Tag: Hayao Miyazaki

American Watercolor Movement Launches Into Its Epic Science Fiction Concept Album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons With Propulsive Lead Single “Onward the Night”

American Watercolor Movement, photo courtesy the artists

American Watercolor Movement is a New Jersey band that has taken forays into concepts for previous albums going back to its earliest releases in the late 90s. And its latest album The Odyssey of Captain Vivian Ribbons (which released on February 17, 2023) is the story of a future earth struggling to survive as it sends Captain Vivian Ribbons out into the cosmos to find a habitable planet necessitating transcending the usual mortal human limits of space and time and thus standard physical existence. It sounds like a story out of some universe Hayao Miyazaki might have concocted in the 80s and the the music is a glorious mix of soundtrack pieces, art rock, synth pop, post-punk and various other styles serving the the place in the grand narrative. The single “Onward the Night” is about the Captain leaving earth on the aforementioned mission of hope against hope and the irresistible, driving bass line is motorik in the precision of its rhythms allowing for the rest of the music to anchor off of it. The song stands alone separate from the concept as just an exciting, epic song whose textural detail and great momentum traced in psychedelic tones bring you along for a ride like a song that might have been in that 1980s Transformers movie minus the cheese. The music video is equal parts 1980s anime, Dash Shaw and something one might expect out of a The Flaming Lips production and thoroughly enjoyable beginning to end. Watch the video on YouTube and follow American Watercolor Movement at the links below.

American Watercolor Movement on Instagram

Eamonn Watt’s “Laputa” Resonates With a Sense of Cosmic Wonder

EamonnWatt-Dopamine_cover_crop
Eamonn Watt, Dopamine cover (cropped)

The melodic, watery sounds of Eamonn Watt’s “Laputa,” as well as other tracks on the new album Dopamine, were inspired by the fantastic worlds of 1980s television and cinema. Without reference specifically to the soundtracks to any of those films, “Laputa” nevertheless resonates with the imagery and mood of films like Labyrinth and The Neverending Story and, of course, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 masterpiece Laputa: Castle in the Sky—the presumed source of the song’s title. Soft synth tones while around each other and shimmer out into a sonic cloudscape while a lead tonal figure cuts through the dreamlike haze and illuminates a solid musical line through the song. Though not fantasy, the song is like the moodier cousin of the ending music of American public television’s astronomy program Star Gazers (known to many in its earlier and equally defunct incarnation as Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler). It works similar major scale progressions and conveys a similar sense of wonder at the workings of cosmic phenomena. Listen to “Laputa” on Spotify and follow Eamonn Watt at any of the links below.

soundcloud.com/eamonnwatt
thevirtualconductor.bandcamp.com
facebook.com/VirtuallyConducted