VG Frequency

Lots of S’s in that headline.

So we received a submission from Eternal Sonata over at OCR yesterday. Having never heard of the title (I’M NOT A GAMER, LEAVE ME ALONE!), I did a quick search to find out when it was released. “Fuck,” I thought as I saw the release date: September 17, 2007. “How am I gonna get the soundtrack?”, since I needed it to compare the source tune to the submission. Luckily, the submitting artist noted that the official website of the recent Xbox 360 release offered several streamable pieces off of the soundtrack, mostly composed by Motoi Sakuraba. 32 pieces, actually. They don’t play around.

Lemme quote part of the premise of this game. I suppose it’s not TOO difficult to come up with really out there concepts for a game. But seeing as the game is at least rooted in the life of Frédéric Chopin, this game’s story particularly threw me for a trip:

On his deathbed, the famous composer, Chopin, drifts between this life and the next. In his final hours, he experiences a fantastical dream where he encounters a young girl facing a terrible destiny and the boy who will fight to save her. On the border between dreams and reality, Chopin discovers the light that shines in all of us in this enduring tale of good and evil, love and betrayal.

So…Chopin is dying. Of pulmonary tuberculosis, no less. So he’s slipping and probably dreaming things.

But he’s seeing…a full-blown RPG???

“Sun Slash???” What in the hell? Now that’s where you’ve lost me. But really, I’m just busting Namco Bandai’s chops. Strangely conceived and unashamed of it, Eternal Sonata certainly sounds like a very creative venture, and recent reviews for the title have been pretty solid.

The kicker for me of course is the praise being given to Sakuraba’s soundtrack (which naturally also includes some of Chopin’s work, performed by Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin, alongside the original score). DarkeSword feels that Sakuraba’s work can be “hit or miss.” Having listened to the soundtrack of Star Ocean: The Second Story, I can agree with that on some level. But I’d be lying if I said this particular soundtrack didn’t feel a lot more like a hit than a miss, in my mind the praise being very well-deserved.

I definitely encourage anyone interested in the works of Sakuraba and Chopin or any casual RPG player to swing by Eternal Sonata’s official site, listen through the deep selection of tracks offered, and see how you feel about it. Never has a tale of tuberculosis been such good times.

Jayson Napolitano of Music 4 Games posted an interview yesterday with Nintendo composer Kenji Yamamoto and the Retro Studios sound team regarding the sound of Retro’s latest game and Yamamoto’s latest work, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (co-composed with Minako Hamano and Masaru Tajima). It’s a rather nice read, detailing the technical, creative, and organizational processes that went into making the sound and music of Samus’s latest adventure:

As for the music for Metroid Prime 3, we knew we wanted to move in a more orchestral direction, but one that still maintained the game-y and synthetic nature of the previous Prime soundtracks. I sat down and identified some reference game and movie soundtracks and progressive electronic music to present to Yamamoto-san as possible style guides and references. Soon after I compiled my references, we found out that Yamamoto-san was coming to the states and was interested in visiting Retro Studios himself. This allowed me to present to him my musical references and style guide in person and for us to have a face to face dialog. He was very easy to work with and really understood our desired aesthetic. The cool thing was that after we got our musical direction discussion out of the way, we were able to geek out and exchange ideas about audio tools, music in general and even have a quick jam session. It was truly an honor that I got to play drums behind Yamamoto-san’s excellent guitar playing and our CEO Michael Kelbaugh’s kick ass bass playing.

Yamamoto also talks a little bit about his past work as well. Check out the full interview at http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=174.

I held off on posting news of two of these albums until I made sure that they were legit and not just a rumor, and during that time a third album was announced, so I’m particularly ecstatic over here.

On September 20, 2002, fifteen years after the first Mega Man game was released and nine years after the sixth, Capcom’s record label, Suleputer, released Capcom Music Generation Family Computer Soundtracks Rockman 1~6 [CPCA-1064~6], a three disc set containing the music from the first six Mega Man games. Noticeably absent from the album were the soundtracks from games in the classic series after 6, from the SNES and later.

