Arrangement Album

Doujin, Game Music

Videogame Menu Music Gets Their Own Musical Tribute

January 25, 2019 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Videogame Menu Music Gets Their Own Musical Tribute Share this

If you’re a fan of menu music in video games or just have fond memories of that initial starting music you encounter upon boosting up your old cartridges & disks, Materia Collective has a new arrangement album project for you. MENU: An Homage to Game Title Themes features 52 arrangements paying tribute to menu themes across many fan-favorite video games big and small, including Final Fantasy, Overwatch, Celeste, Blue Dragon and a whole lot more.

“For many, opening and menu themes, along with their respective title cards, trigger a great sense of nostalgia. All of these themes are composed and designed with a sense of beginning, acting as gateways towards something bigger. Specifically, we want to encapsulate the feeling of when you first played a game, be it playing a videogame for the very first time or picking up any game for the first time.” – Monica Wang and Ben Wallace, Album Producers

<a href="http://materiacollective.bandcamp.com/album/menu-an-homage-to-game-title-themes">MENU: An Homage to Game Title Themes by Josué Ferreira de Oliveira</a>

A massive amount of artists and performers contributed to the album, including Reven, Sean Schafianski, Michael Hoffman, John Robert Matz and more. You can check out the entire track listing and credits on the Materia Collective page for the album.

MENU: An Homage to Game Title Themes is currently available on Bandcamp, iTunes and streaming on Spotify.
Doujin, Game Music

Take a Trip Through the Lore of Majora’s Mask with Children of Termina

December 6, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | 1 Comment Share this

Why subject yourself to the drones of Christmas music when you could immerse yourself in the arrangements of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask instead? Arranger Rozen (Sins of Hyrule, Ballads of Hyrule) continues to bring the Legend of Zelda power with his newest offering Children of Termina.

The album delves into the lore of Majora’s Mask, which features a darker tone than previous Zelda games and that Rozen decided to reflect with the music of the album. Featuring 17 tracks, the G.A.N.G. award-winning arranger collaborated with Materia Collective and also brought on an impressive roster of live performers and star collaborators, including The Sofia Session Orchestra in Bulgaria, Julie Elven, Celica Soldream, and Reven.

For the next installment in my Hyrule series, I wanted to explore the parallel world of Termina and its lore. There’s so much beauty found in darkness and mystery, even at the final moments of one’s existence. I wanted to capture all the feelings in the hearts of the people of Termina when they’re looking up at the falling moon, one last time, before facing extinction: love, solitude, despair, acceptance. It is my wish that you join me in this unsettling but emotional journey in the lands below Hyrule, and feel the same desperate need to heal the world as Link did. – Rozen, Album Arranger & Producer

<a href="http://music.rozen.audio/album/children-of-termina">Children of Termina by Rozen</a>

Children of Termina is currently available for digital purchase or CD on Bandcamp, and will also ship on a limited deluxe edition 2xLP vinyl that will include alternate artwork with purple foil, foil-stamped numbering, a sheet music memento, an autograph by Rozen, and more. You can check out more about the album on the Materia Collective website.
Doujin, Game Music

OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears by Materia Collective Available in December

November 30, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears by Materia Collective Available in December Share this

If you’re like me and you get a bit too sick of holiday and season music before the month of December even hits, even as it relates to video game music, then you’ll be in luck as of next week. Materia Collective and a slew of artists and musicians have created a huge tribute album to the music of one of Squaresoft’s most well-known Playstation games, Xenogears, just in time for us humbuggers to flock to.

OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears is a 44 track super album featuring a bevy of artists new and old contributing to the memory of Yasunori Mitsuda’s soundtrack to the Squaresoft RPG; artists including Dale Noth, zYko, Lauren the Flute, Videri String Quartet and a lot more (including former OSV editor Michael Hoffman). Xenogears Original Soundtrack was released on March 1st, 1998 spread across two discs. The music of Xenogears covers numerous styles, including Celtic, Arabic, folk, and religious and the new tribute album works to further that diversity courtesy of album producer Chris Porter.

For OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears, the Materia Collective community came together in full force to pay tribute to one of the finest RPG soundtracks ever made. Over 130 arrangers, musicians, vocalists, lyricsts, mixing engineers, mastering engineers, translators, and engravers worked together to cover all 44 tracks from the original soundtrack. OMEGA features a diverse range of instrumentation and styles, from solo piano to full orchestra; guitar and mandolin duet to an enormous choir just to name a few. We put our hearts and souls into this album, and we hope we have made a fitting tribute to a soundtrack that has meant so much to so many people since it was released twenty years ago.

<a href="http://materiacollective.bandcamp.com/album/omega-a-tribute-to-xenogears">OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears by Fredrik Häthén</a>

OMEGA: A Tribute to Xenogears is currently available for pre-order on Bandcamp and will be fully released to the platform, as well as presumably iTunes, Spotify and more, on December 7th.
Doujin, Game Music

FamilyJules to Release Album of Metal Arrangements of Octopath Traveler Music

October 16, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on FamilyJules to Release Album of Metal Arrangements of Octopath Traveler Music Share this

Let it never be forgotten that Square Enix games tend to have soundtracks that inspire a lot of musicians and artists in the video game field, and certainly the arrangement communities. Jules Conroy, aka. FamilyJules7x is one such musician whose penchant for taking melodic VGM and turning it into rocking remixes has gained him some measure of distinction. Sure enough, he’s taken a significant portion of the soundtrack to Square Enix’s most recent offering, Octopath Traveler, and given it the rock/metal treatment in his soon-to-be release The Eightfold Road: Metal Arrangements from Octopath Traveler.

