Ryuichi Sakamoto – Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Label: |
Midi Inc. – MDCL-5017/5018 |
|---|---|
Format: |
|
Country: |
Japan |
Released: |
|
Genre: |
Stage & Screen |
Style: |
Score |
Tracklist
| 1-1 | Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence | 4:34 | |
| 1-2 | Batavia | 1:18 | |
| 1-3 | Germination | 1:47 | |
| 1-4 | A Hearty Breakfast | 1:21 | |
| 1-5 | Before The War | 2:14 | |
| 1-6 | The Seed And The Sower | 5:00 | |
| 1-7 | A Brief Encounter | 2:23 | |
| 1-8 | Ride Ride Ride (Celliers' Brother's Song) | 1:03 | |
| 1-9 | The Fight | 1:29 | |
| 1-10 | Father Christmas | 2:06 | |
| 1-11 | Dismissed! | 0:10 | |
| 1-12 | Assembly | 2:16 | |
| 1-13 | Beyond Reason | 2:01 | |
| 1-14 | Sowing The Seed | 1:53 | |
| 1-15 | 23rd Psalm | 2:00 | |
| 1-16 | Last Regrets | 1:46 | |
| 1-17 | Ride Ride Ride (Reprise) | 1:04 | |
| 1-18 | The Seed | 1:02 | |
| 1-19 | Forbidden Colours | 4:42 | |
| 2-1 | Batavia (M-3) | 0:48 | |
| 2-2 | Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (M-34) | 5:34 | |
| 2-3 | Germination (M-9) | 1:29 | |
| 2-4 | Germination ((M-11) | 1:13 | |
| 2-5 | The Seed And The Sower (M-16A) | 0:40 | |
| 2-6 | M-7 | 0:24 | |
| 2-7 | M-10 | 1:54 | |
| 2-8 | The Seed And The Sower (M-16) | 0:40 | |
| 2-9 | A Brief Encounter (M17) | 0:29 | |
| 2-10 | The Fight | 0:29 | |
| 2-11 | Last Regrets (M-20 And M-22) | 1:51 | |
| 2-12 | Father Christmas (M-23) | 2:10 | |
| 2-13 | Before The War | 0:18 | |
| 2-14 | M-14 | 0:19 | |
| 2-15 | Dismissed! | 0:27 | |
| 2-16 | Beyond Reason (M-26 To M-27 Take2) | 2:04 | |
| 2-17 | M-29 | 0:30 | |
| 2-18 | The Seed (M-29) | 0:37 | |
| 2-19 | The Seed (M-33) | 1:07 | |
| 2-20 | Last Regrets (Take2) | 2:11 | |
| 2-21 | M-28A Take2 | 0:44 | |
| 2-22 | M-1 Free Time | 3:05 | |
| 2-23 | 23rd Psalm (M-30 Take2 Inst) | 2:06 | |
| 2-24 | M-13 | 3:08 | |
| 2-25 | Ride Ride Ride (M-18 Inst) | 1:09 | |
| 2-26 | Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Theme Five Time Take1) | 4:43 |
Companies, etc.
- Published By – Yano Music Publishing Co., Ltd.
- Published By – Opium Publishing
- Published By – Chadwick Nomis Ltd.
- Recorded At – Onkio Haus
- Mixed At – Onkio Haus
Credits
- Art Direction, Design – Tsuguya Inoue
- Composed By, Performer – Ryuichi Sakamoto
- Executive-Producer [Reissue] – 大藏博
- Liner Notes – Susumu Kunisaki
- Management [Artist, Reissue] – 空 里香*
- Photography By [Cover Photography], Other [Make-up] – Anthony Clavet
- Producer [Reissue] – 坂本龍一*
- Promotion [Sales, Reissue] – 塚原雅州
- Recorded By [Assisted By], Mixed By [Assisted By] – Michio Nakakoshi
- Recorded By, Mixed By – Shinichi Tanaka
- Recorded By, Mixed By, Remastered By – Seigen Ono
- Written-By – Ryuichi Sakamoto (tracks: 1-1 to 1-7, 1-9 to 1-14, 1-16, 1-18, 1-19, 2-1 to 2-22, 2-24, 2-26)
Notes
All Tracks published by Yano Music Publishing Co Ltd, except Track 19: published by Yano Music Publishing Co Ltd and Opium Publishing / Chadwick Nomis Ltd and '23rd Psalm'.
