Symbiosis in Wolf’s Rain

I’ve written before how much a fan I am of Yoko Kanno, particularly Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell and Wolf’s Rain.

Wolf’s Rain was a weird anime show created by Keiko Nobumoto from the Cowboy Bebop team, about mystical wolves in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world who can appear as human...very strange and beautiful.

So the thing about Yoko Kanno—she’s a genius, but she does use a lot of other music as models. You can hear—oh, that’s the Sting track, that’s the Björk track, etc. (Oftentimes, I like her versions better!)

So much of Wolf’s Rain is made up of gorgeous orchestral scoring with jazz harmonies and I always suspected there had to be a model. Well, it’s “Symbiosis,” the amazing jazz album by Bill Evans and Claus Ogermann.

It’s always a tip-off when it’s in the same key. But I have to say, a good model to use!