Let’s get back into this series now that I’m all mostly caught up on Tytania and the holidays are behind me. This time we’re going to be looking at Tension building music.
Tension Building:
One of the easiest ways to build tension in a gamer or a viewer for the purposes of enhancing an oncoming scene is throught the use of tension building music. Alfred Hitchcock was one of the modern masters at doing this, but it’s a mood setting tactic as old as theatre and tragedy itself. The two Yoko’s seem to have varying styles in how they approach their tension building compositions so as always let’s have a listen.
Kanno’s Korner:
Black History From Turn A Gundam
Kanno’s style of tension building often seems to involve trying to induce goosebumps in the viewer/listener and this is certainly the case with Black History as far as I’m concerned as it works every time on me. This is the track that Kanno came up with for the intense big reveal scene in Turn A Gundam where we finally find out what’s going on with regard to the disparity in technology between the Earth and Moon Races and why there are mobile suits buried underground on Earth. As we come to that sudden realization that a certain saviour in the form of a white doll might in fact have more ominous origins then we were previously led to believe and as it starts to display more and more destructive powers, this is the track that foreshadows it all and gets you feeling uneasy along with the characters about what the Black History entails. It’s also the track that’s used for the Turn A Gundam in the late stages of Super Robot Wars Z. Well there you have it, eerie choral sessions may have been featured in Gundam 00 Second Season, but they got their start in the Gundam franchise with Yoko Kanno and Turn A Gundam.
Shimomura’s Side:
Manifold Irons From Front Mission
Both tense and intense, the track with the ultra manly title known as Manifold Irons was Shimomura’s choice for one of the most tense aspects of Front Missions gameplay, the enemy turn music. When you consider that unlike with later games in the series it is very easy to get even your most powerful Wanzer taken out in one well launched attack if you don’t plan your own turn right you damn well better believe you are going to be biting your nails the whole time and you know what Shimomura, your music never helped my nerves while I was playing. 
By the way, while this is actually my favourite Yoko Shimomura track of all time on the SNES it’s also tied with another one.
We’ll get to that other one eventually, but hopefully people enjoyed tonights exhibition of Yoko music.
I do agree with all of the ideas you’ve presented in your post. They are really convincing and will definitely work. Still, the posts are very short for newbies. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.