The fine folks of Materia Collective present The Travelers, a supergroup of some of the most passionate performers and arrangers seeking to bring a unique acoustic experience unlike anything before. The Travelers cover VGM favorites and obscure selections in European folk arrangements of various styles from Celtic, Nordic, and Slavic traditions. Their membership includes players of a broad variety of instruments from many different parts of the world, featuring members from the Materia Collective, Triforce Quartet, and Tetrimino.
Produced by Josh Barron and Masha Lepire with art by Val Choung, The Travelers album features arrangements from Final Fantasy X, Shadow Hearts 2, Romancing SaGa 2 and more. For those who love Yasunori Mitsuda’s “Millennial Fair” and his Xenogears CREID album you will be treated to something that embraces the source yet presents something fresh in a live acoustic setting.
The Flame in the Flood is one of those indie games that feels like it’s been in perpetual development. I’ve had my eye on it since it appeared in the Fall of 2014 but I didn’t want to jump into another Early Access game and get burnt out by the time it launches. I’ve had it filed under “looks great, let’s wait” in my head but after listening to the powerful and utterly unique soundtrack this week I’m glad the full release is just weeks away.
The game is billed as a rogue-lite and feels like a distillation of the survival drama of Don’t Starve racing down a raging, flooded post-societal riverway. It’s represented in an isometric, overhead view with painterly art and moody lighting. Even from the name alone you can get a sense of poetry and of the American South which rolls right through the visuals and into this fantastic soundtrack.
This original, full length album was created by Chuck Ragan and features collaborations with The Camaraderie, The Fearless Kin and other special guests. Ragan has been plying his powerful, gravelly tone and poetic songwriting skills for decades across several musical genres. Through the mid-2000s he was singing and playing with the punk rock and post-hardcore band Hot Water Music. His solo albums lean towards acoustic and rock folk music. In 2005 he helped launch the acoustic collaborative event, The Revival Tour, featuring punk rock, bluegrass, and alt-country performers.
“I also wanted to invite and include friends to be a part of it, playing, writing or singing anything they wanted to add.”, recounts Regan about having recruited several of those fellow performers for The Flame in the Flood. “Cory Brannan, Jon Snodgrass, Adam Faucett and of course The Camaraderie are some of the very important collaborations on this recording that made the soundtrack what it is.”
The album has a cohesive story of its own that is equal parts accompaniment and counterpart to that of the game’s. “The Flame in the Flood is a collection of songs of survival,” Ragan explains.“Written from the perspective of a drifter, nomad and explorer, The Flame in the Flood will take you on a journey down that river in search of a safe haven. I feel so blessed to not only be a part of such a strong and active music community but to be able to share the stage, write with and learn from the people that I work with is such a healthy and revitalizing way to work.”
The album is available now on iTunes ($8.99) and from Amazon ($8.99 mp3, $9.98 CD). Developer, The Molasses Flood, just revealed at the NY Game Awards that The Flame in the Flood will be out of Early Access and onto full release for Xbox One, PC and Mac on February 24th.
The music label Ubiktune has recently released a new chip album by artist Fluidvolt called Clay Memory. The album features a compilation of over 300 instruments organized into soundfonts, and based around the style of the GBA game, Mother 3.
After Bregalad created his fantastic program GBA Mus Riper, it’s been possible to dump Mother 3‘s sounds into a massive soundfont of 1668(!) instruments. – Fluidvolt
Condensing the soundfont by weeding out unneeded instruments and splitting others, Fluidvolt managed to create soundfonts with which he used to create his album, and will be featuring them bundled in with purchase.
You can find more information on the album on Ubiktune’s release announcement. The album is currently available on Fluidvolt’s Bandcamp for whatever price you deem fit. If you’re a fan of the music of Mother 3, or of Fluidvolt’s previous album, Reflections of a Dancing Leaf, then Clay Memory is worth checking out.
Hibino and the GEM Impact crew have been prolific publishers of original albums lately. Today, we’re talking about “Japanese Songs,” which is about as bland and descriptive a title as if they had renamed “Gentle Love” something like “This is some jazz music I recorded with my friends.”
This particular album is a collection of 17 piano solo recordings, arranged and performed by GEM Impact members Yuichiro Onuki and Yoko Nakamura. The source compositions are actually from more Western-style Japanese composers of the last century (a few of the tracks have unknown composers and are folk pieces from the last 200 years).
If you are into piano solo recordings as much as I am, please continue on the journey! … After the jump!! (more…)
Having not seen the Itazura na Kiss anime, I never got a chance to sample Motohiro Hata’s “Kimi, Meguru, Boku,” and so, lack any level of familiarity with his works. But as I listened to the OP theme, his voice reminded me of another anime series that is very near and dear to my heart: Honey and Clover. In short, Hata’s voice in “Kimi, Meguru, Boku” is very much reminiscent of Spitz’s insert songs in Honey and Clover. If that’s the kind of sound that you enjoy, ItaKiss’s OP theme will be right up your alley.
For that matter, so will Halation. He might not deviate much from the established style that he has set in “Kimi, Meguru, Boku,” but I do think that checking out this work is worthwhile. Find out why after the jump! (more…)
Covering and promoting discussion of composers and music with a focus on video games and other contemporary media entertainment