November 16, 2018

Kohsei Morimoto - Smile of the Sun (1993)





1.  Murmurs of the Ground
              
An ancient timeless landscape before us, red with deep, rich history of the land.  Temples are interspersed with lush jungle leaves; the leaves chuckle with color. 


Starts off with a heavy E power chordish thing.  Melody doing E, B, A , B.  Chord quality seems neither major nor minor.  Sustains on a low B (V chord) then…



2.  Romance
              
We are bitterly awakened from a peaceful slumber by the shrieking of a heart in cry.  Sharp choirs, as if to pierce the heavens themselves.  VG Harp, maybe it’s Tomoyuki Asakawa.  Long A B form?  Weird that the HARP part stays on the same note pattern even though the choir synth changes behind It sometimes.


               The howling wind is present.  There is lots of weeping in this song.  Synth doubles harp sometimes.
|| E -  | Dmaj  |  Cmaj  | B-  ||   This repeats, then lands on a A-7 that transforms into an A7.  The voicing is A, E, G.  He leaves out the 3rd in the chordal pattern so that the synth string emphasizes the chord change.


Then goes to Dmajor, descending bass line to C#, C, B minor, Bbmajor, finally A7.  Then to a D major section, rain sticks in the ears.  A little diddy, lands on B-, then back to the beginning.  Nothing too tricky in here.



3.  A Night Sky
               

What else could this be starting out with but with ACOUSTIC CHILL PIANO.  Minor 9 chord is played in the side piano.

               Dragon Quest night music with the jazz II V one progressions, piano classical style melody with trills.  Strings in background.

               There is a Third section of the song where piano plays block chords on the quarter note.  1  2  3  4.  Song seems A B C Aprime A B C A form.  Because Aprime is the same chordal arpeggio riff but the chord quality is now different EX: IT’S MAJOR NOW INSTEAD OF MINOR.  Oh then it goes back to minor eventually.  Soooo I dun get it, song is a short loop that repeats itself exactly 3 times for the sake of song length?


Song starts on A-9 for a while until a D7…II V.    Next part does D-7, G7, then E-7 A7.  Followed by Dmajor.  So far standard jazz harmonies.  After the Dmajor is Dmajor/C in the bass.  This loops a little.  Then another A-7, D7 resolve to E7.  Back to beginning.



4.  Sky Blue
              
Certainly is vast like the sky.  Reverb on the synth pad is what does it!  Spacious, comfortably filled emptiness, puff clouds of peace.  At parts the synth focuses a laser beam of shimmering warmth from the sun and BLASTS IT FULL BEAM TO WARM US UP WITH LOVE AND COMPASSION.


||Gmaj | C maj |  Gmaj  |  Gmaj  || 



5.  Smile of The Sun

Intro is D mixolydian.  Part change is D major 7, C major.  Left hand is play Root, 5, 7.  Kohsei Morimoto uses this pattern a bit in other songs as well.  Next section is G Lydian to C major, some C Lydian melodies pop up here too.  



Random Conclusions!

-Smile of the Sun gives us mostly short, cute, warm musical fluffing that are only a few minutes long, but repeated two or three times total to reach the 6-8 minute mark for each song. 

-SUPER VG music, some parts sound like Dragon Quest 8 and Illusions of Gaia.
 

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