Music Recorded & Mixed at Onkio Haus, Tokyo.
Comes in gatefold mini LP replica with obi & Japanese insert.
The Japanese reissue liner notes by Susumu Kunisaki translate as follows:
"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence"
Its production and 2013 remastering
This record was released on the 1st of May 1983 as the soundtrack to director Ryuichi Sakamoto, and a very important work considering his activities in this field have been one of the major pillars to this day. This essay clarifies how this monumental album was created, with testimonies by the individuals involved.
In 1982 "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was both filmed and its soundtrack made. YMO's "Technodelic" had been released the year before in 1981, and Sakamoto had probably exhausted what he could do with YMO. As Sakamoto reveals in his autobiographical book, "Music is Free": wanting a new challenge, I decided to work on film music, but in the first instance, director Oshima asked me to appear as an actor, and on the spot I made him an offer to "let me do the music".
"Beforehand I hadn't been thinking of making a proposal to do the music instead of just being an actor. In the first place, I had never done any movie music, and never even thought about doing it. It was like trying to let me escape from Russia". (From "Music is Free" published by Shinchosha. After this: "Autobiography").
Sakamoto didn't know at all how to do movie music, as he said, "just leave it out". He asked the advice of Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane", following his recommendation.
"What I spotted (in "Citizen Kane") is not the orchestration or the melody, but for which parts music was introduced and when it went quiet, that is, purely its relationship with the images. The answer I got was very simple, and I put music in places where the power of the images was weak. It's not mysterious or anything" (from the "Autobiography").
In recent movies, often the creation of the music already starts using only the storyboards, but in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", the music production started when the on location filming had ended on Rarotonga Island, part of the Cook Islands of New Zealand, and some editing had already been completed. The "Seigen Ono, took turns in engineering.
Mr. Tanaka ed ごはんができたよ = Gohan Ga Dekitayo".
Seigen Ono (Masahiko Ono) started his career as an assistant at Onkio Haus in 1978. He became a freelancer in 1980, and from 1982 entrusted his bookings to the engineering management company "Super Studio" (later Superb) led by Mr. Tanaka, while starting a production company V.F.V. with IQ-179" released in 1981.
The soundtrack to "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was such a time-consuming recording that the two by now well-known masters had to take turns. Mr. Tanaka recalls the pattern at that time as follows:
"I think activities went on for 2 to 3 months...... because Sakamoto only started writing songs after he came to the studio. He got video edits from the director Oshima and wrote while watching them. He didn't play the videos one by one, but even when the sound creation and composition were crystallized to a certain extent, he felt like playing the video again. That's why it really took time."
How did he come up with the music while watching the video? As Sakamoto explained in an interview conducted when the soundtrack was released: "I saw it many times and came up with the sound without any planning. What comes to mind at first when I see the pictures is a symphonic sound. Of course, more experimental music would have been fine...... but movies being old media, and with me looking at the pictures, I wondered if I wanted the sound of strings. So I didn't have any particular calculations or intentions, and it all came out naturally."
(From an interview in the May 1983 issue of Sound & Recording Magazine. After this: "Interview")
Orchestras are often used in so-called film music, and as Sakamoto says, the sound of strings seems to be central to this work. However, according to Mr. Tanaka they were sounds made by synthesizers: "Most of the string sounds were created with a synthesizer called SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS Prophet-5. It sounds like coming from live string instruments because the recorded synthesizer sound was played back on the speakers on the wide side of the booth, where the performer is usually sitting, and then recorded again with a microphone. We also added the sound of a synthesizer to the sound of a string instrument player playing an instrument in the studio. There was a JBL 4320 speaker in the Onkio Haus booth, and I set up a microphone about 3-4m away to record that sound."
