Year : 2015/1975
Label : Finders Keepers/Cinevox
Genre : Soundtrack, Stage & Screen, Jazz
Style : Jazz Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Prog Rock
Kanashimi No Belladonna (Belladonna Of Sadness) is the final act in the Animerama trilogy, a kind of "pink" film serie conceived by Osamu Tezuka which includes Senya Ichiya Monogatari (A Thousand And One Nights - 1969) & Kureopatora (Cleopatra - 1970). Produced by the Japanese animation studio Mushi Production, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, Belladona is based on the book "La Sorcière" (The Witch), a story written in 1862 by French historian Jules Michelet. The music was entirely composed by the most-avant garde japanese jazz pianist, Masahiko Sato, recorded at Aoi studio in 1972 with probably a part of Toshiyuki Miyama's New Herd ensemble, featuring his wife Chinatsu Nakayama on vocals. Only one EP was released in Japan in 1973 (including singles "Kanashimi No Belladonna" & "Jeanne No Namida", performed by japanese songtress, Mayumi Tachibana), but two years later, the soundtrack finally comes in Europe thanks to Italian label Cinevox, and now reissued by Finders Keepers Records. Sato created for Belladona, an atmosphere of certain deep melancholy, a free jazz/progressive rock score in the same wayof his "Amalgamation" 1971 project mixing psychedelic jazz with orchestral music incorporating experimental sounds, suspense & action music elements. Titles includes all Sato's compositions for the film, except "Belladonna (Reprise)", "Jeanne No Namida" & the main love theme written by Asei Kobayashi and sung by Mayumi Tachibana.
