How wonderfull! And how interesting...and kind of 1Q84...anyway, I am very good Tango, thank you so much! I do hope that you too are well aswell, also?? :D
I have been Mr. Incommunicado for a long time now, even though i try to be verbal, I just get really self-concious, even paranoid, so I usually stay in the background where i can simply observe, but I'm always lurking around somewhere on this wonderfull and magical thread. Much love and appreciation for all of you guys, from Norway :D

iTunes is fucking buggy even on my 100% loaded Retina Macbook Pro.. It doesn't even let me drag-and-drop a directory to play without adding it to the library. The UI lags so much when scrolling and even clicking. Not to mention the lack of FLAC support as well as shitty tagging mechanism. Good thing I have Windows installed for Foobar (my computing revolved around this software). Foobar by the way, just launched a kickstarter for bringing itself to mobile platforms.

I'm still searching for a nice alternative, but found a very simple player called Vox that doesn't have a library feature, but supports drag-and-drop. Frankly, I don't even have time to tag and manage my music, so I've been relying a lot on streaming. It's super kick-ass because all major and independent classical labels are represented, except Hyperion for example...

For Android, I would so use PowerAmp or Apollo Music player (which by the way, is so good at finding pictures of even obscure Japanese composers and doujin artists) if Google released its API for Play Music... I used to be very manual about media consumption but now, I just want it easy and convenient.

I use Winamp for all of my audio playing needs; I still don't understand the appeal of Foobar. For my video desires I lean towards VLC instead of MPC if only because as of late MPC doesn't have any sound.

Just for fun and I'm curious... What do you guys use to manage and play your media (audio & video)? I have been using Foobar for audio and MPV for video. For mobile, I'm tied to Google Play Music for Android since I heavily use its subscription-based streaming.
mpv (git tip) for video. mpd and cmus for audio. As crossfeed I use ladspa-bs2b in conjunction with pulseaudio.

I don't use MPC but only for testing purposes. The latest nightly from five days ago was perfectly functional. Think there was a bug about choosing a specific DirectSound device as your output or you won't get sound. This could be your issue.

.

thanks so much Herr Salat

Does anyone have the GC in Concert, PROMS: That's Sound, That's Rhythm, or Sinfonia Dramattica? They're all by the same producers. I've also been looking for the LEGENDS Stockholm Kirby piece.

I think it's safe to say Captain Earth is wiping the floor with Star Driver. The music in episode 2 is just great... there's something about it, I don't know what, that puts a smile on my face.

Daimidaler defies all explanation. I've picked up the show to watch, half out of amazement at how completely and utterly ludicrous it is, and half because I'm just loving the score. The orchestra may be small, but hell, it's real and the music is BIG... and the composer - a newbie - is happy to let the orchestra shine on its own where other composers may have been tempted to throw on the electronics. That said, there's a fun little "comedy" cue at the beginning of the second episode that mixes full orchestra with a deliberately dopey-sounding synth; it works beautifully. I think we may have one of the next great composers here. Assuming Japan keeps up with orchestral music, ten or twenty years from now this guy could be doing exceptional things.

Break Blade does indeed re-use the film score - who's surprised? Not me. It's great music, and although it's a shame we don't get brand new Hirano... I ain't complainin'. Bring on the CD release.

Edit: Soredemo is confusing me. Really, really confusing me. Sometimes the brass is obviously fake (6:00 in episode 2 - obvious EWQL is obvious) and sometimes I feel like it's real - the cue at the beginning of the episode for example. What the hell's going on?

Break Blade doesn't appear to be coming. Instead they're opting to put a soundtrack album as a bonus feature on the blu-ray box discs.

Lantis, the publisher, is known for pretty much always releasing soundtracks so it doesn't really make sense why they're doing this. With stuff like Nichijou and Hyouka, which they also produced, there was another company standing in their way but there's nothing like that with Break Blade.

Their loss, I guess. I would have bought a CD release.

ARRRRRRRGH... stupid idiots.