Furthermore, according to Sakamoto, various effects were applied when recording the sound emitted from the speakers: "Not only recording with a microphone, but also applying delay, using the harmonizer to change the (sound) line and pitch, echoing only the live sound, placing the line in the center and spreading the live sound in stereo, spreading it with a harmonizer or applying a gate echo to the live sound with a harmonizer, we did everything we could think of." (from the "Interview")
If you want such a time-consuming and raw sound, I think you should use a real orchestra to begin with, but at the time Sakamoto didn't think so: "As is always the case with me, creating songs and creating sounds are done at the same time and are inseparable. Usually, there is the original form of the song, there is an arrangement, and a score could be written, but I do not take such an approach in the creative process. Once that is over, I could go back and get it right for an orchestra, that's because I don't like to score music (laughs). However, even if you were to orchestrate the bars on your desk, you can only do something plain. That is a very big restriction for me, so I play it by hand in the studio. After entering the studio, I play and play, decide what the sound will be, transcribe it if necessary, and play it again. That kind of process is the most fun for me." (from the "Interview")
At that time Onkio Haus was known as a studio that could obtain a good sound when recording strings and it still is after it has been refurbished. It's a story of luxury because he used such a wonderful studio only for composing and adding sounds. According to Mr. Tanaka, Sakamoto was always in the control room to the side separated from the booth by a glass window:
"He was in the control room all the time. He had all the synthesizers set up there, so I think he only went to the booth when playing the piano or hitting the drums...... using the drum set in the booth. The assistant worked hard to set up a microphone there, but we didn't record it separately, he just hit it for a change (laughs)...... because there are no drums in 'Mr. Lawrence', right?"
The sound of this so-called drum kit is indeed not included, but the theme song "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" does contain a bass drum and a percussion sound similar to the sound of bamboo slapping your hand. These are from a rhythm machine called LinnDrum, explains Takeshi Fujii, who took part in proceedings as a synthesizer programmer:
"There were two ways to make that kind of percussion sound. One was to lower the pitch of LinnDrum's rim-shot and apply reverb, and then apply a lot of EQ to that reverb so that you can hear only the pitch. Another was to modulate the noise of the Prophet-5. In the end, the LinnDrum was the one that was finally adopted."
Furthermore, Mr. Fujii told me that the impressive main tune of the theme song was done using E-MU's Emulator, a now famous machine that made the world aware of the method called sampling:
"I used the 'Wine Glass' sound that was on the Emulator's disc which, added to the Prophet-5 and live piano sounds, completed that main melody sound."
As you can gather from the above testimonies, the main instruments used on this recording were Prophet-5, LinnDrum, Emulator, and piano. It seems that some raw strings and a trombone were also overdubbed, but only at a few places. All instruments were recorded on an analog 24-track recorder made by TELEFUNKEN, which was permanently installed at Onkio Haus. Part of Sakamoto's track sheet is printed on p10 of the booklet, and you can see exactly what was recorded on the multi-track tape by inspecting this. Explaining how to read the track sheet, "M-19" is written in the top left, which is the identification number of the music called the M number, assigned in order of production. M-19 means the 19th track created. Next to that, the numbers 1 to 24 are lined up in two rows to represent each track, and what was recorded on them is written down for each track. For example, "KIKOKAKO" written down for track 1 means a click track, "PRO5" on track 2 is the Prophet-5, and "EMU" on tracks 3-4 is an Emulator sound. The above group is listed for four songs, because at that time it was normal for several songs to be recorded on one multi-track tape, so this is a specification to that.
"M-34" at the bottom of this track sheet refers to "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" as you can see from the label "END theme" written next to it. It has lots of Prophet-5 sounds, Emulators recorded on tracks 13-15, acoustic pianos on 18-19, and LinnDrum on 20-21. It can be seen that the 24 tracks were fully used to fashion a delicate orchestration.