Five years after the release of the 1~6 box, two more soundtracks, one for MM7 [KDSD-00171] and another for MM8 [KDSD-00172], are due out on November 21, this time published by TEAM Entertainment. Confirming their upcoming releases are preorders on Tower Records Japan’s web site for both albums.

And if that weren’t enough, due out on December 5, also from TEAM Entertainment, is 20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Rock Arrange Ver. [KDSD-00173].

20th Anniversary Rockman 1-6 Rock Arrange Ver.

Now if only a soundtrack to Mega Man & Bass were to be released, I’d be able to die a happy man.

On January 25, 1987, the first album containing music from Taito’s sound team, Zuntata, was released: Taito Game Music [28XA-110]. In honor of their twentieth anniversary, Super Sweep, a sound company formed in 2000 by Shinji Hosoe, will be releasing four albums:

• Arkanoid DS Audio Planet
  The soundtrack to the upcoming game Arkanoid DS, composed by Hosoe, Kemmei Adachi, Hirokazu Oshio, Mitsugu Suzuki, Lil’B, Takafumi Wada, and Ryu☆.
• Densha de Densha de GO!GO!GO! Revolution
  An album somehow related to Taito’s series of train simulation games, Densha de Go!
• Night Striker & Syvalion Perfect BOX
  A four-disc set containing the original soundtracks to Night Striker (composed by Masahiko “Mar.” Takaki) and Syvalion (composed by Yasuhisa “Yack.” Watanabe”), a disc of arrangements by Hosoe and Ayako Saso, and a DVD with gameplay footage.
• Darius Remix Album
  An arrangement album of music from the Darius series of shmups by Taito, composed by Hisayoshi “OGR” Ogura. The arrangements are by Hosoe, Saso, and others to be named later.

In addition, Zuntata has placed more than fifty of its older soundtracks onto the Japanese iTunes Music Store for purchase and download. Unfortunately, to make an account, you’ll need a credit card with a Japanese billing address, so you’re pretty much out of luck if you live in another country. That is, unless you buy a Japanese iTMS gift card. J-List provides these gift cards for $18/$35 for 1500¥/3000¥, or about a 35% markup, along with instructions on how to set up an account. If you can get a gift card for cheaper, cool beans, and the directions will still work.

I’m not going to list every single album, but you can find most, if not all of them, through these three links. Take the time to peruse thirty second samples of Zuntata and Taito’s history.

BioShock is an first-person shooter just released on the 21st on this month by 2K Games. It is a spiritual successor to System Shock 2, another FPS that was developed by Irrational Games, which was acquired by 2K Games in 2006. The game is generally regarded as being pretty cool stuff.

A limited edition of the game was released with a figurine, making-of DVD, and CD. The CD was originally supposed to be a soundtrack of the game, but instead contained three remixes of classic songs from the time period the game is supposed to take place in (and which appear in-game), arranged by Moby and Oscar the Punk: “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, “God Bless the Child” by Billie Holiday, and “Wild Little Sisters” by Brian Lovely and Paul Patterson.

However, 2K Games has just released twelve orchestral pieces from the soundtrack of the game, composed by Garry Schyman. While it’s not a complete score, the twelve tracks still give you a taste of the creepy atmosphere of BioShock. You can download the music from 2K’s “The Cult of Rapture” BioShock community site, or directly download it from their site.

Steven Spielberg didn’t start off directing extremely well-known movies like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In the beginning of his career, he directed small, independent films like Amblin’, episodes of TV shows like Night Gallery, and made-for-TV movies like Duel. And even after becoming a big-name director after such box-office successes like the Indiana Jones trilogy, he still managed to direct some films that fell under the radar, like Always and The Unfinished Journey.

Tangent: the VG Frequency record for most links in a single paragraph is now 11.

