Well it’s another awful rainy day and I like to celebrate awful rainy days with mellow and melancholy beats, either downtempo electronic, blues, jazz, or like today, trip hop. Trip hop is an unusual genre since it blends the electronic drum beats of hip hop and instrumental flows of jazz quartet, two sounds that sound excellent together despite the obvious modern day culture clash. Hip Hop also originated its backing tapes in resampled soul and motown songs and the offshoot of electronic based beats that later became known as breaks doesn’t sound like something that would be well acquainted with the classy almost anti-street culture that jazz has a connotation for nowadays. But I love it as I do most music that is new and challenging and a blend of cultures.

Today’s selection of trip hop comes from the notable Japanese hip hop artists Tsutchie, Nujabes, Fat Jon, and Force of Nature, which collaborated to develop the trip hop sounds of Samurai Champloo. I tend to dislike anime music since most shows rely heavily on jPop or jRock artists with little regard for melody and the most awful lyrics imaginable. Most notable for being stupendous though are the works of Yoko Kanno, especially in the shows Cowboy Bebop and Turn A Gundam, the Pillows for the show FLCL, the RZA for Afro Samurai, and of course the music of Samurai Champloo. Each episode features six original songs culminating in the release of six albums after the series’ completion and as a score I would have to recommend it as one of the best. Each of the artists brought elements of their own style to the album and the only thing I could have asked for would be a few more hip hop styled songs since the albums tend to be more on the jazzy side of trip hop. Either way, take a listen and tell me this isn’t one of the best scores ever. Enjoy.

1. Death Wish - Force of Nature, Nujabes, Fat Jon

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2. Sanctuary Ship - Force of Nature, Nujabes, Fat Jon

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3. Death Chamber - Force of Nature, Tsutchie

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4. Judgement On - Force of Nature, Tsutchie

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5. Pretending To... - Force of Nature, Tsutchie

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6. Sincerely - Force of Nature, Tsutchie

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7. Aruarian Dance - Nujabes, Fat Jon

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8. Mystline - Nujabes, Fat Jon

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9. Flip - Tsutchie

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10. Thank You - Tsutchie

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