The sounds recorded on the multi-track recorder were combined to get a piece of music through a process called mixdown, and for this record that activity was led by Sakamoto. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for artists to mix themselves, but in the 1980s, it was difficult for non-professional engineers to operate corporate equipment such as these large mixing consoles, and almost never was the curtain opened for any artists to use them. However, Sakamoto was involved in the mixing process with the following strong attitude:
"In my case (when mixing), I always have to occupy the main seat and do everything from echo length to EQ myself. Because I'm a dictator in the studio". (from the "Interview")
When I asked Mr. Tanaka if he was actually a dictator, he looked back at the mixing with a laugh, "No, I thought I did it myself actually."
"I don't whether I was sitting in the main seat, but Sakamoto was pretty good at it. I think he had a clear image in his head, 'I want to have this kind of sound'. So I trying out EQ and various effects together, not to mention balancing out each instrument."
The mixing console at Onkio Haus at that time was SOLID STATE LOGIC's SL4000. Ono recalls that although this was a time when mixing automation began to spread, it was unreliable and the mix was still mostly done by hand:
"Mixing was often done by two or three people...... when you come to this part of the song, raise this fader, mute that, and so on, all in real time.
Of course, there are some things that can't be done well, so various takes are created. Most of the bonus tracks included here are different versions born out of such mixing work."
If a multi-track tape is full, the only way to get the synthesizer sound out of the speaker and record it using a microphone is to mix it down first, as a result there were many versions of the master with slightly different sounds.
The master recorder was made by TELEFUNKEN and for the recordings AMPEX 1/4 inch tape 456 at 15 IPS (38 cm/s) plus Dolby were used. Ono says that the master tape consists a total of seven volumes, including the various takes, and taking stock of the versions used for the soundtrack, that leaves four volumes that were not used:
"For the remastering I inspected the master tape sheet, and all four volumes have a date of 12/25...... so strangely enough all songs on them were mixed on Christmas day (laughs)."
The remastering work was carried out at Seigen Ono's studio "Saidera Mastering". When playing back the master tape using the STUDER A820, Mr. Ono was surprised at how good the sound contained on it was:
"I was surprised at how wonderful the recorded sound was on those original analog tapes. After all analog is wonderful...... the 16-bit / 44.1kHz of a CD has such a narrow range and insufficient resolution, so it will never fit (laughs)."
To recalibrate the high-resolution sound that wouldn't otherwise fit on a CD, Ono first archived it into a digital format called DSD:
"I captured the sound of the master tape onto Sony's Sonoma, a digital audio workstation that can handle DSD. I used EMM LABS ADC8 MK4 for the AD converter and used a sampling rate of 2.8MHz. At the same time, I did so at 5.6MHz with the Korg MR-2000S. When importing the master, in the sense of archiving it, I first played the STUDER A820 with a flat adjustment. Based on that impression, I adjusted the way the low and high frequencies were outputted a little, then used an analog equalizer called Bax EQ from DANGEROUS MUSIC to capture the sound as required."
Many of the recent CD remasters follow the trend of attempting to increase the loudness, and there are many cases where the compressor is strongly applied during the remastering process. It will certainly result in a powerful sound and a modern sound image, but the delicacy and dynamics contained in the original master will be lost. Mr. Ono's remaster process clearly differs from this trend, and after importing it into Sonoma with DSD, he only applied EQ a little internally, and no compressor was used. After that, using KORG's Audio Gate software, the DSD file was converted to the CD format with 16-bit / 44.1kHz, and the job was finished:
"In this way, I was operating more with the intention of creating a DSD master than remastering a CD. If you make a CD sound source by converting down from the DSD master that you made in this way, the low-pitched part of the sound spectrum will sound overwhelming. Like with a photograph, if you record it in a large resolution, the essence of the sound will remain even if you make it smaller without applying white noise."
When listening to the actual remastered sound, in the opening theme song, the sequencer fades in, the strings sound by the Prophet-5 overlaps it like a buzz, the long lingering piano notes make you feel the space, and the main tune and the percussion echo around sharply. The delicate sounds created by the young Sakamoto when inspired by the video seem to be transmitted exactly as is. The details of each song that follows are really beautiful, and scenes from the movie flash by one after the other.
