A big fan of Tsunku♂ and his Hello! Project acts: Morning Musumue, °C-ute, or Berryz Kobo? While I enjoyed Tsunku’s music in Rhythm Heaven, I admit I didn’t know much about his work in the J-pop arena. I definitely came out of his hour-long panel at Anime Expo this weekend with a lot more information about him, and also gained a huge amount of respect for his philosophical approach to music. This was his first trip to the United States, and despite the early 9 AM time slot, there was still a nice turnout. He was super-excited to see fans of his Hello! Project groups in the United States, and the crowd seemed to be really enthusiastic about his work.

While the majority of the panel was devoted to fan Q&A involving Hello! Project, Rhythm Heaven was mentioned a few times, and with interesting results. Unfortunately I missed the Morning Musume concert the day before, so I was totally in the dark about them and the other Hello! Project groups, but given that they’re such high-profile groups in Japan, I imagine some of this information will be of interest, particularly the parts about the Morning Musume recruiting process and about keeping his cool in the face of all the seductive and curvy women he works with.

Read our summary of Tsunku’s morning panel after the jump. (more…)

The fantasy RPG Demon’s Souls for the PS3 is yet another title I haven’t been following very closely, but I quickly realized this was a mistake at the Atlus Demon’s Souls panel at Anime Expo this weekend.  The game not only looks amazing, but some of the online elements unique and absolutely intriguing.  The gameplay and visual style are also right down my alley, and the Gothic fantasy music heard throughout the trailer immediatley caught my attention.

The funniest thing happened right at the beginning of the panel. After watching the trailer, I leaned over to Dale and said, “This kind of looks like a third-person King’s Field.” Little did I know how close I was to the mark with that comment.

Find out more about the game, it’s influences, and who will be handling the fully orchestrated score after the jump. (more…)

Have you been listening to electronic music lately? If you have any interest in this genre you’ve probably noticed that France is one of the innovative leaders in contemporary dance music. With the success of the two record labels Ed Banger and Kitsune there has been an injection of punk vigor and attitude into the realm of electronic music that makes for a very energetic formula.

I was surprised to hear just how much impact this French sound has on Japanese artists like Ikio Ayaka with her latest album, RE: Acid Queen. It borrows heavily from a largely underground sound while balancing it up with enough pop smartness to appeal to an even larger audience.

Read more about this cross cultural mini album after the jump. (more…)

With all due respect to the great puzzle games of our time (i.e. Peggle, Portal, Bejeweled, etc.), this genre is not particularly known for its winning use of music (save, of course, for Portal’s “Still Alive,” but I am not counting that as part of the in-game score). Maybe this is by design, as the player will often be hearing the music for long stretches of time while he/she is completing a level. It also might be that these games often require a different kind of concentration and a lavish score could prove distracting.

Former EA developer Kyle Gabler and his partner, Ron Carmel, broke off from EA to form the independent studio, 2D Boy. Their first big venture, World of Goo, was an incredible success garnering various awards and near-unanimous positive reviews. This puzzle game consists of a whole bunch of anthropomorphized “goo” which the player must construct into various shapes and structures for the purpose of moving the goo from one side of the stage to the goal (a drainpipe). Sounds a bit bizarre, yes?

So, does Gabler hit the mark with the soundtrack? Does he successfully play the dual role of developer and composer? Hit the jump to read the review! (more…)

We extensively covered Bionic Commando: Rearmed, the 3D remake of Capcom’s classic NES game, around the time of its release. The soundtrack, written by the game’s creative director (Simon Viklund), used re-arranged and up-sampled chiptunes from the original game and built an astonishingly fun soundtrack using these tools.

Viklund took on a new role, as sound effects coordinator, for the new Bionic Commando (PC / 360 / PS3). Swedish developer GRIN assigned other members of their sound team to the project: music director Erik Thunberg, and composer Trond Viggo Melsen. These two members of the GRIN team were courteous enough to answer our questions about the new Bionic Commando and other recent projects from GRIN.

Check out our interview with the Bionic Commando sound team after the jump.

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To most gamers, whenever the name Cho Aniki comes up, it’s usually at the butt end of a joke. The first time the title really came to light in the West was in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly during 1996 reporting on Cho Aniki: Kyoukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyou Otoko, the 4th game in the series released on PSX. Just by a few screenshots and a small blurb, gamers in the West were now aware of an extremely strange game series, using gay stereotypes and imagery without any shame, something that was completely unheard of for most Western gamers.

But Cho Aniki isn’t simply a game that uses gay jokes and questionable characters to shock. Underneath all the wacky humor there’s actually a game, and sadly because of all the articles focusing solely on the gay material, very few have ever sought out to actually sit down and play these games. And while the Cho Aniki games will probably never be known as amazing games due to their gameplay, there is one thing they do have that stands out: amazingly diverse, and surprisingly good soundtracks.

Find out why Ai Cho Aniki is our soundtrack of the month for July 2009. (more…)

Game music fans were the first group of people to get to hear the sounds of an upcoming music box called the Kanadeon, a product which is still under development and not yet available on the retail market. Thanks to Noriyuki Iwadare getting an exclusive opportunity to use a prototype model of the device on-stage during the Ace Attorney Orchestra Concert, he’s been able to provide valuable feedback to the SRIC Corporation about the product’s abilities and development.

Iwadare-san agreed to answer some questions about the planning of the 2008 orchestral concert, the alterations which needed to be made to the arrangements, and his overall experience working together with the Tokyo Philharmonic. He also reveals more details behind the upcoming Kanadeon, which has also made an appearance on the bonus disc of the Gyakuten Kenji DS Limited Edition game package bundle.

Find out all the details in our full interview after the jump. (more…)