The point is that, when a person has a large body of works, it’s inevitable that some of them will be overlooked in favor of others, even if the person is as famous as Steven Spielberg. The same principle applies to video game composers as well. Most people are probably familiar with Yasunori Mitsuda’s work on games like Chrono Trigger/Cross and Xenogears (certainly remixers are), and maybe even some of his lesser-known works like Tsugunai: Atonement and Graffiti Kingdom (his best soundtrack no matter what anyone says), but he’s also worked on other games that don’t immediately come to mind, like Mario Party.

I mentioned in my very first post that I’d write something about “overlooked works by big-name composers.” And exactly two months later, here’s the first one!

And since I used Mitsuda as an example above, let’s just go with that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!
Composers: Yasunori Mitsuda, Yoshitaka Hirota
Platform: N64
Release date: 1999-12-03 (Japan), 2000-05-28 (United States)
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Vatical Entertainment

Mitsuda and Hirota have worked together three times, including this game; their other shared works are Shadow Hearts (co-composed with Masaharu Iwata and Ryo Fukuda) and Shadow Hearts: Covenant (co-composed with Kenji Ito, Tomoko Kobayashi, and Ryo Fukuda). And, if you listen from a distance and squint your ears, the soundtrack of Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! does sort of sound like what the soundtrack of a Bomberman RPG would be, if a Bomberman RPG existed.Unfortunately, the Flash player I’ve been using to provide music samples, JW MP3 Player, chooses to play the tracks from this game at an accelerated speed. It actually is kind of amusing to listen to, but instead I’ll just give direct links to the tracks. So long, convenience of being able to listen to the songs without navigating away. You shall be missed dearly.

>> “Sthertoth, the Demon”

>> “Warship Noah”

The music is unlike that of any other Bomberman game, befitting the fact that this is the only game in the series either composer worked on (and also befitting the fact that the story and atmosphere are unusual for the series as well). However, the music is also unlike that of the Shadow Hearts series which the two composers collaborated on; noticeably absent are the series’s music’s quirks and Mitsuda’s Celtic trappings.

>> “LD Angel”

>> “Miheale Theme II”

The music of the game is quite difficult to track down, since there exists no complete rip of the game as far as I know (the samples in this post come from an incomplete rip where every track is 3:10 in length). If you’re feeling adventurous and have the ability to play USF sets (as I am unable to, being Mac’d), there exists a preliminary USF set at USF Central that might not be complete, or work. There are also ten MIDIs over at VGMusic.com.

IGN has started a new weekly column called “Top 10 Tuesday,” in which they, predictably, post a new top ten list of some sort every Tuesday. Their very first list, published this week on the 8th, is entitled “Top Ten Tuesday: Best 8-Bit Soundtracks,” covering, among other systems, the NES and Sega Master System:

We realize that, in addition to the Nintendo Entertainment System, the 8-bit console era also included the Sega Master System. And while we considered titles like Phantasy Star and Wonder Boy, the truth is the best Master System soundtrack isn’t as good as the tenth best NES game.

Erm, scratch that. But anyway! The list!

1. Super Mario Bros.
2. Castlevania
3. The Legend of Zelda
4. Contra
5. Shadowgate
6. Punch-Out!!
7. Dr. Mario
8. Wizards & Warriors
9. Blades of Steel
10. Metroid

Their honorable mentions include such vastly inferior soundtracks as Mega Man II’s.

But the very best part about the article is that IGN decided to include samples of each game’s music to show why each game deserved to be on their list. I personally was unsure that Contra should rank as high as fourth, but after hearing their audio sample, the seven-note title theme, I was convinced. Likewise, the song that comes to my mind when I think of Dr. Mario? Why, the game over theme, of course!

NOTE: The list says that the #8 game, Wizards & Warriors, was developed by Acclaim. This is incorrect; the game was actually developed by Rare (the soundtrack was done by resident composer Dave Wise). But after coming up with such a well-reasoned and carefully researched piece, I think we can let that one little mistake slide.

