Overview

Hopeful Weeds is the name given to Yasunori Mitsuda's fan club. During the time period in which the fan club has been established, Yasunori Mitsuda has put out various volumes of CDs, each containing two tracks, for his fans' listening pleasure. Each of the volumes contains something stylistically different. Let's root through the weeds and see what lies ahead for the first volume! This volume consists of one track and a message from Yasunori Mitsuda titled "Primitive Heart" and "Message," respectively.

Body

To open up the album, "Primitive Hearts" also employs the use of vocals, but it has much more of an ethnic feel to it. The rhythm in this track is African in flavor and the use of bongos demonstrates this quite effectively. The vocals are a mixture of child and male vocals. The melody of this track is almost exclusively created by these vocals.

Saxophone and harmonica help to offer some melodic contrast to the vocals and, while playing the same melody as the sung vocals, add some more ethnicity to the entire track. Piano is used sporadically to offer some counter melody to the track. Sitar is introduced about halfway through the track and offers an interesting solo effort. The track proceeds to slow down for a bit and the piano employed intermittently before shines in another solo section of this track. Once the solo portions are completed, the instrument-filled melody re-enters to finish off this track.

The second track on the album, "Message," is just that: a message from Mitsuda himself. While I don't understand what he is saying, the underlying music behind the background — the piece "Hopeful Weeds" is playing — ensures it's a somewhat interesting listen nonetheless even for Westerners.

Summary

The Hopeful Weeds series is a very nice set of albums that Mitsuda produced for his fans. While the second volume only offers one musical piece, it is by far the strongest of the six tracks in total between the three volumes. While you won't be able to buy this in any stores, if you do manage to track it down, definitely acquire it since the composition and message are totally exclusive here.