Fasten Your Seatbelts

Imagine you were in a car, then looked to your left or right. There you would see some kind of cloth material, with width around 7 cm, hanging limply. For your own safety, you should take that material, pull it from your left or right shoulder across to your hip and then fasten it. This material is known around the world with the term seatbelt. But rest easy, since I won't write anything about car or "100 things you should know for safe driving", but something entirely different, which is music.

You have seen where the red thread would end, or have you not?? If you still haven't grasped what is I want to write about, you should know about 3 things first. The thing that I want write is a band that play really diverse music styles from jazz, blues, rock, country, electronic, and hip hop. The second one is the mastermind behind this great band is Kanno Yoko, a very accomplished composer, arranger, and musician. I love Kanno-san music very much, and I think she is one of the best composers in the world. The music genre she has composed ranging from jazz, rock, orchestra, electronic, to pop. The great thing of Kanno-san is whatever genre she composed or arranged turn out to be good or even great. Her music is usually used for many anime soundtracks. The last is the band performed whole soundtrack of Cowboy Bebop anime series. The story of this anime revolved around bounty hunters in the near future when interplanetary travel could be done very easy and fast.

The band name is The Seatbelts. So why is the band have that particular name?? See in your mind's eye that we lived in the era that humans already made many colonies in outer space, that in some place had lower gravity than earth. So if a band would perform a jam session, they should wear seatbelts for their own safety. Anyway.. The Seatbelts have no lead singer, because they are mainly focused on instrumental work.

A jazz, blues, rock, or country music seems a perfect companion for a cowboy or bounty hunter film, doesn't it?? Well, I can't tell exactly because I haven't watch all the episodes, but very few of those. But I really enjoy all of their works, because I am a jazz lover and love to listen to many music styles such as blues, rock, classic country, pop, and many others (don't give me dangdut please.. :D). All their albums definitely could be enjoyed without watching the film, moreover in my opinion The Seatbelts is the best work of Kanno-san (the second best is Ghost in The Shell - Stand Alone Complex soundtrack). Unfortunately I couldn't find any of their albums of any music store that I have visited. Well of course those can be found at Amazon, but it still too expensive for me to buy online.

Well, enough talking and let me recommends you some great tracks from The Seatbelts. My personal favorite track is "What Planet is This?!", a groovy, up beat, jazz tune with a great solo sax. "Tank!", an instrumental, up beat, big band style jazz, also with a great solo sax, is the opening theme for Cowboy Bebop. Two tracks with a magnificent vocalist, Mai Yamane, are "The Real Folk Blues" (ending theme for Cowboy Bebop with blues tune) and "Gotta knock a little harder" (another track with blues tune and splendid lyric). "Adieu", a rather sad and soft jazz track, is another vocal track with Emily Bindiger as vocalist. You can expect Indonesia in "Mushroom Hunting", a song with simple lyric and catchy beat. Kanno-san wouldn't complete without cat as you could find in a mild blues tune "Cat Blues" or funny tune "Cats on Mars".

With loads of great tracks, I still could write some more, but let me finish it, before go too long. So where could we find these songs from The Seatbelts?? Well, I should say, we should buy it (yes.. I will buy all of their albums). But if you want to try the samples, those could be easily found with a little googling on the Internet. Last advice before you listening The Seatbelts: "Fasten Your Seatbets!!"

Side note:
Image courtesy:

• First image from: en.wikipedia.org
• Second image from: www.last.fm