4 out of 5

Produced by: Susumu Hirasawa

Label: Geneon

 A fitting match for the perception-tweaking, genre-mercurial Satoshi Kon’s filmwork is the similarly unclassifiable, expectation-busting, catchy and odd doodles of Susuma Hirasawa, and so it’s a good deal that the duo have worked together on many a project.  Indeed, with Paranoid Agent, Hirasawa’s score is massively responsible for allowing the show to catapult you from one weird experience to the next without feeling too alienated by the shift, each half hour bookended by the free-falling whims of the excellent opener Dream Island Obsessional Park and then the distubing childlike chirping of the closer, Maromi’s Theme.

The cues and themes during the remaining runtime – and captured on this disc – run the gamut between haunting opener reworkings, Silent Hill-esque creepy ambiemce, and key emotional touchpoints, such as the gentle Reverie Hill.  All of the cues are complete experiences, but admittedly, out of context, some of the shorter tracks are interesting, though a bit too vague to register a feeling.  However, the majority of the album – juxtaposing the previous criticism, most specifically the longer tracks – strike the perfect blend of electronic and “organic” sounds, tonally balanced to be unnerving and fascinating at the same time, both of these qualitiies very representative of the show’s dreamlike / nightmare like setting.

Susumu already has years of amazing material to explore; the breadth of his creativity is astounding, and it’s equally impressive how he can wrap that creativity around another work, adding to it and supporting it.  Paranoia Agent is clearly a Satoshi Kon project, but Hirasawa’s music is an irrefutable component of the experience.