If you thought Brave Wave Productions was only into releasing the soundtracks of Capcom titles, think again! The label has partnered up with SEGA in order to release vinyl copies of the soundtracks to Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 this winter!
Both double-LP collections will feature music chosen by Sonic series composer Jun Senoue and will be completely remastered for vinyl. In addition, they will come in special edition first-print color variants, and include an extensive booklet filled with artwork and interviews with Senoue and Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka. With it being a year away until the 20th anniversary of Sonic Adventure‘s release to the Sega Dreamcast in 1998, the timing of the release is appropriate!
SONIC ADVENTURE OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK VINYL EDITION andSONIC ADVENTURE 2 OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK VINYL EDITION will be released this Winter, so keep eyes on the Brave Wave website for release details when they become available.
The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has evolved quite a bit since its emergence in the 90’s. I’m someone who always felt that the jump into 3d platforming was never a good move for the series. Regardless of that view, the one thing I will always say in favor of the Sonic the Hedgehog games is that they always have excellent music. The music of Sonic Adventure had some great pieces in particular, so for today’s Arrangement of the Week we’ll be examining a cover from that soundtrack.
This arrangement covers two tracks, “Bad Taste Aquarium” and “Red Barrage Area,” and features live performances by Peter Fernandes on keys, Richard Hallebeek on guitars, Shane Gaalaas on drums, Ric Fierabracci on bass, and Brett Garsed on guitar solos. The resulting arrangement is “Red Barrage Aquarium.”
The cover has a ton of energy which is helped in part by live performances on every instrument. The contributions from each musician helps build a mix and sound that is greater than the sum of its parts. There’s a good blend of rock, funk, and jazz elements that produces an original sound for the source material, while still sounding like it could easily fit into the areas of Sonic Adventure that the tracks are from.
A big nod has to go to keyboardist Peter Fernandes who also arranged and produced the cover. There’s also some wonderful solo work by Brett Garsed, who gets a good section of solo time starting around 2’19.” Even though the solo goes on for almost two minutes, it never feels out of place with the rest of the track. There’s nothing especially flashy, just a consistently chilled out funk vibe that permeates the whole track. Overall, it’s a great sounding studio arrangement, that featuring some great performances and captures the spirit of the Sonic Adventure games quite well.
Have you heard any good arrangements of music from the Sonic Adventure games? Let us know in the comments below. You can check out more from this group at OC ReMix.
A bit delayed due to the holiday, but we’re pushing on with our spotlights of female video game composers regardless of massive turkey feasting and subsequent food comas! (Hopefully you supplemented your coma with copious amounts of Playstation game music, as the PS1 is 20 years old as of today!)
This week I’m taking a look at another Japanese composer with significant ties to Sega’s past and an influence on it’s present: NiGHTS and Ristar composer, as well as lyricist and song writer, Tomoko Sasaki!
Tony Harnell, best known as the singer of the classic heavy metal band TNT, worked with SEGA’s Jun Senoue to provide vocals for the Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes games. As those soundtracks made extensive use of melodic rock heroes, Harnell could be heard singing the theme song for Sonic Adventure titled “It Doesn’t Matter” and alongside Ted Poley on “Escape from the City” and “We Can”. Though the songs proved to be very popular among the fans, Harnell would not return to provide vocals on any future Sonic titles after the release of Sonic Heroes in 2003.
It seems that Harnell is finally stepping back into the world of Sonic The Hedgehog yet again however. On February 16th, His official Facebook page posted an update about his current recording sessions and it seems that he is back working on a new version of the famous city level theme from SA2:
“Sang the new version of Escape From The City today w/Ted Poley for the SEGA game Sonic The Hedgehog:) Great seeing all the guys again today. Cheers, TH”
Since no further info was provided, it’s hard to say if it’s for an all new Sonic title or some kind of compilation CD. It is great to hear that he reunited with the old team and hopefully, we will see him appear more frequently as Harnell has one of the best vocal ranges in all of rock music.
Finally we’ve reached the end of the trio of albums released by Wave Master late last year based on the works of Jun Senoue. Earlier we took a look at both True Colors – The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 and THE WORKS which both offered both familiar favorites and retooled duds. But even with the occasional bad apple one thing remains a constant, Jun Senoue’s skills.
Therefore we saved the best for last in terms of his showcase of these talents with the review of The Best Of Crush 40: Super Sonic Songs, which is arguably the side of his works he’ll always be most famous for to game music fans. This CD as the title suggests collects the best so far from the hard rocking duo of Senoue and Johnny Gioeli. But is this a collection worth getting?
A few weeks ago, I did my first review of this series of albums which was released late last year over a small period of time. All 3 CDs features the different works and projects of Jun Senoue, one of SEGA’s most prolific composers and more or less the current Sonic The Hedgehog composer, as they have been bringing onto that series time and time again since Sonic 3 in the 90’s. As you saw in the review of Jun Senoue THE WORKS, he has worked all across the board at SEGA, working with AOR stars and Japanese idols and voice actresses, but nowadays he’s back working with Sonic on Sonic The Hedgehog 4, composing the soundtrack for the download title.
So it’s fitting we look at True Colors: The Best of Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2 today. It’s not exclusively a collection of Senoue’s work on the series, but a good chunk of what is featured is by him, and it was released in the album wave dedicated to his works. Sonic is somewhat of a sensitive subject for gamers, as fans either hate the games since it jumped ship to 3D or they dress up as Tails and defend every step Sonic takes in gaming. Let’s see if I will be wearing a furry suit by the end of this.