In September of this year (2013), Ryuichi Sakamoto participated in the Venice International Film Festival as a judge. In the "Classics Section", "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was screened, having been digitally restored in memory of its director Oshima who had died in January. I interviewed Sakamoto, who had seen the movie in a theater for the first time since its release 30 years ago, and asked him what he thought:
"It's a strange movie...... the music is also strange. It's partly because I made it only with synths, but it's not conventional at all. I often did something like that (laughs). There were quite a few sounds that I had forgotten when I watched it again...... such as those that were short cues used only for a moment. However, when watching it, I ed that time. I really David Bowie. It's the first movie that came out, the first movie I made music for. When the screening was over, I was so impressed I left the movie theater to escape."
Finally, let me once again draw some words from the engineer Mr. Tanaka:
"Film music isn't about the artists...... it's not about any personal things. Many people are involved in movies. That's why it's interesting. Sometimes I'm able to express myself as an engineer but sometimes I run up against a boundary. In that sense, this soundtrack was a turning point in my engineering career."
This concludes the thoughts of various persons about "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". I would like to express my joy that it was carefully remastered through the hands of the individuals involved and delivered to our ears without leaving behind the breath of the time it was born in.
text by Susumu Kunisaki (Sound & Recording Magazine)
Music Recorded & Mixed at Onkio Haus, Tokyo.
Comes in gatefold mini LP replica with obi & Japanese insert.
The Japanese reissue liner notes by Susumu Kunisaki translate as follows:
"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence"
Its production and 2013 remastering
This record was released on the 1st of May 1983 as the soundtrack to director Ryuichi Sakamoto, and a very important work considering his activities in this field have been one of the major pillars to this day. This essay clarifies how this monumental album was created, with testimonies by the individuals involved.
In 1982 "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was both filmed and its soundtrack made. YMO's "Technodelic" had been released the year before in 1981, and Sakamoto had probably exhausted what he could do with YMO. As Sakamoto reveals in his autobiographical book, "Music is Free": wanting a new challenge, I decided to work on film music, but in the first instance, director Oshima asked me to appear as an actor, and on the spot I made him an offer to "let me do the music".
"Beforehand I hadn't been thinking of making a proposal to do the music instead of just being an actor. In the first place, I had never done any movie music, and never even thought about doing it. It was like trying to let me escape from Russia". (From "Music is Free" published by Shinchosha. After this: "Autobiography").
Sakamoto didn't know at all how to do movie music, as he said, "just leave it out". He asked the advice of Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane", following his recommendation.
"What I spotted (in "Citizen Kane") is not the orchestration or the melody, but for which parts music was introduced and when it went quiet, that is, purely its relationship with the images. The answer I got was very simple, and I put music in places where the power of the images was weak. It's not mysterious or anything" (from the "Autobiography").
In recent movies, often the creation of the music already starts using only the storyboards, but in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", the music production started when the on location filming had ended on Rarotonga Island, part of the Cook Islands of New Zealand, and some editing had already been completed. The "Seigen Ono, took turns in engineering.
Mr. Tanaka ed ごはんができたよ = Gohan Ga Dekitayo".
Seigen Ono (Masahiko Ono) started his career as an assistant at Onkio Haus in 1978. He became a freelancer in 1980, and from 1982 entrusted his bookings to the engineering management company "Super Studio" (later Superb) led by Mr. Tanaka, while starting a production company V.F.V. with IQ-179" released in 1981.
The soundtrack to "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was such a time-consuming recording that the two by now well-known masters had to take turns. Mr. Tanaka recalls the pattern at that time as follows:
"I think activities went on for 2 to 3 months...... because Sakamoto only started writing songs after he came to the studio. He got video edits from the director Oshima and wrote while watching them. He didn't play the videos one by one, but even when the sound creation and composition were crystallized to a certain extent, he felt like playing the video again. That's why it really took time."
