I’ve had really high hopes for Café SQ. I loved Chill SQ, although my major complaint was that it was too short. While it was formally announced even before SQ Chips, I thought that perhaps this album was in trouble given that SQ Chips was released back in September but we still hadn’t seen Café SQ, but here it is.
True to its name, it features a lot jazz and other styles of music that would be appropriate for a café, although there are a few curve balls included as well. Does it live up to mine and many others’ expectations?
Okay, so that’s a stab at the naming convention of the SQ series, but also a comment about the album. SQ Chips has easily been the most anticipated SQ series album to date, and after seeing the track listing on the official website some weeks ago, I was super pumped about the album as well.
Now it’s out, and many of you have already listened to it. Does it live up to the hype? Is it the strongest SQ series album to date?
Find out what we think in our review after the jump. (more…)
We’ve covered the Songs for the Cure project in the past, and it’s that time of year again. For those who are unfamiliar, Songs for the Cure unites dozens of artists in the common goal of raising money for the American Cancer Society. This year, 40 artists are joining forces to produce 3 separate physical (and digital) albums in an attempt to raise $10,000 to help combat cancer.
Details have been announced as to who’s involved and how the music will be released. As mentioned, 40 artists are taking part this year, including a slew of indie game composers such as C418 (Minecraft), Danny Baranowsky (Super Meat Boy), and Josh Whelchel (GunGirl 2) to name a few, along with other composers and artists including Alexander Brandon, Jake Kaufman, souleye, A_Rival, Grant “stemage” Henry and many more. The music will be released as 3 separate albums available individually or bundled together. With the release date of March 29, 2011 right around the corner, you can head over and preorder now and check out their preview on YouTube here.
Hit the jump for the official press release with more details. (more…)
The SQ series from Square Enix has admittedly been pretty hit or miss. The first album, Love SQ featured an eclectic mix of 10 arrangements from a pretty varied list of Squaresoft titles, while Chill SQ tackled the chillout genre to great results. While the “X’mas album” wasn’t an SQ album in name, it was in spirit, and we’re now getting the third official installment of the SQ album, More SQ.
Have they perfected the formula by now, or is this album just more of the same? With 13 arrangements and the longest run-time of any of previous SQ albums, there’s certainly more to consider.
Yeah, I said it. I’m not very fond of the Ninja Gaiden reboots that have hit the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, and am still in love with the original trilogy that was released on the NES. Not only did the originals have frustratingly difficult level designs that were a lot of fun to master (with the horrible camera issues plaguing the recent releases not being a factor), but the music was absolutely stellar.
As it turns out, Japanese doujin circle earth Japan SOFT feels the same way, as they’ve decided to pay homage to the first game in the series with a fantastically produced arrange album covering some of the game’s most memorable themes. I thought it was time we finally get around to reviewing the album after it’s nomination for best doujin album of 2010 in our OSVOSTOTY 2010 Awards, so if you had no idea what this was before, you’re about to find out!
Hit the jump for a return to the “good stuff” in our review of Ninja Gaiden Steel Dragon / Beat Blade. (more…)
Well, it was 6 months between part 1 and part 2 of our “Meet Hyadain” series, but there’s been some big news recently, so we thought we’d get this next installment out to you rather fast-like. While Hyadain’s identity was always kept a secret, he recently revealed himself to be composer Kenichi Maeyamada (personal website here), a well-established composer of anime, videogames, and J-pop. He’s been at this for awhile (which makes sense given how amazing his arrangements are), but I found it interesting that he worked on One Piece as well as the arrangement of “525600min ~ Seasons of Love” from K’s Traveling Song album that we reviewed some time ago.
Although we now know his true identity, that shouldn’t stop us from highlighting his awesome YouTube arrangements of classic videogame music. This time we’re taking a look at the first Hyadain video I ever saw, which I was first shown at Dale North’s house a few years back, as is apparently his favorite Hyadain arrangement. I can’t say it’s my personal favorite, but the arrangement are lyrics are great as usual. Watch for more updates in the near future!
Are you surprised by Hyadain’s true identity? What do you think of the “Western Show” arrangement above?
We’ve been looking forward to the upcoming Super Mario Kart album from The OneUps as well as the Contra 4: Rocked N’Loaded album leading up to MAGFest. They were both supposed to go on sale at the event, and sadly, neither were available. So, where are they, and when can we expect to see them released?
We caught up with Mustin at MAGFest, and he assured us that with MAGFest out of the way, the Super Mario Kart album is their top priority. The band will apparently be working on it every weekend from here on out until it’s released. He was confident that it’d be available before the end of February. Regarding Contra 4: Rocked N’Loaded, we spoke with Snappleman at great length about the delay. The album is actually complete, but didn’t make it to the press in time for the show. It’s too bad that they missed MAGFest as a market for the album, but pre-sales are supposedly going quite well, so be sure to pre-order your copy soon. It will be out this month.
Are you looking forward to either of these albums? Were there any other MAGFest releases that you were looking forward to?
