Takatoshi Naitoh - In the Forest (1993)

Takatoshi Naitoh - In the Forest

Meditation and spiritual friends, gather.  Close your eyes, feel yourself settle into your seat, take a few deep breaths and trip down the terrestrial worm hole and softly land within a shrouded thicketry of vegetation with 100% pure Taoist, natural bird sounds.  Takatoshi Naitoh’s 1993 album, “In the Forest” intersects radiant, organic synth landscapes with deep field recordings of bird calls.  The bird sounds gently descend the listener into a comfortable and low vantage point where the birds can be heard echoing through the vast land.  They will prelude each synthetic segment and lead into the electronic counterpart quite nicely.

 Remarkable are the synth portions of this album.  Not unlike a classical composition, Naitoh is showing us an aural movie with his fluid synthesizers arrangements.  His music speaks of hesitancy, caution, relief, majestic conquest, mystical exploration, longing etc. etc.  It comes from the series, Music For Your Mind – Relaxation Music.  This album and the rest in the series can be found at discogs.com:  https://www.discogs.com/label/1406055-Music-For-Your-Mind-Relaxation-Music This stuff sounds like LEGIT new age/meditation music.

Extra thumbs up for the section at 18:50 that is somewhat reflective of the OST from the videogame, Okami.

Musical and Recording Analysis!:

-Each bird call seems to be panned to a different degree, makes this album super immersive and life like.  Left and right panning all over the place, there must be at least 7 different tracks for the birds alone.  More birds are introduced as the album progresses?  I think so. 

-One bird call on the left seems to be the melody F, C, where the F drops down to a lower C.  Another bird call doing the same pattern but using E to B instead. 

Another call on the right seems to be a partially bend C# bending into a sort of D, we’re talking microtonal here.

Song 1!

The first synth section (A section):

|| C major  | Bb major   |  F major   |  Gminor    |

| Bb major 13           ||   then leads into the main part, which is a vampy D minor pedal thing.  The bass plays the octave, high D sink to low D.  Electric boards (locked with wind chimes) flourish when the bass stops, some ethnic percussive rattles every now and then.  Splashes of ride symbol bell (?).

Celestial curtains waver in the wind and reveal a stoic plantasia filled with enigmatic peace.  

B section:

||Bb major   |      F major   |Bb major   |      F major      |

Basically this repeated a few times.  He’ll and an E onto the Bb major, to make it #11.  He’ll do a F major 9 somewhere and a Bb major 9.  Sometimes the F major can be interchanged with A minor 7.  Then he sustains on A minor 7 and goes back into that D vampy part.  Over all very predictable functional harmony but he makes it lilt on the wind like an effervescent feather in the cosmic void. 

The ancient breeze shimmers to an empty soul, all silent.  The trees’ whispers tell no lies.  The grass weeping knows why

|| F major |  G minor 7   |  A minor 7 |   Bb major 7 #11 sustain |

|  F major7|  G minor 9|  A minor 7   ||

And he leaves us hanging on the A minor 7 chord, feeling unresolved, expected the answer to the never ending loop of awareness.  

We slip back into the forest as if waking from a dream.  Birds chatter and socialize their lives, secrets among our human broken ears.  This time there is a type of call that sounds chromatic, almost blues like.  Another bird call sounds mocking, “HA HA”, yells Nelson (The Simpsons).  More background birds at play.  A general recording thing I noticed: THE MORE RHYTHMICALLY ACTIVE A PART IS, THE QUIETER IT WILL BE.  I find this true mostly in ambient recordings.  No one wants to be blasted with dance popping 16^th notes when they’re on sleep’s doorstep.

Song 2!

|| G major 7    |  AMBIGUOUS CHORD |

Legend of Legaia background piano arpeggios, gotta love em.  Stepping upwards, the mountain mist thickens.  The air breathes freshly.

The first G major 7 is voiced as such    G  A  D F#.  So like a G major 7 but with a sus2 instead of the regular 3 (B).  It could be an E minor, but the only difference in voicing is replace the low G with E. 

The AMBIGUOUS CHORD I think is a F# -11 similar to  the voicing  F#  E A B E.  But I’m not sure if Takatoshi is playing this like an A major 9, or a C#-7.  This chord is super subtly ninjastically dodging a name.  He seems to like that trick.

Takatoshi bounces between those two chords a while until…..OKAMI flourishes the scene, sputtered blossom petals and grass shoots every which way.  Spring has colored in, crayola rejoice.  Catches us on a F major, transition to D minor 9…then… A MAJOR WOW.  Smooth transition, what a king.   

Then there is a vamp:

More Legend of Legaia arpeggios, like a quiet town yearning for a days long passed.  The yawn of reflection, the sweet juice of a slightly forgotten memory.

|| A major 7   | D major 7 ||  He likes to sustain on the 7^th chord degree a lot to cause a beautiful pleading expression!  “Please, please!”   Dude will take a detour to G lydian zone after an A major.  I think it’s like Amajor/G,   G  A C# E.  So like A major triad with G in the bass, very dreamy.  Must be the A major melodies in the strings (starting on C#) and same A major arpeggio in the background with the bass changing to a G note!  Back to the normal progression after that departure.  Ends on A major and we melt into the birdie water stream of the forest.

A bird in the upcoming sequence does a melody like 2, 1, 2,3 , 2 ,1.  I dunno how to mark out the rhythm.  I hear this in Eb and Db major keys.  Example if in Eb major:  F, Eb, F, G, F, Eb.  There seems to be a slight bend on the first note in this melody.

Very chatty, these ones are right now.  Must be a good party.

Song 3!: After a wondrous 4 minutes we have:

An opening among the forest.  Ancient pool glistens with sunlight, ruins struggle to stand amidst the water.

He’s doing a vamp like E7 with D in the bass to D major triad.  Then to F# minor triad, B minor triad, E major, B minor triad, A major triad, Ab dimished 7.  Resolve to A major 7, then A diminished 7, F# minor triad, D7,  F# minor,  A major,  E major,  hefty A major triad add 9.  Resolve.  Then D minor triad,  A major chord again.  Repeat.  Jumps around to similar chords, including the diminished.  Goes to the beginning riff, E 7, D major, ends on A major.  Does some IV, and vi stuff.  D minor is thrown in there…seems to go on for all blissful ambient eternity.  The finally ENDING A major chord is summat like  A  B  C# E  voicing. 

And with that heavenly warm cadence, the album finishes on the A major. 

(Song 3 does have a somewhat miraculous vibe with the E7 Dmajor resolve in the beginning.  Almost a religious feeling, pianistically classical.)

I don’t see an overall pattern between songs and key choice.  I see some A major, some F major, some Bb majorish stuff…no conscious pattern chosen among all the songs I reckon. (Maybe that is why he can use the same instruments but still sound interesting, bc the key changes each song!)  Only pure divine vibes from the universal flow coming at you while you meander about in the white bright forest of the gods.

Musical terms to describe this album: 
Slow tempo, quiet with occasional swelling to forte, distinct usage of triads instead of 7^th chords, use of choir sound, string sounds, some brass sound, laid back rhythms, developing a theme with ease.

Misc. Conclusions:

-Same instruments + different keys each song = overall cohesive flow feeling of album

-Rhythmic arpeggios are COOL!!! (And a good background piece)

Wowowowow, what a serene and interesting trip.  Mr. Takatoshi Naitoh brings us safely through a magical forest.  Def. worth revisiting many, many times!