How did he come up with the music while watching the video? As Sakamoto explained in an interview conducted when the soundtrack was released: "I saw it many times and came up with the sound without any planning. What comes to mind at first when I see the pictures is a symphonic sound. Of course, more experimental music would have been fine...... but movies being old media, and with me looking at the pictures, I wondered if I wanted the sound of strings. So I didn't have any particular calculations or intentions, and it all came out naturally."
(From an interview in the May 1983 issue of Sound & Recording Magazine. After this: "Interview")
Orchestras are often used in so-called film music, and as Sakamoto says, the sound of strings seems to be central to this work. However, according to Mr. Tanaka they were sounds made by synthesizers: "Most of the string sounds were created with a synthesizer called SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS Prophet-5. It sounds like coming from live string instruments because the recorded synthesizer sound was played back on the speakers on the wide side of the booth, where the performer is usually sitting, and then recorded again with a microphone. We also added the sound of a synthesizer to the sound of a string instrument player playing an instrument in the studio. There was a JBL 4320 speaker in the Onkio Haus booth, and I set up a microphone about 3-4m away to record that sound."
Furthermore, according to Sakamoto, various effects were applied when recording the sound emitted from the speakers: "Not only recording with a microphone, but also applying delay, using the harmonizer to change the (sound) line and pitch, echoing only the live sound, placing the line in the center and spreading the live sound in stereo, spreading it with a harmonizer or applying a gate echo to the live sound with a harmonizer, we did everything we could think of." (from the "Interview")
If you want such a time-consuming and raw sound, I think you should use a real orchestra to begin with, but at the time Sakamoto didn't think so: "As is always the case with me, creating songs and creating sounds are done at the same time and are inseparable. Usually, there is the original form of the song, there is an arrangement, and a score could be written, but I do not take such an approach in the creative process. Once that is over, I could go back and get it right for an orchestra, that's because I don't like to score music (laughs). However, even if you were to orchestrate the bars on your desk, you can only do something plain. That is a very big restriction for me, so I play it by hand in the studio. After entering the studio, I play and play, decide what the sound will be, transcribe it if necessary, and play it again. That kind of process is the most fun for me." (from the "Interview")
At that time Onkio Haus was known as a studio that could obtain a good sound when recording strings and it still is after it has been refurbished. It's a story of luxury because he used such a wonderful studio only for composing and adding sounds. According to Mr. Tanaka, Sakamoto was always in the control room to the side separated from the booth by a glass window:
"He was in the control room all the time. He had all the synthesizers set up there, so I think he only went to the booth when playing the piano or hitting the drums...... using the drum set in the booth. The assistant worked hard to set up a microphone there, but we didn't record it separately, he just hit it for a change (laughs)...... because there are no drums in 'Mr. Lawrence', right?"
The sound of this so-called drum kit is indeed not included, but the theme song "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" does contain a bass drum and a percussion sound similar to the sound of bamboo slapping your hand. These are from a rhythm machine called LinnDrum, explains Takeshi Fujii, who took part in proceedings as a synthesizer programmer:
"There were two ways to make that kind of percussion sound. One was to lower the pitch of LinnDrum's rim-shot and apply reverb, and then apply a lot of EQ to that reverb so that you can hear only the pitch. Another was to modulate the noise of the Prophet-5. In the end, the LinnDrum was the one that was finally adopted."
Furthermore, Mr. Fujii told me that the impressive main tune of the theme song was done using E-MU's Emulator, a now famous machine that made the world aware of the method called sampling:
"I used the 'Wine Glass' sound that was on the Emulator's disc which, added to the Prophet-5 and live piano sounds, completed that main melody sound."
As you can gather from the above testimonies, the main instruments used on this recording were Prophet-5, LinnDrum, Emulator, and piano. It seems that some raw strings and a trombone were also overdubbed, but only at a few places. All instruments were recorded on an analog 24-track recorder made by TELEFUNKEN, which was permanently installed at Onkio Haus. Part of Sakamoto's track sheet is printed on p10 of the booklet, and you can see exactly what was recorded on the multi-track tape by inspecting this. Explaining how to read the track sheet, "M-19" is written in the top left, which is the identification number of the music called the M number, assigned in order of production. M-19 means the 19th track created. Next to that, the numbers 1 to 24 are lined up in two rows to represent each track, and what was recorded on them is written down for each track. For example, "KIKOKAKO" written down for track 1 means a click track, "PRO5" on track 2 is the Prophet-5, and "EMU" on tracks 3-4 is an Emulator sound. The above group is listed for four songs, because at that time it was normal for several songs to be recorded on one multi-track tape, so this is a specification to that.
