Every few years I come across a soundtrack that greatly impresses me and becomes my "go to" album for background listening. In the early part of the decade that was the soundtrack to the Ah My Goddess! movie. A few years ago, it was the Someday's Dreamers soundtrack. After having listened to it a number of times, I am now happily adding the ARIA The Animation soundtrack to that list, as well.

ARIA is a rather low-key show about a teenage girl, Akari, who travels to a future Mars, now named Aqua, after it has been terra-formed to have an Earth-like condition. Akari dreams of being a gondolier, known as an "undine" on Aqua, in the city of Neo-Venezia (modeled on the ancient Earth city of Venice). Akari gets a job as an apprentice undine at the Aria Company, which is a small company consisting of master undine Alicia, Akari, and President Aria, a cat. The show focuses on Akari as she learns about her new home, with the primary adventures of our heroine being training as an undine, getting lost in Neo-Venezia, and occasionally traveling to other parts of Aqua. The show has two real strengths: the well-acted and strongly written characters, and its music.

The music is all acoustic, written and performed by the group Choro Club (with a few exceptions). Choro Club is a trio of musicians featuring guitar, bass, and bandolim, though other instruments are also played by the band members. As befits a slower paced show, the music here is generally slower paced, with a lot of happy songs that use their lack of intense rhythms to show that life is good at a slower pace. Sometimes I get a feeling listening to this music that the tempo of the songs mimics the tempo of a boat slowly drifting back and forth on the waves. It is a nice effect.

So let's get into the actual songs on this album and see why it is so great. The album starts with Gondola no yume, a song that gives me the impression of a boat on the water with the way the underlying guitar work uses a strumming pattern that sounds like it is moving back and forth. It makes a fitting starting point. The album then moves into the "forest mix" of the opening theme, Undine. This isn't the regular version of the opening theme, which I am sure is a ploy to get you to buy the single of that song. What we have here is the version used in the episode where the three apprentice undines go to visit the founder of the Aria Company. It shoves the voice track into the background, like someone is singing on a far ridge, and the wind is barely carrying their voice to you. It's not very satisfactory, but at least some version of the opening theme is present.

From there we get into the meat of the album, where the next few tracks consist of a number of instrumental pieces, with varying styles. Shourou no Patrie ~ Neo Venezia is a nice piano and guitar piece that is pretty slow, but in a very relaxing way. Aqua is a perky little tune that showcases all of the band's many instruments. Mangetsu no Dolce is a nice violin and piano piece that has a slight melancholy edge to it. There is a nice variety to the tracks, but they all are generally low key. The break happens with track nine, Barcarole, sung in the show by the character Athena. There are three of these vocal tracks, pretty evenly dispersed throughout the album. All of them are pretty similar, being relatively short pieces intended to emphasize what a great soprano the singer is, with minimal backing instrumentation.

From there, the album repeats the cycle, with five instrumental tracks, a vocal track, five more instrumental tracks, and a vocal track. Just like how the ocean tides follow a standard pattern, so does the music on this album. That slow, yet steady rhythm, is one that I find really relaxing and enjoyable. Some songs are a little more peppy, some songs are a little more melancholy, some are a little bit longer, and some are a little bit shorter, but they all flow together quite well, making this album one of the most thematically and aurally cohesive soundtrack albums I have ever heard. It all blends together so well.

The album ends with the acoustic version of the ending theme from the show: Rainbow. Once again, if you want the regular version used in the show, you will have to hunt down the single. While staying with the relatively sparse instrumentation found throughout the album, this song is still pretty fun, but I do like the regular version better. Ah, well.

In the end, this album is nearly perfect for relaxing to. The instrumental pieces often just blend into each other, with only the vocal pieces to break up that steady rhythm. While many albums trying that would end up being boring, there is enough variety here to keep things interesting, without the jarring thematic shifts that often occur in soundtrack albums. I give this album my highest recommendation.