YASUAKI SHIMIZU

Lately I’ve been addicted to scary music. By “scary music” I don’t mean horror-movie music, but something more like the feeling of running headlong through dense forest. It has a constant feeling to it; time lends it no narrative structure. Just as I was thinking I’d like to make that kind of music, the X proposition appeared at my door.
It was Rintaro who sensed that this was a movie that I could do—because it had “the feeling of rushing headlong through dense forest.” He intentionally made the theme clearly and simply “tragedy,” but while it appears that that is all there is to the story, extraordinary things are actually happening behind the scenes. At the end of the film, words like “love” break down completely—to hell with love, tragedy and all.

Mixing Room 202

Strange machines set in an uniformly black cockpit
wait for the sorcerer’s command in ominous silence…
At the center of the room, vibrant color-coded data
is being fed into a single Mac…
The sound of the sorcerer’s supple fingers tapping the keyboard
runs on quietly…
“OK, let’s go…”
The sorcerer’s voice gently sounds,
with the utmost care, as if trying not to break the silence.
The previously silent machines begin to murmur in unison.
Sound flowing from a giant speaker fills the cockpit.
I am slowly being dragged into a strange space.
Undulating destruction and creation…
Eros and Thanatos hang in the air…
Solid ecstasy…
The sound the sorcerer makes fits X like skin—”neo-decadent” music
(if there’s such a word).
The more you listen to the sorcerer’s subtly flavored sounds
inset here and there, the more comfortable you become.
I start to wonder… is it really all right to be listening to such pleasant music
while Tokyo is sinking into oblivion?
Why do I desire this predictably “ominous” pattern? Really.
Aha! This is sorcerer Yasuaki Shimizu’s truly subtle flavor!
(I only just realized this while writing these words, Mr. Shimizu…)
In reality, music doesn’t need superfluous interpretation.
You merely have to surrender wholeheartedly to the sound.
That is the best way to listen to music. Yes.
In my next life, I’m definitely going to be a composer!
— Rintaro, film animation director