Composed by
KOICHI SUGIYAMA
THE VOYAGE OF
Little Sinbad
arranged & conducted by David Howell, Orchestra uncredited

Release Date: 28.08.1991
Publisher: Apollon
Catalog Number: APCE-5135



01. Overture (Song of the Sea Peoples) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80WEgvauzvg&t=1572)
02. Deep Diving
03. Theme of Youichi
04. Young Lady Makoto
05. Farewell
06. Voyage
07. Ocean Flute (Scramble)
08. Theme of Arif
09. On Deck
10. The Great Deep
11. Auto Racing (Scramble)
12. Arabia in Prayer
13. Wandering the Desert
14. Finale (Together and Apart) [Youichi & Arif BFF]

My wonky rip.

The tags are still in Japanese. Above is a wonky translation.

<hr>

FLAC + LOG + SCANS | 14 Tracks | 00:38:43 | 187 MB

FLAC
https://mega.co.nz/#!794WCZxK!PXv1sWpYjzE-ldK0PZvzL2wM2F7QaUCk5xBOxWIgt3Q

Very nice thanks! Always interested in hearing what Sugiyama can do outside of the usual contexts.

Also, I was wondering if anyone in this thread has gotten to the point of a large CD collection that they decided to put in a different package to keep things but save space. I may be the only one worrying about this because I may also be the only one who is married and thus having someone who doesn't have the same appreciation for the CDs as I do. But interestingly enough I found a good option that has room for the booklets and doesn't cost too much, some CD binders from a company called Slappa. Should make room for most of my stuff.

Readings
03: 陽一 = Youichi
04: 真琴 = Makoto


Thanks for this little-known Sugiyama soundtrack. Always nice to hear some of his non-Dragon Quest works.

Katsuro Tajima
The Warsaw Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Beautiful Katamari: Symphonic Suites



Download (https://mega.nz/#!38YgWDjY!mrOkCv11hCvXix0cqXeJYAvkVFMSuCiVNhMEA1JVGVU)

I. Movement - Welcome to the World of Katamari "Into an Adventure" (12:16)
II. Movement - The Great Calamity (14:00)
III. Movement - Mysteries of Damacy (6:30)
IV. Movement - Finale "The Evergrowing World" (5:54)
Ballad of the Journey Home (4:32)
March of Razgriz (3:33)

This is the quintessential score to marvel at the japanese. A truely weird and crazy game (even for japanese standards of crazy!) from 2005 got a score so serious and larger than life to make even Lair jealous. Namco spared no expenses, send a skilled composer over to Warsaw and you know ... another miracle happened. I put it in the same league as Afrika, MediEvil Resurrection, Primal, Hana ki Sou, Outcast and Age of Pirates etc. Given the symphonic nature of the score, I rearranged it with a typical four part symphonic structure in mind. The II. Movement is a must listen for any fan of Big Orchestral Action Music :D. Also the last movement is just glorious heroic music that just puts a smile on my face. That said, not all is original (Tchaikovsky is credited on the booklet afterall). Regardless, this is as good as a warsaw score gets. A real shame Tajima is not more prolific. He was also responsible for the warsaw tracks of Ace Combat 5 (as an arranger for Keiki Kobayashi) which I also included. I would really love to hear more from him but as of now, his score for Katamari and his contributions to Ace Combat remain a miracle.

Enjoy to your hearts content

This album may interest some of you.


Ginga Sengoku Gunyuuden Rai Symphonic Suite (http://vgmdb.net/album/26928)

KOW OTANI & TOSHIYUKI WATANABE


MARTIAL | ADVENTURE | DRAMATIC

FLAC (http://dfiles.eu/files/fvn5jor0u)
MP3 (http://dfiles.eu/files/lms0kvo8f)

More than anything is a little oddity, nothing extraordinary per se (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/rare-treats-vol-5-ginga-sengoku-gunyuuden-171494/#post2642538). Anyway, if you want to experience the savoir-faire of Toshiyuki Watanabe with an orchestra and the eccentricities of Kow Otani's style, this is your chance.

This album may interest some of you.


