Yamato 2520 - music by David Mathes and Kentarou Hata
In 1995, without the help of Leiji Matsumoto, who was instrumental in the creation of the original Space Battleship Yamato, Yoshinobu Nishizaki tried to launch a “Yamato: The Next Generation” of sorts, Yamato 2520, set 100 years after the original Yamato’s adventures came to a fiery end. With no concrete connection to the original Yamato characters or settings - i.e., no mention of the Gamilons, Iscandar, or the Comet Empire - the series chronicled the voyages of a small group of young people from a divided future Earth who discover the plans for the original Yamato, and use them to build a ship that manages to look almost completely unlike it.
The show lasted only six episodes before production and financial difficulties closed up the animation shop, and creator Nishizaki later wound up in prison, leaving former partner Matsumoto to take the reigns of the Yamato license and the franchise. Many fans now regard Yamato 2520 as a curiosity, and not part of the main Yamato saga (not unlike the second Yamato movie, which killed off the entire crew!).
Not helping matters much is the music. Though some of it is quite nice in its own way, there is once again no connection to the Yamato sound of old. Hiroshi Miyagawa’s sweeping, epic music helped to define the original series with pounding martial action music, dreamily romantic pieces with a lyrical quality, and even a little 
edge of 70s funk. The original Yamato music isn’t even so much as quoted here, with the Yamato 2520 score favoring modern-day synth precision, and frankly it’s dull in places. It’s not a total loss, but like the short-lived series from which it originated, the Yamato 2520 soundtrack fails to live up to the legacy to which it would inevitably (and yes, perhaps unfairly) be compared.
- Track 1 (2:57)
- Track 2 (4:49)
- Track 3 (3:36)
- Track 4 (4:17)
- Track 5 (5:29)
- Track 6 (2:48)
- Track 7 (5:09)
- Track 8 (3:55)
- Track 9 (2:43)
- Track 10 (5:54)
- Track 11 (2:49)
- Track 12 (4:35)
- Track 13 (3:30)
(Track titles on this disc were entirely in Japanese.)
Released by: Sony Music Japan
Release date: 1995
Total running time: 52:39
Following up on the not-quite-success of his amazing 1973 solo debut Boulders and some equally underground releases (commercial-success-wise, that is) with his band Wizzard, ELO co-founder Roy Wood regrouped and decided to do another truly solo album. Woody can play a few dozen instruments, you see, so locking this guy into a recording studio by himself for a few weeks with a fresh batch of songs is not a problem. What he emerged with, while not quite up to the innovation level of Boulders, is still stunning.
and “The Rattlesnake Roll”. An ELO-worthy instrumental with equal helpings of sax and Moog synthesizer, “Strider”, is also included, as are some very interesting liner notes placing Wood’s work into the context of British rock history and what other acts were doing at roughly the same time. A highly recommended package for fans of Woody’s work - or even for those unfamiliar with it.
John Mayer’s Room For Squares ranks as one of my most fortunate musical finds; Mayer opened for former Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips on a recent acoustic tour, and shortly after Philadelphia radio station WXPN started rather heavy airplay of the album’s first single, “No Such Thing”. I eventually decided to buy the CD, and now I’m hooked. The guitar line and percussion do a great job carrying the basic melodies, whether they’re slower, somewhat dreamy tunes like “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “City Love” or more energetic songs such as “Love Song For No One” and “No Such Thing”. Meyer then builds around those melodies with organs, pianos, violins and other instrumentation to create a sound that’s very light but still rich enough to engage the listener. He can use a few notes to perfectly capture a particular emotion, and let that emotion color the rest of the song. “3×5″ is a song about a traveler whose experiences reconnect him to the world, and the simple fragment that connects the verses seems to sum up the gravity of such a moment.
Truly a legendary album, Y Kant Tori Read’s debut (and thankfully only) album appeared and disappeared from the Billboard charts in the summer of 1988 within the space of a month - and no one heard from the band again until one of its members, pianist/vocalist Tori Amos, resurfaced as a solo artist at the forefront of a whole new movement of female artists in 1991.
“Etienne Trilogy” is a linked cycle of two instrumentals sandwiching an absolutely beautiful vocal/piano number which lives up to anything Tori has ever done since. In fact, I’d put “Etienne” up there with “Winter”, “Cloud On My Tongue” and “Sugar”, some of the best stuff she has ever done. You will not be disappointed.