"M-34" at the bottom of this track sheet refers to "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" as you can see from the label "END theme" written next to it. It has lots of Prophet-5 sounds, Emulators recorded on tracks 13-15, acoustic pianos on 18-19, and LinnDrum on 20-21. It can be seen that the 24 tracks were fully used to fashion a delicate orchestration.
The sounds recorded on the multi-track recorder were combined to get a piece of music through a process called mixdown, and for this record that activity was led by Sakamoto. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for artists to mix themselves, but in the 1980s, it was difficult for non-professional engineers to operate corporate equipment such as these large mixing consoles, and almost never was the curtain opened for any artists to use them. However, Sakamoto was involved in the mixing process with the following strong attitude:
"In my case (when mixing), I always have to occupy the main seat and do everything from echo length to EQ myself. Because I'm a dictator in the studio". (from the "Interview")
When I asked Mr. Tanaka if he was actually a dictator, he looked back at the mixing with a laugh, "No, I thought I did it myself actually."
"I don't whether I was sitting in the main seat, but Sakamoto was pretty good at it. I think he had a clear image in his head, 'I want to have this kind of sound'. So I trying out EQ and various effects together, not to mention balancing out each instrument."
The mixing console at Onkio Haus at that time was SOLID STATE LOGIC's SL4000. Ono recalls that although this was a time when mixing automation began to spread, it was unreliable and the mix was still mostly done by hand:
"Mixing was often done by two or three people...... when you come to this part of the song, raise this fader, mute that, and so on, all in real time.
Of course, there are some things that can't be done well, so various takes are created. Most of the bonus tracks included here are different versions born out of such mixing work."
If a multi-track tape is full, the only way to get the synthesizer sound out of the speaker and record it using a microphone is to mix it down first, as a result there were many versions of the master with slightly different sounds.
The master recorder was made by TELEFUNKEN and for the recordings AMPEX 1/4 inch tape 456 at 15 IPS (38 cm/s) plus Dolby were used. Ono says that the master tape consists a total of seven volumes, including the various takes, and taking stock of the versions used for the soundtrack, that leaves four volumes that were not used:
"For the remastering I inspected the master tape sheet, and all four volumes have a date of 12/25...... so strangely enough all songs on them were mixed on Christmas day (laughs)."
The remastering work was carried out at Seigen Ono's studio "Saidera Mastering". When playing back the master tape using the STUDER A820, Mr. Ono was surprised at how good the sound contained on it was:
"I was surprised at how wonderful the recorded sound was on those original analog tapes. After all analog is wonderful...... the 16-bit / 44.1kHz of a CD has such a narrow range and insufficient resolution, so it will never fit (laughs)."
To recalibrate the high-resolution sound that wouldn't otherwise fit on a CD, Ono first archived it into a digital format called DSD:
"I captured the sound of the master tape onto Sony's Sonoma, a digital audio workstation that can handle DSD. I used EMM LABS ADC8 MK4 for the AD converter and used a sampling rate of 2.8MHz. At the same time, I did so at 5.6MHz with the Korg MR-2000S. When importing the master, in the sense of archiving it, I first played the STUDER A820 with a flat adjustment. Based on that impression, I adjusted the way the low and high frequencies were outputted a little, then used an analog equalizer called Bax EQ from DANGEROUS MUSIC to capture the sound as required."
