大野雄二* – Cosmos = コスモス

This is the pinnacle of orchestral space disco.

I stumbled upon this album on Youtube. As a Philly boy I've always loved the completely instrumental, orchestral sounds of MFSB, Meco, and individual tracks like The Trammps - Tom's Song, Love's Theme by Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra, the theme from The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and many more. I've also been a big Lupin the 3rd anime fan, and of course you can't mention Lupin the 3rd without mentioning the illustrious music composed by Yuji Ohno. (Under a variety of pseudonyms like Yu and The Explosion Band, Yuji Ohno and the Lupintic Six) Over the last 40 years, Ohno has just cranked out great album after album of a variety of orchestral instrumental tunes in the vein of MFSB. In particular, the first three albums issues are outright classics that everyone should listen to.

Which leads us to Ohno's little-known album Cosmos from 1981. Cosmos can be rightly described as "Cowboy Bebop as scored by Joe Hisashi." This album envelopes everything great about the 70s Orchestral sound, while deliberately taking lots of inspiration from albums like Dexter Wansel's Life on Mars, and ELO's Out of the Blue & Time albums. But Ohno makes up for where Wansel was lacking by focusing less on new synthesizer technology and more on the strong melodies that Ohno has been known for with his Lupin the 3rd soundtracks.

This album truly feels like an instrumental version of ELO's Time as it winds into a variety of different genres and pacing through 38 minutes of pure bliss. Saturn -pierrot in the Heaven- sounds very much like ELO's The Whale and When Time Stood Still, that same spacey, orchestral disco driven by synthesizers, that's just melodic enough to keep your ear entertained. Ohno keeps the pace varied, with calm ballads such as Crystal Lullaby I that will make you feel like you're floating on Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, as well as more upbeat disco tunes like Over the Galaxy. The melodies are just so interesting and really envelop you, like a well-done movie soundtrack that requires a different track for each scene.

I cannot understate that from beginning to end, this album is unbelievably pleasant to listen to. It's one of those few full albums that I can really listen to front to back without saying that I want to skip an individual song. Each song seems to seamlessly transition into the other as you forget you're listening to one 3-4 minute song and just keep listening to the next. This is truly an underrated album, and I recommend anyone get a copy who is into the artists I mentioned.

Don't get the generally high praise and demand that this record seems to command,honestly...Not sure what I'm "missing"..?