Ginga Sengoku Gunyuuden Rai Symphonic Suite (http://vgmdb.net/album/26928)

KOW OTANI & TOSHIYUKI WATANABE


MARTIAL | ADVENTURE | DRAMATIC

FLAC (http://dfiles.eu/files/fvn5jor0u)
MP3 (http://dfiles.eu/files/lms0kvo8f)

More than anything is a little oddity, nothing extraordinary per se (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/rare-treats-vol-5-ginga-sengoku-gunyuuden-171494/#post2642538). Anyway, if you want to experience the savoir-faire of Toshiyuki Watanabe with an orchestra and the eccentricities of Kow Otani's style, this is your chance.Thank you for sharing this! What an interesting collaboration!

Does anyone have Beethoven's 9 symphonies, as conducted by Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonic Orchestra? I already have 5 and 8, but the others would be great.

Also, I was wondering if anyone in this thread has gotten to the point of a large CD collection that they decided to put in a different package to keep things but save space. I may be the only one worrying about this because I may also be the only one who is married and thus having someone who doesn't have the same appreciation for the CDs as I do. But interestingly enough I found a good option that has room for the booklets and doesn't cost too much, some CD binders from a company called Slappa. Should make room for most of my stuff.

I'm not quite there yet but CDs have been slowly cluttering my room - doesn't help that I live in a small apartment. I have been refraining from buying as much since I continually realize how I never look at these CDs once they are ripped. While I think physical media should be as good as dead, I don't get the satisfaction of ownership without possessing those cumbersome discs; digital purchases leave me pretty empty. It's a dilemma...

Yeah i kind of just throw my CDs all over the place once i'm done with them but recently it's become quite the eyesore. I kind of wanna buy a proper CD stand so I can actually organize them and they don't end up on the floor only to get stepped on. I just keep putting it off though because i know it's going to be a huge pain.
I'm already closing in on close to 150.

I totally understand the physical thing too Akashi. There is no better feeling than getting those goosebumps when the package you've been waiting for so long comes in the mail. It's a special feeling that I don't think one can understand until they get into such a hobby. Though it's a pain sometimes i've come to enjoy the process that i go through when i get them. Scanning always sucks though unless the artwork is pleasant and not just lazy black and white pages (I hate that crap!).

Yeah i kind of just throw my CDs all over the place once i'm done with them but recently it's become quite the eyesore.
...
I totally understand the physical thing too Akashi. There is no better feeling than getting those goosebumps when the package you've been waiting for so long comes in the mail. It's a special feeling that I don't think one can understand until they get into such a hobby. Though it's a pain sometimes i've come to enjoy the process that i go through when i get them.I have a similar issue with my imported CDs. I have only kept a handful of my soundtrack jewel cases & booklets, and the rest of the CDs are in leather-bound book-shaped binders. If I had more shelf space, I wouldn't throw any of the booklets away, but every time I move to a new apartment, I invariably end up chucking a handful of them. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my latest overseas purchase, and I plan to preserve every little leaflet that comes with it!

Update #76: Music in Pillars of Eternity - Pillars of Eternity: Announcements and News - Obsidian Forum Community (http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66060-update-76-music-in-pillars-of-eternity/)

Obsidian just put out an update talking about the music from Pillars of Eternity, which was their Baldur's Gate inspired RPG that was Kickstarted a few years ago. The composer, Justin Bell, talks about his inspirations (Bach, Poledouris, Williams, classical stuff in general), how he goes about working, and the actual techniques he implements when it comes to writing digital music. We also got the first cue from the score, and it is really quite good.

For anyone looking forward to Destiny, composer Martin O'Donnell posted on his Twitter today that Bungie fired him without cause earlier this week.

For anyone looking forward to Destiny, composer Martin O'Donnell posted on his Twitter today that Bungie fired him without cause earlier this week.That is disappointing news. He is a VG composer I look to for inspiration with my own compositions. I wonder if any unreleased Destiny music will surface at all.

I highly doubt O'Donnell's music will not be in Destiny. Chances are his music is recorded and already implemented in the game. I would not be at all surprised that the game was content complete at this point.

I find it awful how Bungie treated him considering he has been a loyal employee for many years now. The Halo Theme is iconic. O'Donnell deserves better treatment than what he got. I hope Destiny still has his music, but they have enough time left to get a completely new person to helm the effort.