Many of the recent CD remasters follow the trend of attempting to increase the loudness, and there are many cases where the compressor is strongly applied during the remastering process. It will certainly result in a powerful sound and a modern sound image, but the delicacy and dynamics contained in the original master will be lost. Mr. Ono's remaster process clearly differs from this trend, and after importing it into Sonoma with DSD, he only applied EQ a little internally, and no compressor was used. After that, using KORG's Audio Gate software, the DSD file was converted to the CD format with 16-bit / 44.1kHz, and the job was finished:
"In this way, I was operating more with the intention of creating a DSD master than remastering a CD. If you make a CD sound source by converting down from the DSD master that you made in this way, the low-pitched part of the sound spectrum will sound overwhelming. Like with a photograph, if you record it in a large resolution, the essence of the sound will remain even if you make it smaller without applying white noise."
When listening to the actual remastered sound, in the opening theme song, the sequencer fades in, the strings sound by the Prophet-5 overlaps it like a buzz, the long lingering piano notes make you feel the space, and the main tune and the percussion echo around sharply. The delicate sounds created by the young Sakamoto when inspired by the video seem to be transmitted exactly as is. The details of each song that follows are really beautiful, and scenes from the movie flash by one after the other.
In September of this year (2013), Ryuichi Sakamoto participated in the Venice International Film Festival as a judge. In the "Classics Section", "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" was screened, having been digitally restored in memory of its director Oshima who had died in January. I interviewed Sakamoto, who had seen the movie in a theater for the first time since its release 30 years ago, and asked him what he thought:
"It's a strange movie...... the music is also strange. It's partly because I made it only with synths, but it's not conventional at all. I often did something like that (laughs). There were quite a few sounds that I had forgotten when I watched it again...... such as those that were short cues used only for a moment. However, when watching it, I ed that time. I really David Bowie. It's the first movie that came out, the first movie I made music for. When the screening was over, I was so impressed I left the movie theater to escape."
Finally, let me once again draw some words from the engineer Mr. Tanaka:
"Film music isn't about the artists...... it's not about any personal things. Many people are involved in movies. That's why it's interesting. Sometimes I'm able to express myself as an engineer but sometimes I run up against a boundary. In that sense, this soundtrack was a turning point in my engineering career."
This concludes the thoughts of various persons about "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". I would like to express my joy that it was carefully remastered through the hands of the individuals involved and delivered to our ears without leaving behind the breath of the time it was born in.
text by Susumu Kunisaki (Sound & Recording Magazine)
Barcode and Other Identifiers
- Barcode (scanned): 4988034206390
- Price Code (税抜価格+税): ¥3,800
- Rights Society: JASRAC
Other Versions (5 of 90)
View All| Title (Format) | Label | Cat# | Country | Year | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Recently Edited
|
Furyo - Bande Originale Du Film (LP, Album) | Virgin | 205494, 205.494 | 1983 | |||
|
Recently Edited
|
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (LP, Album, Stereo) | Virgin | 205 494, 205 494-320 | Europe | 1983 | ||
|
Recently Edited
|
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Sound Track From The Motion Picture) (LP, Album) | Virgin | VL 2267 | Canada | 1983 | ||
|
Recently Edited
|
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (LP, Album, Stereo) | Virgin | V 2276 | UK | 1983 | ||
|
Recently Edited
|
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence = 戦場のメリー・クリスマス オリジナルサウンドトラック (LP, Stereo) | London Records | L28N 1008 | Japan | 1983 |
Recommendations
-
2015 JapanCD —Album, Deluxe Edition, Limited Edition, Reissue, Remastered, Stereo -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Reviews
-
Edited 5 months agoThis 2CD reissue is a revelation. I don't have the previous Midi Inc. CD to compare, but this edition is apparently a new remastering. According to the liner notes, the analog master tapes were transferred to a high resolution DSD master. The layers of detail on display here are just astounding. I'm hearing these recordings in a whole new light. The previously unreleased material on the second disc is also fascinating and powerful. If you've ever loved this soundtrack, you owe it to yourself to get a copy of this Midi 2xCD edition. -
The version of 23rd Psalm on Disc One is different to the original album version in that the organ/synth plays from the beginning of the track rather than fading in slowly.
Release
See all versions
Recently Edited
Recently Edited
For sale on Discogs
Sell a copy
20 copies from €20.59