I’m ironically not much of a gamer, so anything having to do with actual game releases I’m bound to be slow on. DarkeSword recently made mention that Cave Story creator Daisuke “Pixel” Amaya released a new, even simpler free homebrew shmup called Guxt. (Have Japanese characters installed on your comp, please.) With Cave Story under his belt, Pixel’s already got the buzz needed to give any new project of his a good deal of attention in the gaming community, and February’s release of his most recent game has already got people talking.

I make mention of Guxt, because Pixel is not only a programmer, but a composer as well. With his one man Studio Pixel team, Amaya does it all, including the actual game music. For Guxt, that includes a standalone player program that features all 8 tracks from the soundtrack. It’s classic-style VG muzak, just the way you like it: small size, tons of hooks, and very appropriate for the game setting. The Boss theme in particular is excellent.

Makes me wonder who in the community’s gonna have the first well-made rearrangement from the game under their belt…

God bless ya, The Onion. Washington, DC is the paper’s ninth print edition market, and I love picking it up every week. The cutting edge of reporting.

And this? The cutting edge of video game music. The game’s not a hot seller, I’m afraid.

Alternate title: “Sales Pitch #2: Koichi Namiki”

Works featured in this post:

• Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu 2 (PlayStation)
• GuitarFreaks (PlayStation)
• Rail Chase (Arcade)
• Super Hang-On (Arcade)
• Thunder Blade (Arcade)

full list of works

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Koichi “Mickey” Namiki (who has also had the nickname “Pretty K.N”) is an oddly system-specific composer. He’s also old guard as far as video game composers go, starting in 1987 with the game Super Hang-On, which he composed with Katsuhiro “Funky K.H” Hayashi and Shigero “Recruit O” Ohwada. For eight years, he composed solely arcade games, mostly ones published by Sega.

“Winning Run”
Super Hang-On (Arcade)

“Type II (BGM2)”
Thunder Blade (Arcade)

The soundtracks to many of Namiki’s older games have the same style: they’re not the strongest in the melody department, but they have enough hooks to get through the song and just groove along. Rail Chase stands as the most notable exception with its almost adventure movie-style score.

“Stages 1 & 4″
Rail Chase (Arcade)

Starting with 3D Shooting Maker in 1996 and reaching until his most recent game credit, Akudaikan 2 in 2003, he composed solely for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 systems, with the exception of 2002’s Magides Fight for the Xbox. Even though he composed more games during this second time period, fewer of those games were released in the U.S. or even had soundtrack releases.

Namiki was a member of the S.S.T. Band, Sega’s official band composed partially of Sega composers who played rock arrangements of different songs from Sega games. He was one of two guitarists in the band (the other was Jouji Iijima, who composed the soundtracks to Galaxy Force II and Zero 4 Champ RR), and played for the full five years that the band was active. In some of his later compositions, Namiki wields his mighty axe.

“Dream One”
Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu 2 (PlayStation)
vocals by Shoji Koganezawa

“J-STAFF”
GuitarFreaks (PlayStation)

I did mention in the first line of this post that this should be called “Sales Pitch #2,” so let’s get to that. Over the past couple of years, Sega’s Wave Master sound development studio has released soundtracks to classic Sega video games, such as the Monster World and OutRun series. They have also started the “SOUND!SHOCK SERIES” of albums, the first of which was released this month, SUPER HANG-ON 20th Anniversary Collection. In addition to the soundtracks of Hang-On and Super Hang-On (of which Namiki composed three tracks, including “Winning Run” above), the album also includes five new arrangements, one by Hiroshi “Hiro” Miyauchi and four by Namiki, all of which rock.

The second album in the series, Galaxy Force II & Thunder Blade Original Soundtrack, is set to be released on the 26th of this month. I mentioned Galaxy Force II and Jouji Iijima, its composer, earlier; its style of music is actually quite similar to Thunder Blade’s. This album will have another four arrangements by Miyauchi and Namiki. Both albums are available from VGM World, along with the ten disc Game Sound Legend Series Box 2 ~Platinum Box~, which contains the soundtrack to Bonanza Bros. and many, many more games.

