MoNACA

Game Music

NieR Live Piano Event: Performances and Tidbits (Report)

March 22, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this

Square Enix has been hosting a ton of live USTREAM events lately. First there was the SQ Party concerts celebrating the SQ series and NieR, then the Piano Opera Final Fantasy IV/V/VI interview and preview just a week or two ago.

Earlier this week, to kick off the release of Piano Collections NieR, Square Enix again held an event featuring team members from MoNACA and arranger/performer Kumi Tanioka performing a couple pieces from the album and talking at length about it and the original NieR soundtrack.

Read our brief report after the jump. (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

NieR and Dear to Our Hearts: Piano Collections NieR (Review)

March 19, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this

After hearing Keigo Hoashi’s piano arrangements from the 15 Nightmares & Arrange Tracks album, I think everyone had the desire for a NieR piano collections CD tucked away in the back of their minds. When we were told there was a secret NieR project in the works to be released after NieR Tribute Album -echo-, I know several people, myself included, suspected that it may be a piano arrange album. And here it is!

Eleven tracks, five arrangers, and four performers later, has it been worth the wait?

Hit the jump for more. (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

Worth the Wait: NieR Tribute Album -echo- (Review)

September 14, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 2 Comments Share this

While Square Enix claims to have known they had a hit on their hands with the NieR soundtrack, I’m still skeptical (even we were surprised!), but I’m happy they’re finally releasing more music from the world of NieR. This album was announced earlier this year, much to the delight of fans, and there’s yet another NieR album in the works that hasn’t been announced yet.

While I joked about this album being a NieR SQ album of sorts, this may actually be an accurate description, although I think you’ll find that the content is much more focused. With twelve tracks featuring twelve different artists, do we actually get a fitting tribute to this amazing soundtrack with –echo-?

Find out in our review after the jump! (more…)
Featured, Game Music, Reviews

Arranagements from NieR and Far: 15 Nightmares & Arrange Tracks (Review)

December 1, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this

Well, this is certainly one of my most anticipated albums of the year. Most of us here at OSV absolutely adore the NieR soundtrack and vocalist Emi Evans’s distinct vocal stylings that made the soundtrack what it is. And that’s not to discredit the composition team over at MoNACA either, as they also performed wonderfully.

What we have here are several tracks from the 15 Nightmares DLC pack along with new arrangements of some of the music from the original soundtrack. We’ve known for quite some time that Emi Evans was not directly involved with new recordings on the arrange album, so I admit I was a bit skeptical, but given the quality of the source material, there’s no way that MoNACA could go wrong with this one, right?

Well, find out whether this album lives up to expectations in our review after the jump. (more…)
Featured, Game Music, Interviews

Deep into NieR: Interview With Vocalist and Lyricist Emi Evans

May 4, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 29 Comments Share this

It’s not very often that we get to highlight a vocalist on OSV. We’ve already gushed a lot about the NieR RepliCant & Gestalt Soundtrack that was released in Japan last month, and a big part of what made that soundtrack so great was emotional vocal stylings of Emi Evans. I’ve been obsessing over the made-up languages she created for NieR over the past few weeks, and we’ve finally been given the opportunity to discuss with her at length her work on NieR.

From her interactions with MoNACA composer Keiichi Okabe, last-minute deadlines, in-depth details on most of the game’s vocal tracks, her favorite tracks on the album, her relationship to Sekaiju no MeiQ 2 Super Arrange Album vocalist Rebecca Evans, and her work with Hiroyuki Muneta as a part of a duo called freescape, Emi Evans tells all. If her touching music hadn’t made a huge fan of me, this interview certainly would have.

Check out our all-encompassing interview with vocalist and lyricist Emi Evans after the jump! (more…)
Game Music, Reviews

Square Enix at its Best: NieR Gestalt & Replicant Soundtrack (Review)

April 26, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 15 Comments Share this

While Square Enix’s NieR Gestalt will be out in the United States this week (simply titled NieR), I admit I haven’t been following it until now. The two versions of the game (Gestalt on the Xbox 360 and Replicant on the PlayStation 3) are essentially the same game with a protagonist swap in the Gestalt version to appeal to a Western audience, as it will be the only version to come to the United States.

This strange release strategy along with the fact that I haven’t been reading much about the game has created somewhat of a shroud of mystery around the game in my mind. This sense of something new and foreign is even further enhanced by the fact that the score was handled by a team of ex-Namco composers headed by Keiichi Okabe under the studio name of MoNACA along with Takafumi Nishimura from Cavia rather than Square Enix’s internal audio team.

Get ready for something new and completely different from a Square Enix soundtrack. Hit the jump for our review of the NieR Gestalt & Replicant Original Soundtrack, and get ready for something good! (more…)