The state of video game soundtrack releases to vinyl continues to go unabated this year, which isn’t surprising given that a recent poll by Materia Collective’s Sebastian Wolff revealed that over 16% of game music enthusiasts prefer to listen to game music on vinyl release. Given that response, finding even more obscure AAA titles such as State of Decay 2 getting special edition vinyl releases isn’t all that surprising.

This November on Black Friday, Sumthing Else Music Works will be releasing the soundtrack to the horror action shooter sequel to 2xLP special edition vinyl format featuring 29 tracks (10 of them previously unreleased) from the game’s original soundtrack by composer Jesper Kyd (Borderlands 1 & 2, Assassin’s Creed 2). Currently you can listen to previews of some of the tracks provided by Sumthing Else (via Dread Central) which highlight pieces from Kyd’s score and invoke his style used in previous darker titles such as Darksiders 2.

The State of Decay 2 Special Edition Vinyl is currently available for pre-order on the Sumthing Else Music Works website for $39.99 and will be released on November 23rd.

It’s always a wonderful thing to see artists that made their debut in the video game music community with collaborations and fun album projects graduate to composing full game music soundtracks. Mark Benis, who in the past has collaborated on several fan projects including Materia Collective’s Pokémon Piano Collections and FATE: A Tribute to Majora’s Mask has now seen his first original game soundtrack released in the film noir-inspired video game, Lamplight City.

Lamplight City is a steampunk-ish detective adventure from the creator of A Golden Wake and Shardlight, putting you in control of private investigator Miles Fordham to find justice for his clients and track down his partner’s killer before his entire world comes apart. The music created by Benis is highly immersive, employing little details such as a high piano note for that flickering street light, tremelo and pizzicato strings for the dark alleyways, or an unsettling harp for the unbreakable bond between detectives Miles Fordham and Bill Leger.

“In a cathedral you visit in the game, you encounter the church’s choir director named ‘Singin’ Tom’ who is playing through a piece at the organ. The only problem is he hasn’t been practicing it, a chorale arrangement of ‘Down Among the Dead Men.’ Frankly he’s terrible at it. As the composer I had to figure out a way to create a believably horrible performance so I did it the only way I know how: I played the chorale myself. I stayed up until 2am, took off my glasses, and sight-read it hunched over my MIDI keyboard months after I had first written it. It’s the worst performance that I’ve ever given, but in context maybe it’s my best? On the album you hear the piece after Singin’ Tom practices quite a bit, but in the game… get your ears ready.” – Mark Benis, Composer

The 41-track soundtrack for Lamplight City is currently available on multiple platforms including Bandcamp,  iTunes and Spotify.

When people think Nobuo Uematsu, they think “Final Fantasy music” – and that isn’t necessarily always the case. Uematsu has done much and more beyond Final Fantasy, and I hope this top 5 list will broaden your horizons!

This list will not only contain soundtracks, but also his other, original work!
(more…)

Vince DiCola, composer of Transformers: The Motion Picture, Rocky IV and Angry Birds has started venturing into live performances more this year. At this past Super MAGFest, he played live with VGM band LonelyRollingStars and performed pieces from his aforementioned media which has gained him a underground nerd following. Having tasted the love of video game music geeks, he’s now venturing into other live performances and specifically will be debuting new music in West Hollywood, California on September 20, 2018 at the famous Whiskey-a-Go-Go.

Several months ago my daughter took it upon herself to start up a dialog with the folks at the Whisky about the idea of her father performing there. After all the details had been worked out I decided to use this opportunity to perform material from my film work and some videogames I scored with my partner Kenny Meriedeth. This will be the first live performance of some of this music, including tracks from the arena fighter Mighty Fight Federation and the sequel to Saturday Morning RPG! I will also be debuting a new progressive rock band called SAGA STAR at this show. This promises to be an exciting night of music so we hope to see you there! – Vince DiCola

DiCola will be debuting the new game music along with a progressive rock ensemble with his writing partner Kenny Meriedeth, film and game composer Cody Carpenter, George “norg” Nowik of the LonelyRollingStars and more. You can check out more information about the show and nab tickets over at Brown Paper Tickets.

PAX West will be commencing in Seattle from August 31st to September 3rd, and sure enough will be featuring a bevy of video game composers available in the “Maestros of Video Game Music” panel. The panel will have some of the most well-known music makers of the modern age of video gaming, including Marty O’Donnell (Halo, Destiny), Inon Zur (Fallout 3 & 4, Dragon Age), Jack Wall (Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Mass Effect 1 & 2), Jesse Harlin (Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mafia III, Yoku’s Island Express), and Brian D’Oliveira (Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Batman: Arkham Knight).

The panel will be hosted by Emily Reese, award-winning radio host and producer of “LEVEL with Emily Reese” podcast. Following the panel you can join the composers for a meet & greet / autograph session at the Westin’s Cascade Ballroom from 3:30pm-4:30pm.

The soundtrack to Battletech was released on April 24, 2018, coinciding with the release of the game developed by Harebrained Schemes. The music was composed by Jon Everist, who supplied OSV with a review copy of the soundtrack. We interviewed the composer about his past work, and Battletech last year, and recently reviewed his two most recent LP releases of his soundtracks to Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

The score for the game is massive and boasts 60 tracks with a runtime of over three hours. For the review I will just be focussing on some of the 48 tracks that make up the main soundtrack. The album on bandcamp also includes a dozen B-Sides tracks. I have been anticipating this soundtrack for quite some time, read on for my full review.

(more…)

There’s only a handful of games that I have gone out of my way to purchase while they’re still in earl access on Steam. One of them was Crypt of the Necrodancer, which played to my tastes in both cute macabre games and games with good soundtracks. While I originally took the loose risk of purchasing indie game Dead Cells because of it’s metroidvania offerings and promises of Dark Souls-like challenge, I was happy to find much like Crypt, it took sported a compelling soundtrack to it.

Unlike Crypt, however, Dead Cells features a far different type of soundtrack than the upbeat catchy rhythm of the former.

(more…)