Play-Asia.com has the GUITAR FREAKS 2nd MIX ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK, which consists mostly of tracks from GuitarFreaks 2nd Mix, but also has three tracks from the original GuitarFreaks, all written by Namiki, as well as extended versions of each. Also available is SEGACON: The Best of SEGA Game Music - Vol. 1, which also contains the soundtrack to Super Hang-On, as well as those of other older Sega games.

Finally, CDJapan might have a copy of Bakusou Dekotora Densetsu 2 ~Otoko Jinsei Yume Ichiro~ Original Soundtrack. (”Usually ships within 3-7 days” means that CDJapan doesn’t know if the distributor has any in stock, but if they do, it’ll take about 3-7 business days to ship.) The tracks are all vocal like the sample above, and there are four vocalists other than Shoji Koganezawa.

Andrew “zircon” Aversa’s big on reviewing music. Either at Broadjam or the OverClocked ReMix judges panel, Andy’s been all about giving out criticism and hoping for some in return.

Recently, zircon has positioned his MySpace blog as a central location for music reviews, aiming to spread the good word. While zircon focuses on electronic music in general, it’s always relevant when he takes a look at original music from artists within the game music arrangement community.

Dain “Beatdrop” Olsen recently hit professional paydirt, co-winning a Broadjam-sponsored contest on May 8 to have a track added to the official soundtrack of Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2.

If you do as zircon recommends and check out Beatdrop’s free album, In the Dark, you yourself can obtain a copy of the winning track “Until Forever”, and pretend to stomp on some arrows as you await DDR’s latest installment.

Keep an eye glued on zircon’s MySpace for additional music reviews in the near future.

“Come on, CHz. What do you think you’re doing, dude? Everyone knows who S.S.H is. He’s that badass doujin remixer dude from Japan who slings the best guitar synths in the business and totally rocks out VGM covers. You can’t just talk about stuff that’s not original game material.”

That’s why we’re going to be talking about stuff that’s original game material!

Works featured in this post:

• Lost Child (PC)
• Sixty Nine 2 (PC)

full list of works

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ll just come clean and say that S.S.H’s original game compositions sound, well, just like all his other songs: thrashing guitars, smooth synth melodies, etc. The difference is that, instead of having nostalgia for his tracks to rest their laurels on, they stand fully on original material.

And, of course, they still completely rock. This is S.S.H we’re talking about, after all.

“Fly High”
Sixty Nine 2 (PC)

Of course, in regard to both his remixes and original pieces, not all of S.S.H’s tracks are synthrockin’, high-flying (see what I did there) power extravaganzas. For example, “Crying” on LOST CHILD ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK FROM S.S.H SIDE-A and “Into the Noize Ocean” on Sixty Nine 2 ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK FROM Saitama Saisyu Heiki are both slowly building tracks, “Crying” taking the rock ballad approach and “Into the Noize Ocean” featuring synth melodies, that only break out with guitaric ferocity after more than three minutes in. LOST CHILD ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK FROM S.S.H SIDE-B has the most variety, from the industrial-like “Amitto” to “Relieve,” a piano version of the vocal opening theme composed by Soshi Hosoi.

“Amitto”
Lost Child (PC)

Currently, both SIDE-B and Sixty Nine 2 are available for purchase at VGM World. If you’ve heard all of S.S.H’s tunes on his web site Live House S.S.H and desperately need more, or just want some music to rock out to, both of these albums would be well worth your time and money.

VGM World has also stocked SIDE-A in the past, but they are currently out of stock (although the “Buy Now” button, which usually disappears when an album is sold out, is still there, so maybe they really have some…?). LOSTCHILD ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK ALTERNATIVE SIDE-X was a bonus single packaged with the limited edition version of SIDE-B, and LOST CHILD ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK FROM S.S.H THE FINAL SIDE-Z was only packaged with the 2006 re-release of Lost Child, you will likely have to check eBay or elsewhere.