On the positive side, anyone listen to John Powell's score to Rio 2? I find it a vast improvement upon the preceding score. The themes are more fleshed out and the score as a whole is charming. I love the Latin touches to some of the tracks and the subdued beauty of the more mellow offerings. This really gets me excited for his coming score for How To Train Your Dragon 2.

I think I found the worst classical album cover of all time



What' surprising is this apparently features good performances.

For anyone looking forward to Destiny, composer Martin O'Donnell posted on his Twitter today that Bungie fired him without cause earlier this week.

WOW thats news to me, WHAT!!!!! the people at VG are insane for a composer who's made video games give the feels and eargasmic emotion including the Halo series he almost composed the whole music for its one of the resons i buy the game :(

Uh, yes...

I can honestly say the O'Donnell news affects me precisely zero. I have never heard a single note of music from him that's interested me, and in any case, it's not like he's dead or retired; he's just been dismissed from a role the like of which are quite unfashionable these days; game producers don't want to be tied to "the music guy" - they want to hire the person they want. Composers freelancing mean they get to take the projects that interest them (as opposed to being a staff composer; don't like the next game they're doing? Tough shit - it's your job, get working on the score) and producers get freedom in their choice of composer.

If they like the guy and he does good work for them then that won't change; you can bet they'll still use him. As will other producers.

This is good news for his fans and good news for him. Maybe not since he's decided to air his dirty laundry in public... but there you go... ;)

Herr: THANK YOU for Sinbad! What a delightful score, and you're right about that theme; simple on paper, but in your mind anything but. Sugiyama's melodic genius very much in evidence... :D

Kanyenda: That Otani / Watanabe album is really something! I don't disagree that Watanabe is overall the superior musician, but Otani's pieces are very interesting and listenable. He buries his themes a little deeper (oddly enough, that's always been something that bothered me peripherally about Watanabe - too much theme, not enough of the "other" stuff) and you have to work a little harder to enjoy them... but they're very rewarding. Thank you!

Very nice thanks! Always interested in hearing what Sugiyama can do outside of the usual contexts.

Also, I was wondering if anyone in this thread has gotten to the point of a large CD collection that they decided to put in a different package to keep things but save space. I may be the only one worrying about this because I may also be the only one who is married and thus having someone who doesn't have the same appreciation for the CDs as I do. But interestingly enough I found a good option that has room for the booklets and doesn't cost too much, some CD binders from a company called Slappa. Should make room for most of my stuff.

I had storage space issues years ago with all my CDs adding up. I eventually put them in sleeves like you're talking about, but that doesn't last long. One iTunes was introduced i started ripping all my discs and ended up putting all my CDs in boxes and moving them to storage, where they've been buried ever since. Luckily i found this place and have been able to upgrade the bulk of my collection from the crappy bitrates i initially ripped them with. It would take way to much effort to try and dig them all out at this point (there's tons of other boxes, furniture, and now baby stuff stacked on top of and in front of them all). I need a bigger house for my family but we're a bit stuck because of the whole housing market crash in '08. Anyway, yeah, it's a big problem. I've started digitizing movies as well so i can get all of those out of the house as well.

I feel the storage pain, too. It's an issue I've been wrestling with for almost twenty years. My CD collection is now in the range of a few thousand - I haven't counted them recently because frankly I'm too scared to find out the true number. Add to that a few hundred LPs, a few hundred cassettes, a few dozen shellac albums, and two boxes of "loose" shellac... And that's only the music - don't even get me started on DVDs and video tapes.

Something has to give, and soon. I admit that my collection is a source of pride, and I do like to display it - or at least some of it. It is becoming harder and harder to manage. I've contemplated tossing the jewel cases and putting the discs, sleeves, and booklets in binders as Sirusjr suggested - it might come to that. At least they're accessible. The alternative (boxing them all up and putting them in storage) is both a) prohibitively expensive, and b) obviously fails the "display" test.