The two-disc album takes from composer Yasunori Nishiki’s compositions for Octopath Traveler and gives them full metal, rock and acoustic arrangements while staying true to the source material.

<a href="http://familyjules7x.bandcamp.com/album/the-eightfold-road-metal-arrangements-from-octopath-traveler">The Eightfold Road: Metal Arrangements from Octopath Traveler by FamilyJules</a>

The Eightfold Road: Metal Arrangements from Octopath Traveler is currently for pre-order on Bandcamp and will release October 28th.
Doujin, Game Music

GameChops Releases “Zelda & Chill” Legend of Zelda Hip Hop Album

September 20, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on GameChops Releases “Zelda & Chill” Legend of Zelda Hip Hop Album Share this

The “Netflix and Chill” meme has now permeated VGM culture, ladies and gentlemen. German beat-maker Mikel and mastered by Philadelphia based Dj CUTMAN have released hip-hop album Zelda & Chill, which features 14 Zelda themes from the across the whole Legend of Zelda series history.

Featuring compositions from Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi, Hajime Wakai, Takeshi Hama, Manaka Kataoka, and Yasuaki Iwata, Zelda & Chill contains music from the original Legend of Zelda for NES all the way up to Breath of the Wild, including fan-favorites such as “Gerudo Valley”, “Song of Storms” and “Lost Woods” plus more. These tracks were recreated with classic keyboard sounds, atmospheric synths and laid back beats, the perfect soundtrack to study, have on in your office or, well, just chill to.

<a href="http://music.gamechops.com/album/zelda-chill">Zelda & Chill by Mikel & GameChops</a>

Zelda & Chill is available digitally worldwide, it can be streamed on Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music, and downloaded from iTunes, Play, Amazon and more. http://smarturl.it/zeldachill
Doujin, Game Music

Huge Majora’s Mask Tribute Album Releases May 25th

May 23, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Huge Majora’s Mask Tribute Album Releases May 25th Share this

When it comes to the music of The Legend of Zelda series, the opinions of what is the best soundtrack can be as divisive as which game itself is the best. The second of the Nintendo 64 games, Majora’s Mask, tends to be high up on the list of older titles along with A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. Despite this, it’s soundtrack gets less spotlight, or at least it did until now.

The gang over at Materia Collective have put together a huge homage to the game with FATE: A Tribute to Majora’s Mask. Featuring 79 tracks in total and a host of arrangers (including former OSV editor Michael Hoffman), the album is an “eclectic mix of genres and styles that reflect the tone of the original soundtrack”.

Majora’s Mask is known for being a wildly different, yet powerful, addition to the Legend of Zelda series. Both the game and the soundtrack have had a profound effect on our lives, which is why we chose to pay tribute to it in this large-scale collaboration with other fans and members of the VGM community. This game in particular stands out to us because, more than any game in the franchise preceding it and following it, Majora’s Mask dealt with the positive and negative issues that human beings face every day as well as in major moments in life – grief, death, the inevitable passage of time, fear, rejection, and temptation, but also friendship, reconciliation, perseverance, justice, hope, and love. – Bandcamp Page

<a href="http://materiacollective.bandcamp.com/album/fate-a-tribute-to-majoras-mask">FATE: A Tribute to Majora’s Mask by David Russell</a>

The album is separated into three distinct parts that convey different themes present within the game itself and reflected in it’s music and sets the listener up for a varied experience, left open to interpretation. Including individual arrangers and established artists alike, the album hopes to invoke all that Majora’s Mask has to tell its fans within it’s music.

FATE: A Tribute to Majora’s Mask will release, May 25th to Bandcamp and is currently available for pre-order through Materia Collective.

Edit: There was a correction made to the release date, from the 24th to the 25th.
Doujin, Game Music

Orchestral Album Ballads of Hyrule Now Available for Pre-order

April 26, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Orchestral Album Ballads of Hyrule Now Available for Pre-order Share this

Late last year, arranger Rozen chronicled the mythology of The Legend of Zelda games through the music of the Sins of Hyrule album. Now almost half a year later, Rozen is following up with an orchestral companion album to further whet your musical whistle.

Ballads of Hyrule is a 15 track album that includes several fan-favorite tracks from across the series, such as “Song of Storms” and “Zelda’s Lullaby” from Ocarina of Time, “Ballad of the Windfish” from Link’s Awakening, “Outset Island” and “Dragon Roost Island” from Wind Waker, and “Kass’s Theme” from Breath of the Wild. Taking these memorable themes and more, the album puts a majestic spin on the music of The Legend of Zelda game series.

“Ballads of Hyrule is the spiritual antithesis to Sins of Hyrule. The goal is to draw you into the more contemplative side of the lands of Hyrule; a nocturnal walk that feeds on the gifts left by the three goddesses: Nayru, Farore and Din, captured in nature.” – Rozen, Album Producer

<a href="http://music.rozen.audio/album/ballads-of-hyrule">Ballads of Hyrule by Rozen</a>

Ballads of Hyrule drops on May 1 in digital, CD and vinyl formats and is currently available for pre-order on Bandcamp. The vinyl release will be limited to 500 copies, so enthusiasts are encouraged to act soon after the album releases.