This isn’t composer spotlight. That’s CHz’s thing, and he is good at it. This is something else. I just had to write something. You see, I’ve listened to Akitaka Tohyama for hours in a row now. That man is a freaking genius. Someone give him a medal or something! He has a sense of style and a way of using sounds that I’ve never experienced before. The only man on this earth that’s even close to Akitaka Tohyama’s uniqueness is, in my opinion, Trent Reznor, and that’s saying a lot. So let me tell you why Akitaka Tohyama’s work constantly blows my head up.

The works I’ve heard by Mr. Toyama are his tracks in Tekken 4, Tekken 5, Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari (all must-have soundtracks by the way; Tekken 4 is maybe not that must-have). They share a really unique feel to them. Extensive use of effects with some serious automation, interesting and phat synths, and amazing beatwork. Now pick up your copy of Tekken 5 (you’ve got one, right?) and play some arcade. Then die. Yes, I know it pains you and lowers your ranking but do it anyway. Now you’re at the continue screen. Here is what I’m talking about. Turn the volume to max, plug in some headphones and you’ll hear something unbelievable. Akitaka Tohyama gets freaky. The extensive use of bitcrush and the fast repetitive drum-rolls (made popular by IDM music) is amazingly well programmed and It’s really a something the world of game music hasn’t heard much of before. The bleepy synth sounds, at first sound completely random but you soon realize he knows exactly what he’s doing. In a way Tohyama captures the essence of old-school game music with the lo-fi and upgrades it to fit the role that game music has today. This is high-quality, interesting and highly listenable music.

If you’re not impressed yet and think the glitchy lo-fi stuff is just THAT bad, don’t turn off Tekken 5 just yet. You want some pumping techno? You like zircon’s use of phat synths or you plain just want to move your butt and still not ruin your reputation as the geek who only listens to game music? Go into training mode and select the level to play on. Select the final stage (the last of the two stages you meet Jinpachi on). Keep your headphones on. If I was out clubbing or dancing (which I sometimes do, especially at the club-tent at Arvikafestivalen, a music festival in Sweden) this would most certainly get me to move my feet. Again, it’s Tohyama’s unique skill to find the right sounds that makes this track so good. He also gets some of the classic VGM elements in there. The strings alone could be used in any RPG and the chord progression isn’t that bad either. Still able to keep a groove that gets my adrenaline pumping faster than any other beat ‘em up soundtrack has ever done, this is quality game music.

Sadly, this composer is very hard to find some decent information about. He’s one of the Namco house composers (I guess?), so he’s worked on some Namco games, but I only know of the four soundtracks I named up there and Soul Calibur. If ANYONE has a list or something of any of his works, please contact me on anothersoundscape@gmail.com. Any information about more of his works are welcome. Now get going and play some Tekken 5, because it has one hell of a soundtrack, even if it’s not all Akitaka Tohyama. I might as well be back some other time with more rundowns of Tekken 5 tunes and composers. I’m just that nice.

Whozzat? Sum n00b?

I know. You don’t know me, therefore I’m not as interesting as the mighty Larry Oji. But it’s okay. I’m still going to write stuff here from time to time. Let me give you a brief introduction to the man that is Another Soundscape.

My name is Mattias Häggström Gerdt. It’s a strange name because I’m from Sweden. You know the ever-neutral country up north? Where Gecko Yamori is from? Yeah, that’s the one. I am one of those new ReMixers that haven’t really made it on the big scene yet. I am also one of the small percentage of new ReMixers who’s still here, still trying, after rejections.

I do have some merits though. I have two finished songs for the FF7 project (schh, it’s a secret) and I’m also a part of some other projects, including Larry’s own Dirge for the Follin. I make all of my music in Reason 3.0 as it is now (you back there, yeah you FL user, stop booing) and I enjoy tweaking sounds beyond recognition and acoustic drums and percussion mixed with synths. When I’m blogging here I’m going to tell you about many things, including: OCR as a beginner, OCR as a European, ReMixing, video game music I enjoy, video game music in general and other more or less relevant stuff. Now, that’s enough introduction for me. Let’s get it on!

