guitar solo at 1:42, which solidifies the power rock feel for the rest of the song until the switch to music box at 3:13. Uemura successfully took the high-energy original and made it slower, more methodical, and much more powerful. Great song? Yes. Better than the original? Absolutely.

But maybe that's just my bias showing, and the arrange really isn't as special as I make it out to be. There are still three more tracks on the album to investigate.

~~~~

The third track, an arrangement of Bonds of Steel, was written by the only person on the album I hadn't heard anything from prior, WASi303. His arrangement is more liberal than Uemura's, and is also more dance oriented, getting its groove thing on. It starts off with a solid two and a quarter minutes of BOOM TISS BOOM TISS which is decent enough, if not particularly exemplary.

It's about this time that the track decides to slowly metamorphose into an NES chiptune. The fade is slow, first with the synths being replaced with 2A03 waves. The background noises remain until 2:34, when everything but the chippy goodness handles the melody for ten seconds. Lengthwise, it's a pretty insignificant portion of the song, but it adds enough variety to keep things interesting until the end and, of course, chiptunes are awesome.

~~~~

So, we have one great arrange, one merely above average arrange, and one average track. Still, we're averaging better than even as we move into the fourth track, an arranged version of Rose Garden by Hyakutarou "SYNTHROCKIN'" Tsukumo. If anyone can launch us back into the statosphere and beyond, it's him.

We start off with strings and piano for the intro, with percussion, a warbling synth, and vox soon to follow in the back. At 0:31, the song kicks into gear with The Riff. The Riff that signals the oncoming of rock. The Riff that presages guitar wankery. The Riff that is Tsukumo.

But wait, we have no wailing. The guitar's stuck in rhythm. When the melody comes in at 0:55, it's the same synth from the original, and not the guitar churning away.

Well, carrying along. The song continues similar to the intro, except with the synth on top playing the melody. It all functions to build, to move forward, to progress to 2:04, when the melody is taken over by a guitar. We get a little new material, but it stays well behaved. The song continues.

Wait, what's that at 2:36? The Riff again? Oh, here starts the ride.

Let us call everything prior to the solo the "Countdown," so that we may deem it "Liftoff."

At 3:30, we begin the rehashing portion of the song. Of note is 4:09, which took me completely by surprise on the first listen. The listener gets lulled into the complacency of anticipating repetition, when BANG! Out of the blue, we have three big hits to shake things up. It's a very minor touch, but I love it. The guitar returns again wailing at 4:19 to lead us into the end of the song.

Okay, so that's two great, one above average, and one average. One more track to go.

~~~~

The final track is an arrange of Endless Train (Engrished on the album as "Endress Train") by A' and Namihei, folk who are tied to Tsukumo, having also composed for several FNAG albums. Their arrange is the most liberal of the lot, transforming the uptempo Endless Train into a power guitar ballad. The melody, which is jumpy and full of pep in the original, is infused with grace and aplomb, beautifully floating above a piano and drumkit.

I'm writing the least about it of the four arranged tracks because it's the simplest of the songs, but while intellectually it may have the least presence, it has significant pull at the base, heartstring level. You feel the highs, you feel the lows, and by the end, you feel escorted through the air, flying to the end of the album.

~~~~

The final tally is: three great tracks, one above average track, and one average track. When listening to the album, one burning question manifests itself:

Why wasn't this a full arrange album?

The only thing that can possibly detract from the greatness of the music involved are what-ifs: what if many more tracks from Ibara were arranged? What if these arrangers had produced multiple tracks of the same quality instead of just one apiece? What if, instead of looking at an amazing bonus feature to a shmup DVD, we had in our hands the best arrange album of the year?

But I prefer not to dwell on such matters. What we have is what we have. And what we have is an amazing bonus feature.

5/5

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Insanity Naked Hunter did a remix of Ibara as well? I guess that explains the INSANE price.

They make excellent DVD sets though, I've experienced the Mushihimesama one myself.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Props to CHz for hooking me up with the music.

Weapon Select probably didn't make it on to the OST because it's rather similar to "Mother Teresa", except that "Mother Teresa" is much better.

The arrangements here are good, with "Bonds Of Steel" and "Endress Train" being my favorite. But overall, this doesn't match up to the amount of service we got for Under Defeat with the Extended Tracks album.

The Ibara OST is well worth the money, even being sold as a bundle with the figure. However, for the Remix Tracks, I don't think the cost is worth it unless you're a huge Ibara/Hosoe fan, and are already interested in getting the Insanity DVD.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?