As much as I'd love to give up on physical product and go 100% digital... I LIKE THINGS, I like physical media. I enjoy the transaction - I do physical labour (ie, work) and earn money. I give some of that money away and get a physical thing in return - a CD, an LP, whatever. I like to be able to look at a shelf full of great music; it makes me feel better when I look in my bank account and wonder where all my money went! ;)

I've already gone and sold/gave away/recycled the majority of my game and DVD collection so I am mostly left with CDs to clear out. Still some books and manga I need to get rid of at some point but they aren't too much of a problem. By the way if anyone is interested in buying a full set of Death Note (Manga) send me a PM. I can work out a good price for them. It helps that there is a book-off nearby I can unload tons of stuff to and let them deal with it. Even though they don't pay much it is still worth avoiding the hassle of selling or giving it away.

I have about 360 CDs right now. Thankfully the download bug caught me before the CD buying bug and so I haven't ended up amassing a huge amount of music like other collectors. Most of them will fit in the sleeves I ordered and I may end up selling some video game soundtracks sometime. I only bother keeping the really good albums and other ones I just toss or sell. No point in a collection that has some stuff I never listen to.

I feel the storage pain, too. It's an issue I've been wrestling with for almost twenty years. My CD collection is now in the range of a few thousand - I haven't counted them recently because frankly I'm too scared to find out the true number. Add to that a few hundred LPs, a few hundred cassettes, a few dozen shellac albums, and two boxes of "loose" shellac... And that's only the music - don't even get me started on DVDs and video tapes.

Something has to give, and soon. I admit that my collection is a source of pride, and I do like to display it - or at least some of it. It is becoming harder and harder to manage. I've contemplated tossing the jewel cases and putting the discs, sleeves, and booklets in binders as Sirusjr suggested - it might come to that. At least they're accessible. The alternative (boxing them all up and putting them in storage) is both a) prohibitively expensive, and b) obviously fails the "display" test.

As much as I'd love to give up on physical product and go 100% digital... I LIKE THINGS, I like physical media. I enjoy the transaction - I do physical labour (ie, work) and earn money. I give some of that money away and get a physical thing in return - a CD, an LP, whatever. I like to be able to look at a shelf full of great music; it makes me feel better when I look in my bank account and wonder where all my money went! ;)

I agree, storage is expensive. I wouldn't have it if i didn't have to. As soon as i can get a house I'll say bye-bye to the storage. And good riddance. So many of my good books are stowed away - stuff is love to have on shelves again, but our place is too small now that we have a kid.

Luckily for me, i don't feel the need to possess physical copies of media. I've got tons of it but I'll be more than willing to get rid of it when i get the chance. For me the music itself is the thing. As long as i can listen to it, I'm good. I appreciate all the liner notes and stuff, but they're not absolutely essential, especially when you can find most of that info on the Internet these days.

I feel the storage pain, too. It's an issue I've been wrestling with for almost twenty years. My CD collection is now in the range of a few thousand - I haven't counted them recently because frankly I'm too scared to find out the true number. Add to that a few hundred LPs, a few hundred cassettes, a few dozen shellac albums, and two boxes of "loose" shellac... And that's only the music - don't even get me started on DVDs and video tapes.



How long have you been collecting music tango? To have over 1,000 you've been at it for at the very least 10 years i'd guess xP.

I pretty much started a little over a year ago.

Oof... I'll answer that question with a picture, if I may:



Tangotreats, June 1985. ;) In the background is my grandma's old (1958) record player which I was somewhat in love with. When I was about seven, my grandparents bought a new Hi-fi and I inherited that old wooden monstrosity. It was on the brink of catching fire pretty permanently, but it kept on going.

I actually started my collection in late 1994, so just shy of twenty years. Fuck, I feel old. The vinyl collection was bigger up until around 2001-2002 but was quickly overtaken by CDs when I started working. Those were the days, of Virgin Megastore, Tower, and HMV... all gone now. Amazon's great and everything... I guess you had to be there.