So it’s 4.30 PM and I recently got home from work. All sweaty and tired, I get down to my computer and start iTunes. Since I’m such an impulsive fellow I usually have iTunes set to ’shuffle’. I clicked the VGM playlist and there it was. “Voiceless Poem” from Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, composed by Ken Nakagawa, Daisuke Achiwa and Akira Tsuchiya (probably just one of them but I don’t know who to credit).

Atelier Iris is one of those series of RPGs that hasn’t really made it here in Europe, I don’t know about the USA but in Japan this series, produced by Gust, is a long-runner. The first game in the series (that I know of) is Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg, released in 1997 for Sega Saturn. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana on the other hand is for the PS2 and was released in mid-2004. Thinking it was a Disgaea rip-off (hey, 2D graphics in PS2 games isn’t THAT common), I bought the game about a year ago and boy was I surprised. It’s a classic 2D RPG with all elements you may and may not expect. Charming characters, incredibly smooth 2D graphics and the kind of plot that makes you think “ooh, the 90s”. On top of this we have the soundtrack. Man, the soundtrack.

When the song “Voiceless Poem” was first heard in the game I thought to myself “this is one cozy track. It’s got the melody and mood so right it’s incredible. It’s piano, it’s synth pads and plucked stuff. Yum.” And then out of nowhere comes an analogue, sharp, bouncy kickdrum. It could’ve been sampled right out of any psytrance song out there. Together with some 909-style hi-hats, the once so mellow tune goes downbeat-breakbeat, and I love it. The soundtrack is filled with those kinds of surprises. We have the regular Motoi Sakuraba-influenced songs, some sad themes and loads of the classic that’s-the-funny-person-in-the-game-themes.

Although in Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana, all the tunes share an experimental and interesting approach to this. With loads of ethno instruments and bells joining hands with analogue-type synths, beats and strange FX, the composers created a soundtrack that is really interesting to listen to, especially as a composer or remixer. You don’t even have to play the game to enjoy these tunes. Sometimes the soundtrack suffers from some low-quality instruments, not in the bad-MIDI-way, but in the this-is-like-SNES-and-PSX-but-cooler-way. So do yourself a favour, pick up the soundtrack. Or even better, get the game at a game outlet near you. It’s pure pleasure.

As CHz reported over at ThaSauce, arrangement scene old-schooler turned professional game composer Jake “virt” Kaufman was outed last week in the current issue of Nintendo Power (#218) as being the composer for Konami and WayForward Technologies‘ upcoming Contra 4 for the Nintendo DS. (Here’s hoping they at least stick with Contra IV/4 in the title, and don’t drop that in favor of just a subtitle.)

While unable to comment much beyond confirming his role on the upcoming shoot-them-motherfuckers-up (loosely translated, “schmup”), Jake backs up the Ninty Power interview and assures us that we’ll be rocked by new themes as well as rearrangements of classic themes from the Contra series.

I personally can’t wait until Jake has a chance to score another console game a la 2005’s Legend of Kay, but congratulations to Jake on a dream project that’s a major footnote in his growing career.

The Song of the Week competition (Week #98) currently has an entry from Tom “Junkie XL” Holkenborg from Nettwerk/Electronic Arts’ recent Music from SSX Blur album, the track being “Wanlong Mamoth”.

All I can say is that, after hearing it, I’m really disappointed that I didn’t have a chance to attend the Washington, DC part of the album release tour at GLOW on April 21st. That was back before I had my current (and thoroughly enjoyable) job, so all of my attentions had been going towards job hunting.

Nonetheless… :’-(

Great track, and I’ll definitely be checking out the rest of the album.

Along with using Napster to seek out the occasional video game tracks, I also amassed a collection of mainstream tracks that I had liked over the years. Being detail-oriented, I always changed filenames, and I used Winamp to tag my tracks pretty meticulously: release year, album, publisher. But also being a very particular fan, I didn’t have anything more than maybe 275-300 tracks, most bands or artists having only 1 or 2 tracks. Still though, whenever I found something good enough to keep, it was always a big deal. Especially in music, I’m of the view that one should be open to all new music, but also feel one’s preferences to be the most interesting out of anybody’s.

