Spirited Away

Despite an enthusiastic cult following, the talents of master Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki have yet to gain the sort of mainstream acceptance regularly afforded American feature animation in the artist's own country. But Hollywood sponsorship of Princess Mononoke and this new Miyazaki anime masterpiece is an encouraging sign. To create the musical soundscape for his phantasmagorical adventure, the director has again tapped Mononoke composer and longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi, and the results are another distinctive triumph. Effortlessly blending ancient Japanese modalities and percussion with Westernized influences (pastoral string and piano flourishes, snarling brass, and gentle woodwinds), the composer evokes the gentle lyricism of Sakamoto in one movement, the pulse-quickening action and suspense of Williams the next. The collection ends on the warm note of Youmi Kimura's gentle, neo-baroque song "Always with Me." While American feature animation scores have frequently been preoccupied with pop star career burnishing, Hisaishi has again reinvented and refined an instrumental language that powerfully evokes all the magic of Miyazaki's fantastic images. --Jerry McCulley