Have you heard this one? Scratches the same itch.
Very interesting. The album starts with two cheerful and sort of unremarkable tunes. People in the comments are saying these are taking from the usual NHK broadcast tunes. Then track 3 (not so creatively titled NHK Tsunami Warning) seems from an emergency broadcast. Overlaid on top of it is a distracting english bot giving us warnings. This is really distracting. But that's the point duh. It makes the track feel chaotics and disorienting. Ie, probably how people in the area of the events felt. From what I can tell, both english and japanese speakers are talking about the same thing. Japanese narrator tells us about the height of the upcoming waves while english narrator tells us to evacuate to higher areas immediately.
I should listen to NHK live more to improve my Japanese, but if this is from the actual broadcast of the event, it's striking how shill the sound effects are. The narrators are cut by a sort of 'sparkling' sound. Whereas American tragedy disaster have very corny omph sound effects all the time. As for the Japanese, it's repeating "Earthquake Observation Emergency."
Not sure if I can call track 3 a track or more like... An experience. It doesn't really have any melody to it.
Track 4 brings back some music. Some eery music. Unnerving, though a bit too corny. Yeah it's tragic, kinda trivial to tell us that it's tragic with tragic music. Though this track also feels ethereal in a way, it sounds like something from an old DS RPG.
Track 5 is similar in this regard, I've got nothing to add. Reminds me of an obscure japanese game, for some reason of Touhou, like I was in an end-game-ish dungeon. Same goes for track 6 and 7, like I were getting deeper yet into this dungeon. Perhaps the dungeon is a nuclear power plant?
Track 8 brings us closer to the IRL tragedy. We heard blaring sirens and the muffled crashes of waves. We also hear people in distress, calling for each other's names and followed by bawling. I'm not sure if this are taken from people struggling against the tsunami or if it's taken from somewhere else. It sounds too HQ to like from a phone recording or something, but who knows. It's hard to hear ngl. There's a kid crying for his mother by the end. It's hard to hear. I hope this is taken from a movie. The shock factor becomes grotesque once paired against the previous, mostly peaceful, tracks. You can almost forget this is a track about an earthquake/tsunami that killed thousands, and then it hits you like a cold wave. Pun intended.
Track 9, Energy Accident Lament is well... A lament. It sounds fairly surreal and it has a buddhist chant thing going in the background. Or maybe Shinto. Idk. It sounds haunting, especially after what we've just heard. I miss hearing lamentations like these.
The final track goes back at being an RPG dungeon, but this time it sounds much more bloated and grainy. At the same time it serves as the end credits for this album.
This was a good album, but not sublime or anything, and it def doesn't top News at 11. Though I wonder if there are other albums of this style. Uh. Disasterwave?
