Hidden Gems: The AKIRA Soundtrack

Today on Hidden Gems we are going to look into one of the most influential and essential anime soundtrack of all time, and that is for the anime film AKIRA.

The Soundtrack was titled AKIRA: Original Soundtrack (Symphonic Suite AKIRA). The soundtrack was performed by the Japanese musical collective group Geinoh Yamashirogumi which was founded back in 1974 by Tsutomu Ohashi, who would also compose and conduct the music to the AKIRA film. Geinoh Yamashirogumi is made up of hundreds of people from all walks of life; none of them are music professionals at all. What the group brought to the soundtrack was a mix of traditional Indonesian gamelan and Japanese noh music and added a dash of MIDI digital synthesizer, and you have this soundtrack.

From beginning to the end of this film the music not only helps this landmark animated film but also enhanced the film to and grand scope and brought each music scene to life, take for example the now famous bike scene. This whole segment, the music changes from part to part, from the chase to the chicken match the music plays a massive role in these scenes. You also have music scene such as the “Dolls’ Polyphony” which uses little to none instruments and can still be haunting at the same time.

With the film already tuned 30 last year and news of Sunrise will be bringing the entire manga story to life, now is a great time for everyone to listen to this masterpiece of a soundtrack and let’s hope they will bring back Geinoh Yamashirogumi to make the music for the new project.