I have been acquiring music at a faster rate lately. I’ve collected game soundtracks for almost two decades now (the power trinity of Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura are still the backbone of that collection, some of which is noted in my last music article thisaway), but it has sort of been a trickle. Part of that is the expense of getting CDs often only released in Japan. Part of it is just that I have other things to spend money on.
So what changed? The Humble Bundle guys started including soundtracks with the games they sell. The Indie Royale people followed suit. GoG.com always offered soundtracks when possible, but I’ve been getting more of their games lately, too. OCRemix.org has always been great at cranking out good music (free!), but I’ve been perusing their projects more lately, and they recently stepped up with a big Final Fantasy VI orchestral project.
I’ve also been more aware of articles like this one from Syp. The game music industry is growing up. (I still wish I could get to a Play! concert.)
Edited to add: I also just stumbled across this little gem of a site… I’ll be keeping an eye on their bundles. GameMusicBundle.com
Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of my more recent favorites, and a few oddball pieces that just seemed worth sharing for one reason or another.
Thoroughly Blue, Crystal Chronicles… I love the light, almost Celtic feel to a lot of the music for Crystal Chronicles, and this one covers a lot of the themes in the game.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s “Inner Light” Ressikan Flute music, performed by a full orchestra. I love that episode. I’m not the only one. (And is that a Starfleet uniform on the conductor? Awesome. Nerdy, I’ll grant, but I love that nerdiness isn’t a kiss of death any more.)
Secret of Mana has some great tracks, and this is but one collection/overview. I really would like to find that soundtrack on CD someday. For less than $30. Pesky imports.
Tangled soundtrack’s town music… sorry, I’m not sure on the title for this. It’s just one of my favorite parts of a movie I’m very fond of. I wish this piece had been longer.
Magic Taboria, Van Canto… this one is really odd. It’s an a capella metal rock group, weird enough to start with, but they also appear to be… nerds. They based this song on the MMO Runes of Magic. There’s just enough absurdity involved that it makes me smile, even though metal rock is far from my favorite. Really far.
The Bard’s Song, Van Canto… this was my first exposure to Van Canto. A coworker submitted this to our weekly “Bad Music Tuesday” event, and, well, I kinda like it. It doesn’t scream “metal” to me, it’s more of the sort of thing I’d expect from a modern “Gregorian Chant”-ish group, infused with gaming and storytelling sentiment. Weird, I know.
The Final Fantasy Piano collections all sound great to me. I’m a fan of pure, simple music (like the FFX piano version of To Zanarkand), and I grew up around pianos. My mother teaches piano, my wife plays sometimes, my sister plays as well, and my daughter is learning. This is one of my other favorite piano pieces, Eyes on Me from Final Fantasy VIII
And last, but far from least, there’s Austin Wintory, my newest addition to the “favorite composers” group. He has a lot of great stuff at his site, but this one is one of my favorites, with touches of Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings movie soundtrack, shades of Mannheim Steamroller (one of my biggest musical influences growing up) and hints of Celtic and Viking spice:
I like all of it, but Bound in Stone (track 12) is especially fun. Oddly, perhaps, it reminds me of some of the fun music in the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, but with a more epic feel.
There’s a LOT of good music out there.
Tish Tosh Tesh 
Just a tiny comment on The Bards Tale and Van Canto: The song is originally from Blind Guardian, Van Canto “only” covered it, as they did with plenty of other metal songs. (Among those songs from Nightwish, Metalica, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Sabaton and Deep Purple, just for “a few” names. )
That being said, their basic style and thematic is close to Blind Guardian, those two bands match up quite fine. One (or was it already two?) years ago, Blind Guardian toured with Van Canto as opening act, i loved the whole concert, it was really great. 🙂
Thanks for the clarification, Sylow. I imagine that was a fun concert with the two groups. 🙂
I am so so shamefully overdue 😦
Van Canto is a bit of an acquired taste, heh; generally I have my issues with many of the “goth/emo metal” bands out there who throw around tropes and mix and match about everything between fantasy, folklore and mythology for pathos overkill. ‘viking hype’ is a particularly popular phenomenon and I’ve probably met one person too many with a Mjölnir around his neck while actually not having a clue about the Norse pantheon….so yeah, am biased 😀
A group (or rather orchestra) that I personally admire for the conjunction of fantasy/epic themes and metal is E.S. Posthumus, you probably know them.
When I was younger I used to find Apocalyptica quite interesting for the way they joined classic music and metal together.
there’s no singing in either of these, so I suspect that is a killer criteria for me somehow. truth be told I dislike most Uematsu and Mitsuda tunes even that have lyrics in them. somehow that takes away from my immersion.
I am off to browse Austin Wintory now; I’ve not yet discovered him although I know Journey’s soundtrack – so thanks for the tip! 🙂
Yes, indeedy, E.S.Posthumus is really good. I was saddened to hear that one of the brothers died not too long ago. I like Apocalyptica’s quieter pieces, like “Nothing Else Matters”, but overall, they are a bit harsh for me. I’m amused they exist, but I like quieter music. Those two bits by Van Canto are about the extent of what I like of their stuff… and the Taboria one is on the line. And really, I don’t like metal at all. The *only* reason I like Van Canto is because they are vocal, and that takes the edge off of the sound. The trappings of metal, well… I’d just as soon stay away from it.
Er, so wait, lyrics are good or bad? Sounds like “bad”, but I might be reading that wrong. I know I’m distracted by lyrics I understand, but ones in Japanese or gibberish work fairly well for me as I just hear them as music, not words I have to parse. Even so, I’ll still usually take purely instrumental stuff over songs with lyrics.
“I’ll still usually take purely instrumental stuff over songs with lyrics.”
yepyep, that’s what I meant too 🙂
singing usually ruins a good track for me. few exceptions aside (I was okay with the ‘eyes on you’ ending song in FF8 for example…cheesy as it was).
I love your music posts! 😀 So much goodness!
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