Liner notes
TL note: This section is a translation of the freely available Fanbox post describing this album's concept.
This is a chat about the concept and production of the album “Piano Collection II”, the new release for M3-42 in Autumn 2018. Like the last album concept posts, this is definitely not the “correct” interpretation of the album! Really, if I had to say, I myself am more of a “the listener's interpretation is that song's interpretation” kind of person. So I would be glad if you would take the details presented here loosely!
This album does not contain any new tracks, rather, it is an arrangement CD of existing songs. Therefore, there won't be much content compared to the previous concept posts.
Piano Collection II
In 2016, I made a CD containing piano-only arrangements of some past tracks, called “Piano Collection I”. This is the sequel to that album. “Piano Collection II” was released half a year after “Rebellion of the Enchained Birds”. My thought process for releasing an instrumental album with this timing was that Rebellion took about one year to produce, and Higan no Arcadia was going to be a full original vocal album as well, so it would take about the same amount of time. So I was thinking that in this way, I could release a new album at M3 every 6 months.
Because of this album's sequel nature, it was going to be related to the piano in some way. However, I felt that I wanted to put some more effort in, so I started making a compilation of “piano + something else”.
I made six tracks — anything from piano concertos to piano quintets, solo piano tracks, and so on. There are tracks where the original track is one of my personal favourites and it feels good to play it on the piano, but I also chose ones where the original has a certain intonation, a fascinating quality.
About the titles
Because Piano Collection I lacked a clear theme like my other CDs, I simply used the Japanese names of colours as the song titles. But this time I wanted to include some classical elements, so I used French for the titles.
The colours are:
- Grenat = red (deep red, garnet)
- Noir = black
- Azur = blue (bluish)
- Gris = grey
- Orchidée = pink (red-purple)
- Blanc = white (blank)
This is all my own, very subjective, point of view. Rather than what colours the original songs are, I would say that my impressions from the arrangements had the stronger influence here.
Album cover
I wanted to highlight the piano, so it became the central element of the cover. Of the tracks I recorded, many were dark and/or quiet, which reminded me of the sea at night. Also, the cover of Piano Collection I features the sea at dusk, and I liked the feeling that some time had passed since then. So I used the sea at night for the cover.
Personally, I have the romantic dream of one day playing the piano on the sea, on a beach, on ice, or some other place like that, rather than in a hall. Despite my personal tastes influencing me like this, the recorded tracks themselves were made to sound like an orchestral or piano performance in a hall. But the primary background for the production was a lonely atmosphere like that on the cover. For the colour palette, I decided on black and blue.
Changes in the production environment
Because it was the CD right between Rebellion and Arcadia, there isn't anything worth mentioning specifically. However, only considering instrumental CDs, I changed the piano sound compared to Piano Collection I's time. Even though it harmed the “hall” feeling, I used a piano sound with an increased “sparkle factor”. I was very thorough in making the piano the central theme, so I didn't want to have it be buried. Other than that, there isn't really anything to mention, but for the hi-res audio posts and so on starting this month (given that they are special), I might secretly change the woodwind sound to the one I'm using more recently.