The first track from Desplat's Godzilla has leaked - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUcfO25Y4Po

Thanks for posting, Sunderella, Very Good build up! But, there IS a bit of static in there...Just saying. ;) Maybe it wasn't mixed and mastered, yet? Hopefully, the final product won't have static in the back and hopefully the Score will be promising! I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Desplat, but, what I can say is this: I really like how the song sounds. :)

In other news, Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata will be composing the Soundtrack for a Game called "Saga of Ishtaria", have a look and listen and tell me what you guys think? ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-JL9MAU-SU

That Godzilla sample definitely sounds good even for Desplat. It seems he listened to Akira Ikufube when writing the music which is definitely a good thing.

Whenever I hear that Sakimoto and Iwata are teaming up, I can't help but get excited. Although I am still waiting for a full orchestral Sakimoto score as in no synth. Although the music in the link is nice and bombastic.

I hear ya Tango. I'm just like you. Only have a few LPs, but kinda buried in cassettes and CDs here. Guess it's a 90's kid thing, lol It's part of why I don't do so many trips to Rasputin Music anymore. Sad about the old mega stores, but hey there's a few Rasputins around. If you ever get to California visit one, especially the original in Berkley. I was rather disappointed by London not having much in the way of new and used music shops when I visited back in '08.

The first track from Desplat's Godzilla has leaked - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUcfO25Y4Po

Oh wow. Wow. Thanks for this. That was some damn good music.


Thanks for posting, Sunderella, Very Good build up! But, there IS a bit of static in there...Just saying. ;) Maybe it wasn't mixed and mastered, yet? Hopefully, the final product won't have static in the back and hopefully the Score will be promising! I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Desplat, but, what I can say is this: I really like how the song sounds. :)

Anal butt hurt correction incoming: This isn't a song. This is a cue/theme/track! Orchestra and songs are not remotely the same thing/

Secondly...what static? I just listened to it and heard nothing of the sort.

I think it's just that the recording is too dry for some people. Not much reverb for a film score. Apart from that I'm not so happy about the string writing and the percussion. It's nice to hear woodwinds and mallets in a modern film score but it overall sounds too much like a typical trailer track aside from the brass writing. I'm not impressed if that's the final score.

Anyone hear this version of Danny Elfman's Batman Theme arranged by Toshihiko Sahashi? It is pretty interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtNb4Fo2k9Q&list=PLHgfASTbxlVSE9Q38Pa3vwDhyPbGgtXTv

I think it's just that the recording is too dry for some people. Not much reverb for a film score. Apart from that I'm not so happy about the string writing and the percussion. It's nice to hear woodwinds and mallets in a modern film score but it overall sounds too much like a typical trailer track aside from the brass writing. I'm not impressed if that's the final score.

I cannot even compute how anyone can say this sounds anything like a trailer track. It is like saying an apple tastes like a steak.

I agree with klnerfan. The string writing (among other things) sounds really uninspired and repetitive. To me it doesn't sound like a regular trailer track, but only marginally better. I honestly thought Desplat was a little better than this.

It has that "vibe" about it. But then again, pretty much 100% of Western film music has that vibe these days. I'm finding it to be pretty much what I expected.


Godzilla will not be fucked up by an incompetent composer after all! It will, instead, be fucked up by a competent composer

It has its moments, but under the surface, what do we have?

Moody industrial sound design - check.
Grizzly electronic noises - check.
Simplistic two-note alternating string line - check.
Repetitive and dull ostinati - check.
Themeless theme - check.
Repetitive percussion - check.

ON the upside, Desplat has sneaked a lot more music in than I was expecting he would. It's a homage to Ifukube, but filtered through the expectations of a modern Hollywood film score. This cue seems like it's building up to the theme that never plays. Ifukube's original Main Title was a masterclass in economy - the "theme" was really just three notes, but it built suspense. Desplat's, by comparison, is a lot more notes but to me, none of them really mean anything.

The desperate brassy screams at 1:36 and 1:39 are deliciously old-fashioned but there's so much missing. It's a lot of ideas but nothing to string them together.

I have to take my hat off to Desplat for managing to do what he has done. I do not hold him responsible for how bad the score is going to be. He's got the chops, and then some - but he's walking a very narrow tightrope here. He's clearly trying to make his score a cut above the average Hollywood dreck, but at the same time he has to remain mindful of what modern film music "does" and "sounds like" and what modern Blockbuster cinema-goers will be "comfortable" hearing.

