Even if you aren’t big into jazz, there is a very good chance that you’ve heard the deep vibrations of Kamasi Washington’s tenor sax. The Grammy-nominated musician has put out multiple studio albums, and counts Raphael Saadiq, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar as some of his past collaborators. And more recently, he composed one of the three mesmerizing soundtracks to Shinichirō Watanabe’s new anime series Lazarus.
Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, the shows Watanabe’s most well known for, are testaments to his own love of jazz and hip-hop. Both series used their soundtracks to amplify the emotional and visual strength of Watanabe’s storytelling. And even though it’s a very different kind of narrative, the same is true of Lazarus.
In each of Washington’s tracks you can feel the existential dread baked into Watanabe’s latest vision of the future. Lazarus chronicles a misfit team’s fight to save the world after the whole of humanity learns that it has been poisoned with a lethal toxin disguised as a painkiller. With extinction appearing imminent, society starts to unravel and people’s lives begin to fray. But as much as the idea of dying terrifies Lazarus‘ characters, their predica …
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