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Llinos · **07-09-2016, 04:27 PM**

Our first anime-styled commission!

Eeee!Â I've been excited about THIS commission for a while.Â Book commissioned us for a few songs, but two of them presented us with a genre we've been wanting to dip our feet into for a while --- 90's Anime!

The commission was for a theme for a Sailor Moon themed guild.Â I've only recently gotten my husband into anime over the last few years but one thing that always drew him in was the vastly different style of music not just in their pop and rock genres but even their classical style of arrangement.Â There's something very whimsical and emotional in each and we wanted to see if we could capture some of that with both a retro anime and modern pop anime sound.

We used a few synthy instruments (synth choir, for instance), piano percussion and even a Victorian music box on top of some weaving of classical and pop-style violin bowing.Â Mat describes it best in his description below - feel free to give it a read for a peak behind our process!

For those curious, a few inspirations for the piece were definitely watching Evangelion, Re:Zero, Madoka, to name just a few...

[youtube]Qh-KTX_bgFQ[/youtube]

Show Content

Song Info:Starlight Scherzo (Constellation Senshi Theme)

Patron: Book

Styles: Pop, Anime, Orchestral-Rock, Electronic
Featured instruments: violin, piano, electric guitar, music box, drum kit, synths

We've been wanting to do an anime-style track for as long as we can remember, so to start things off I'd like to say this was a real treat! There's something about the unique fusion of posh, almost classical-style piano and violin with pumping pop and dance beats that the folks overseas have perfected.

As this piece was commissioned by a role-play group drawing from Sailor Moon, this was a perfect time to put notes down in this long-sought genre. In particular, the piece was to convey an event where the Constellation Sensi were mounting a dire rescue mission with operatives split into two directives: a distraction group and an extraction group. The antagonist to our heroes is someone dark and twisted, yet his intelligence and wit suggests something almost elegant and refined.

What came to mind was a piece that would be dark, dire, and full of intrigue and danger, yet also with a lot of energy, brightness, and even a bit of "sparkle" to represent our celestial heroes. We wanted to see if we could pull off mixing brightness and whimsy with the dark and deranged.

In the beginning (0:00 - 0:36), we start off with the hope and energy surrounding the heroes and their mission. Bright piano, sweet violin, and a tittering beat kick things off to an optimistic start, but things quickly take a turn for the dire and from 0:36 - 1:09 we are slammed with dark piano chords, sinister electric guitar, and a militaristic beat that is meant to evoke the infiltration and subsequent battle.

Then, from 1:09 - 2:28 were a plunged into a transitional atmospheric soundscape of twinkling piano, music box, synth plucks, and strings meant to capture the uncertainty and mystery of the dark, claustraphobic tunnels that the extraction group must traverse.

The ambiguity and questioning nature finally breaks down to a single lone violin note at 2:28, where the strength of our heroes starts to shine again, bit by bit. The bright piano returns, along with the ticking rhythm, as the violin gains body and confidence, finally barreling into a reprise of the original "hero motif" at 2:49.

Then, things are kicked into overdrive as the violin charges into a key change at 3:05, sweetly taking us into a triumphant and kick-ass fiddling climax as the heroes win the day.

As our first foray into anime-style music, we're really happy with how everything came together to both convey a complex event as well as represent a group as diverse and powerful as the Constellation Senshi. We had a lot of fun with this one, and we hope you enjoy listening to it!

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