In late 2001, I guested a lot on my friend Anna Scruggs’ radio show at WMRE, Emory University Student Radio. She played a good deal of pop music, but within the mix she had a lot of interesting bands, including Coldplay just before I was familiar with ‘em. She picked her music well, and at the time she was a particularly big fan of Guster as well as the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. I don’t even recollect why I first joined her on the air other than to hang out; I hadn’t been bitten by the radio bug yet.

Due to WMRE having a webcam and being broadcast on Emory on-campus cable system, Anna, much like any and all females visible on WMRE, was frequently propositioned to flash the webcam by horny male students, always funny and/or mildly annoying on- or off-air. Thems were the breaks.

One aspect of WMRE I particularly enjoyed was working with its primitive soundboard (which was eventually upgraded to a very professional one). Using it to broadcast was pretty fun, and joining the station to be allowed to actually work with the equipment was one reason I joined. The other reason went back to my earlier mantra: one should feel one’s musical preferences to be the most interesting out of anybody’s. Discovering the opportunity to share my favorite music with people and spread the good word about it was all the impetus I needed to ask about having my own timeslot on the station in February 2002.

One thing job-seeking websites and books promote heavily for hungry individuals looking for opportunities is to grab tenaciously at even the smallest bite, in order to get one’s foot in the door. At WMRE, that meant eagerly accepting the Thursday night, 2-4AM timeslot when it was the only one offered to me. While an objectively lousy slot, the time wasn’t bad relative to my Friday class schedule, so I went for the hand I was dealt. My original show name, (Insert Name Here), sounded witty enough given that I couldn’t come up with anything else. In any case, that’s where seizing the opportunity factored in.

Where luck and the ability to stand out eventually factored in was in how diligently I filled in for DJs who couldn’t make it to their scheduled shows. Most of the time, whenever a DJ announced they couldn’t make it, I would swoop in and reply offering to cover their slot. Most of the time, it didn’t matter how short notice it was; I was able to compose a fresh playlist in half an hour that I felt had pretty good flow and subsequently hotfoot it with my laptop over to the Longstreet dorm where the station was housed. Being committed to only 4 two-hour shows per month, within my first month at WMRE I instead managed to host over 40. By that time, I frequently got calls from people recognizing me, telling me that they saw me in the studio all of the time, with most people liking what I was playing.

My format at the time was a mixture of mainstream music, mostly UK-based bands (Travis, The Verve, Coldplay) and video game music that I could find at reasonable quality in MP3 format. That limited me to stuff like Street Fighter Alpha 3, GoldenEye 007, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK and other assorted goods, but I still had a fairly deep selection.

After coming in on one occasion to cover for a timeslot after another friend of mine, Matt Kertz, Matt asked me what my show format was and I mentioned the video game music portion of the playlist. Particularly a fan of the CastleVania series mixes available there, Matt recommended me to http://remix.overclocked.org, emphasizing that the tracks available there were abundantly free. Making a mental note of it, I followed up on it a few days later, which I’ll elaborate on next time around.

After that month of constantly filling in for people, I received an email from WMRE’s then-Program Director Caroline Riegel, who had also provided me my initial DJ training. It turned out that the Saturday night, 10PM-Midnight slot had been freed up and she had noticed my dedication to being on the air. She had sent me the email letting me know that the timeslot was free and that, due to my enthusiasm, she was offering me the opportunity to take it over or decline it before she publicly put it up for grabs. I quickly thanked her and accepted my new slot. And of course, I kept right on plowing through and substituting for other people. I loved being on the air.

While I felt it important to plug video game music on my radio show, it truly took on a life of its own once I became familiar with OverClocked ReMix. That’ll take us to Part 3…

2005 has been another eventful year in the video game music arrangement community. Now that we’ve reached 2006, join us for an informal retrospective at some of the important goings-on in the scene last year.
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