With the theatrical release of Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door rapidly approaching, excitement over the upcoming summer movie has been growing at a steady pace, helped along by a number of recent musically related happenings. One such event is the upcoming Cowboy Bebop concert at the Shibuya AX in Tokyo. The Yoko Kanno produced concert will take place on August 10th, starting at 6 PM, and will feature a range of Cowboy Bebop related music, both from the series and the upcoming movie. The Seatbelts' performance, being the band responsible for playing the majority of Cowboy Bebop's music, will act as the central presence for the show, but the concert is set to feature a number of other artists involved in the scores for the TV series and the movie, including Mai Yamane, Steve Conte, Tim Jensen, Masato Honda, Yasuo Sano, Hitosi Watanabe, Tuneo Imahori, and Mataro Misawa, among others. Seatbelts goods will be on sale at the Shibuy AX entrance an hour prior to the show, at 5 PM.

In other Cowboy Bebop music news, the Seatbelts' new maxi-single, Ask DNA, was recently released on July 25th. The single is a mini-album of sorts for Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door, the title track being the opening theme for the upcoming movie. I had a chance to give the Yoko Kanno composed single a quick listen, and wrote up a review as a taste of what to expect from the rest of the movie's music. Is the single up to par with Kanno's previous brilliant composition? Check out my review here to find out.

Coming later, the full length Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door OST, titled Future Blues, will be released August 29th. As was the case with the Ask DNA maxi-single, the Future Blues album will feature the Seatbelts performing Kanno's inspired compositions. As a bonus to those ordering early and getting their hands on the initial limited edition pressing, the album will come with a special 8 cm disc (3" for our non-metric American friends) containing previously unreleased tracks from the TV series.

On a final musically related note, the Seatbelts will be releasing a music video DVD featuring songs from their work on the Cowboy Bebop movie. The DVD, scheduled for release October 11th, is tentatively titled Future Blues, although this is subject to change.

Wrapping things up with some Cowboy Bebop broadcast news, the Cartoon Network has confirmed their acquisition of the TV series for their new adult targeted animation block, Adult Swim. Cowboy Bebop will premiere September 2nd at midnight, and will be shown in one hour segments, presumably two episodes at a time.

See You Space Cowboy...