If you’re still on the fence about GameChop’s latest release — bLiNd’s Chozo Legacy tribute to Super Metroid — and our own review hasn’t swayed you, maybe some free tracks will. GameChop has just released Chozo Legacy: Free Missions on Bandcamp offering four tracks from the full album for whatever price you’d like to pay, including $0.00. The four songs are embedded below and when you’re ready for more you can pick up the full album for $10 on Loudr.
More goodness from virt and Ubiktune hot off their big wins in our OSVOSTOTY 2011 Awards. Jake Kaufman will be releasing the fourth installment in his popular FX series on March 1st on the Ubiktune label, with a pre-release listening party to take place beforehand on Noise Channel. TrueStar and virt will be talking about the album at length on the program before playing it live in its entirety and making it available to the public on Ubiktune and Bandcamp.
Oh, and you have to read this story setup for FX4, which is apparently a prequel to the events of FX3 (I never even knew these albums told a story… I just loved the music!):
“It concerns the loss of an experimental superweapon at sea, during a future war. Decades later it is recovered by a team of scientists, and restored to working condition. An aircraft which creates space-time anomalies, its use has unforeseen consequences, such as allowing a gay time-travelling vampire (FX3’s antihero) to cross into our universe. FX4 is written in FamiTracker using only 2A03 sounds, and contains 9 songs packed with loving detail.”
Sounds good to me! What do you think? Are you looking forward to the release of FX4 next week?
You may not remember our coverage of Josh “Darkhalo” Barnett in the past. We covered his release Phase Shift in addition to hosting a lengthy interview with the demoscene legend (he hates being called that, which makes it all the more fun), and he’s just put out an brand new album titled A Million Drops. While the million reasons to check it out may be an exaggeration, the I can think of at least thirteen reasons (hint: there are thirteen tracks), and an additional one is that it’s entirely free.
Interestingly, Barnett calls the album more of a compilation of tracks written around the same time as opposed to an album with any sort of theme, but I think the pieces all fit together pretty well. A brief ambient opener titled “Nightfall” eases you into another dimension where dreamy soundscapes are paired with funky basslines and subdued drum ‘n’ bass-style percussion. Many of tracks including the funky “Lost Memory” and the aptly titled “Another Rainy Saturday” with raindrop-like percussion make great use of repetition, mesmerizing and weaving dream-like atmospheres while you’ll chill out with “Rei” and “Low Light Affection,” bop your head to “Fading Inexorably,” and smile to with the incredibly playful “TMGC Carabiner.” Darkhalo also gets back into the drum ‘n’ bass that the’s known for, but still retains the overall atmosphere with the dark and lengthy “Ash Rain,” the highly electronic “Neuromancer,” and the icy “Wintermute.” And it’s all wonderfully produced; it’s unfair just how multi-talented some people are (Barnett is also a talented graphic artist and web designer as you can see from his website).
The album’s available for free on the aforementioned website along with lots of other music, so check it out and let us know what you think. Is this the perfect music for a cold rainy day, or perhaps for any time?
Earlier this month we mentioned the first single by a new group started by E.S. Posthumus’s Helmut Vonlichten called Les Friction. Now the group is offering a second downloadable song for free from their upcoming debut album, which we’ve now been told will be released less than a month from now on January 24, 2012. The new downloadable track is the title song for the album, Louder Than Words. But the news gets better, as the group will be releasing a third free song, “Here Comes The Reign,” about a week before the album drops.
“Louder Than Words” starts out with singing reminiscent of something you’d hear in a Queen or Styx piece, but the epic sound familiar to E.S. Posthumus fans soon joins in. At times, it feels a bit like “Unstoppable” from the E.S. Posthumus Makara album, but with an additional type of emotion on account of the vocals. As was written in our previous article about Les Friction, the lyrics really do add to the complexity and potential awesomeness of the sound created by E.S. Posthumus, and with this new song, we’re very amped to get this album in our hands.
To hear both of the downloadable Les Friction songs, visit their site, click the “Get it Now” button and enter your email address. This will get you the songs and also sign you up for news about their third single when it’s released.
Based on what you’ve heard from this new group, are you as excited as us for this album? Do you think the vocals add or detract from the now-classic ‘E.S. Posthumus sound?’
We’re huge fans of Justin Lassen’s work, and it just so happens that he recently was tasked with scoring the iOS title, Herbert. As the colorful artwork above would suggest, the game is pretty strange, and Lassen does a perfect job capturing the vibrant and playful essence of the title and its visuals with his soundtrack.
While the 12-track album is electronic in nature, it’s pretty eclectic in terms of the territory it covers with quirky yet bubbly pieces flanking either end and heavier electronica found within the album’s middle. I was immediately drawn to “Good Things Fly By” with its playful belltone backing paired with rhythmic bongos and exotic sitar melody, the steel drums in “Infatuation With Cheese,” and the dark and gurgling “A Bad Night” with its overdriven synth lines and punchy percussion. “Pervert Intelligence” also has a sort of alternative rock vibe going for it with some guitar work.
In all, it’s some wonderfully produced music and it’s available for a free download, so head over to Justin Lassen’s blog entry on Herbert and give it a listen.
Kunal mentioned in his review of LA Scoring Strings a few weeks back that strings are particularly challenging to recreate in a synthesized environment. Well, if you’re like me and prefer to use synthesized sounds, you’ve probably heard of Omnisphere, Spectrasonics’ flagship soft synth (or ‘Power Synth,’ as they refer to it).
While Dale reviewed the original release of Omnisphere a couple years ago, Spectrastonics recently launched version 1.5, offering more sounds and capabilities, so I thought I’d take a stab at this beast, and have even written two tracks using the software for your listening pleasure.
Hit the jump for our full review of Omnisphere v1.5! (more…)
Huh, this one really snuck right by us. We were huge fans of the first de Blob game and it’s stellar soundtrack composed by John Guscott. With de Blob 2, however, THQ has seemingly released the game as a budget title in the United States without much fanfare. It’s quite a shame, as we would have loved to have done more with the game and it’s soundtrack prior to the game’s release.
The good news is, however, that GameSpot and IGN Australia have been doing their part to keep up with the game, and are each hosting free music from the game for you to download. Over on GameSpot’s videogame music blog, Sound Byte, you can download the game’s soundtrack in it’s entirety for FREE. They’re in .wav format, so be prepared for a lengthy download. Click here to check that out. Over on IGN Australia, there’s a special live set medley recording performed by John Guscott and some session players at a de Blob 2 launch event which you can grab here.
Pretty cool all around. I liked the physical disc that was released with the first game as a purchase bonus from certain retailers, but you can’t beat free, I suppose. Get over there, download the music, and let us know what you think!
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