Yuki Kajiura: Difference between revisions

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{{quote| ''"I have a love of songs that get me out of the quotidian. I like operas. Operas are completely in their own world, aren’t they? Within the sanctuary of the opera house, they weave otherworldly spaces for four hours. I love such songs with vistas into other worlds―-songs that seem to distort the size of my rooms when I listen to them. When I make melodies in my own little way, the lyrics end up that way. Lyrics like “I bought three radishes and found them cheap～♪” aren't relevant to my interests! It goes like “A traveler searching for eternity～♪” instead."''--|'''Yuki Kajiura.'''}}

A [[Genre Busting]] Japanese composer, music producer, impresario, and ethnomusicologist, born in Tokyo in 1965 but [[Fish Out of Water|raised in]] [[The Bonn Republic]]. After returning to Japan as a teenager, she worked as an [[Office Lady]] before [[Rage Quit|quitting]] in 1992. She first came to musical prominence as one half of the group See-Saw with Chiaki Ishikawa in the 1990s, and established herself as a solo composer with the seminal soundtracks to ''[[Noir]]'' and ''[[.hack]]'' and the [[The Musical|musical]] ''Shooting-Star Lullaby'' (as well as at least some of the [[Long Runners|Japanese institution]] that is ''[[Sakura Taisen]]''), subsequently spending many years as the 'house composer' for [[Bee Train]].

Indeed, her music isn't, as a whole, 'like' anything else in particular. It ranges from [[Ominous Latin Chanting|Ominous]] [[Constructed Language]] [[Ominous Latin Chanting|Chanting]] (''[[Madlax]]'') to [[Psycho Strings]] (''[[Kara no Kyoukai (Literature):|Kara no Kyoukai]]'') to sweet pop music (many a [[Mai Franchise]] [[Image Song]]) to lushly instrumented suites (''[[Noir]]'') to [[Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly|whatever her band Kalafina is supposed to be]]. ''[[El Cazador Dede Lala Bruja]]'' is notable for having [[Shown Their Work|shown Kajiura's work]] in ethnomusicology and the musical traditions of Latin America and the American West, evoking musicians from Daniel Alomia Robles to [[Johnny Cash]] and Frankie 'Old Leather Lungs' Laine. She was for a time an impresario for the innovative pop group ALI Project, and brought them into the ''[[Noir]]'' production.

* [[Author Appeal]]: [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mappo |Apocalyptic Buddhism]].

* [[Born in Thethe Wrong Century]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131228213031/http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/25992649/Yuki+Kajiura.jpg Intentionally patterns her appearance and life after the German Romantics]. She seems to be aiming to, essentially, dissolve pop music back into classical music as opposed to the more common inverse of bringing classical flourishes to pop. It would appear that she views [[The Eighties]] as the most worthwhile period for ''non''-classical music, oddly enough.

* [["God Is Love" Song]]: "Red Moon" comes across this way, [[Religious Horror|making certain allowances for explicit expressions of horror at the secular world]].

* [[Religious Horror]]: Some of her recent lyrics have this vibe. Buddhist version, with implications of living in the [http[wikipedia://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapp%C5%8D |Age of the Degenerate Dharma]], with no Future Buddha yet in sight.

* [[Smoking Is Cool]]: She smokes thin cigarettes in holders a la [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], or at least did until recently.

* [[The Hecate Sisters]]: Kalafina [[Playing Withwith a Trope|plays with this]], giving us three ''young'' women who present as [http://jpopcdcovers.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/fairytale-cd.jpg (L-R) Mother (Wakana), Maiden (Hikaru), and Crone (Keiko)]. Perhaps unusually, the fan favourite in this case is the Crone, meaning that Keiko is also a pseudo-example of [[Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!]] ''at the age of twenty-four.''

** Also self-consciously a little [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/:Norns |Norn]]-ish stylistically.