Yoko Kanno (born March 19, 1964 in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan) is a composer,… Read Full Bio ↴Yoko Kanno (born March 19, 1964 in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan) is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, seminal anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements. She has written scores for famous animated works, including Macross Plus, Turn A Gundam, Cowboy Bebop, Vision of Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, and is the most trusted composer by veteran and new-wave directors such as Yoshiyuki Tomino, Shinichiro Watanabe and Shoji Kawamori. She is also a skilled keyboardist, and is the frontwoman for The Seatbelts, who perform many of Kanno's compositions on the various original soundtracks for which she is responsible.

The Seatbelts (ShītoBerutsu?, also known as Seat Belts or SEATBELTS) were a Japanese blues/jazz band led by composer and instrumentalist Yoko Kanno. The name of the band, according to the fictional description given in the anime series Cowboy Bebop, derives from how the performers wear seatbelts to be safe while they play hardcore jam sessions. The band performed the whole soundtrack of the anime series Cowboy Bebop and produced a total of seven albums and one live DVD. Their style is very diverse and ranges from straightforward big band jazz, blues, acoustic ballads, hard rock, country, funk to electronic, hip-hop and experimental compositions/elements. After a few years in hibernation, The Seatbelts regrouped in 2004 to perform the soundtrack for the second Cowboy Bebop video game, which is currently available in Japan. They all disbanded once they released the last album.