音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

Today, March 20th, I finally remembered to listen to Yuki Kajiura's newest (?) releases – forgive me, I really didn't pay more attention to her works since last year – "the Garden of sinners －劇場版「空の境界」音楽集－" and "The Works for Soundtrack". I played the two releases (5 CDs in all) in a row, and I was very dissatisfied. KnK was more like a "best collection" of all KnK tracks, with new titles and some minor rearrangements, and out of my expectation, there was no new KnK tracks. Her "works for soundtrack" were not impressive to me as well, although it contains some of her recent works (satoyama & 15-sai).

I was already very dissatisfied by previous KnK series; only few tracks really attracted me. I even felt some KnK tracks were like that of "Mai-Otome" orz... come on, how could you make so similar tracks??? T_T

I don't mind a composer has his/her own fixed style, really, if it can attract me. Yuki's style is changing, though it's not that obvious – her change in style is consistent. I liked her music since "noir", and as time went by, I followed her releases, ".//hack" series, "MADLAX", "See-Saw", "FictionJunction", "Kalafina" and a lot, a lot of others that I didn't mention here. I ever loved her so much, but my interest toward her music was decreasing, especially after Kalafina's second album "red moon". That album itself was... sort of average. I know, Yuki likes to use lots of electric elements in her music, but as Kalafina released more songs, her music (songs and soundtracks) are tending to be more "noisy". Since that time, I was thinking, "what happened to Yuki's music? I'm not impressed that much as how I ever felt before". I realised something eventually after played "Mai-Otome", "KnK", "Pandora Hearts" together. Yes, those soundtracks are nice, but they are not unique to each other, which is completely different from her old works, that you could distinct them just by the very first seconds of listening.

Depressing. I don't know how to describe my feeling, it's too hard and complicated. After realised the similarity, I listened to her music less and less. Each time, when I tried her newest release with a small excitement, everything ended in vain. That's not the style I ever loved. I'd better quit, just wanted this love to stay calmly in my memory.

This morning, when I was listening to the newest "KnK'" collection, I heard a piece of pretty familiar melody. The instrumental version of "fairytale", from KnK vol.6, track 1. I remembered how excited I was when first listened to it, because there is no individual instrumental version of that song. Before, I could always sing with the melody, but this morning, I couldn't.

I've forgotten how to sing that song, even the very first phrase.

Suddenly, I was very sad. How I loved that song before? How many times I've looped it before? And, how touched I was when I played it again right now? A tiny voice was echoing in my mind, reminding me my old adoration. "fairytale", I still love this song. I can still loop this song for tons of times, but, at the moment when I found I couldn't sing it, I understood, we are all being changed as time goes by, you'll never know what is going on in next minute.

――私たちみんな、変えていく。
we are all changing.