This has me interested, but I don't think anybody's really expecting great things here.

Call me if Japan make another Godzilla movie and ask Michiru Oshima back for the score... THAT will be good.

Okay guys, you are gonna have to explain this one to me.

I do not hear a hint of electronics anywhere. I don't have any simplistic strings or percussion. I don't hear any ostinati. This entire theme sounds like a great theme to a (hopefully) great score.

I do agree with Tango, in that its not overwhelmingly impressive, though it may be more enjoyable than say... 300: Rise of An Empire or Man of Steel.

The very first bar of this Godzilla has an electronic effect (the distant siren and the saw strings) and then more in the background until the horns and trumpets play in unison. Then follows a little theme for 25 seconds that in a decent world would then be expanded and played with different orchestral colors. But instead we get a short danger motif with passable orchestration, then at 1:21 it falls apart with typical modern Hollywood rythms, bland string ostinati and your typical overuse of drums.
My aversion for this type of sound has grown immensly over the past years. This sound represents everything I hate these days: Music as a calculated product and not the work of an individual artist. Why should I care if Desplat, Doyle, Newman, Tyler, Jablonsky or Djawadi produce music for a film these days if they all sound the same in the end. There was a time when "composed and conducted by" actually meant something. When music is just doomed to be in the background nowadays as a part of ambient effects why call it even music anymore. There's no art involved anyway, it's now a purely technical production of sound effects and vibes at a producers or directors demands. I will call them "sound productions" from now on to at least make a distintion between this and the stuff that is written, recorded and sold right now by individual artists (most of it on the other side of the globe).

Sorry klner, but I don't hear anything that you describe, or agree with any of your sentiments. There is nothing typical, or by the norm with this cue. I also think your cynicism has grown to an absurd extreme, but that's just my perspective.

All of the things he describe are present.

I don't know what else to say; given that you claimed not to hear any electronics, ostinati, simplistic writing, or percussion in a cue which is composed pretty much exclusively of these elements, it would seem that any further assertion would only end in argument.

Incidentally - ostinati aren't bad - they're SUPPOSED to be a repeating, "grounding" phrase - a foundation, if you will, on which thematic material is built, varied, and developed. That's the problem. Hollywood scores keep the ostinato but omit the thematic material and development. They keep the notes but omit the theme.

Thought #1: Desplat CAN do better than this, but he won't for a Hollywood blockbuster.
Thought #2: Desplat is trying very hard under extremely restrictive conditions.
Thought #3: This score will be better than it could have been, but only marginally.

In other, cheerier news... Has anybody been keeing up with Kohei Tanaka's Gaist Crusher? CRIKEY! The guy's still got it. He's still so exhuberant - so many notes, so many flourishes, so much joy. At a time where the trend seems to be to thin out and write music that's easier to play (saving on rehearsal time) it's so wonderful to hear a score that's shamelessly GOING FOR IT in a big way. Busy and fleshed out orchestration, packed with detail and little touches. There's something about this music that's more human and "hand crafted" than pretty much any score I can remember from the last decade. This has to get a release, somehow... :D

I thought a bit about if I should post this long catharsis or not but since Tango's epic posts have been sort of silenced in this thread, allow me then
to continue with perhaps my longest post on the whole internet (I just had to get it off my chest).

Warning: There be dragons!


Let me make one thing clear before I start since I've seen good intention being sometimes misunderstood here: I don't want to attack anyone personaly and I respect any human being who posts in this thread. What matters is the music I will be discussing, the people responsible for the music and opinions about music stated as facts. That said, here we go...

First, it always bothered me when people express their love or enthusiasm for modern movie scores but can't explain why in detail and when I listen to it, I feel the opposite reaction. Then I ask why you love it because I hated it but I can at least explain why in detail. But immediately I am personaly attacked by those people with always the same response: "I think you're wrong because you don't know better!" But when I get technical and explain why I hate it, people get even more upset. "I don't hear anything you said", or "This is great music, bro, you're just a giant pessimist (and a faggot)." From my experience this comes from insecurity of those people because deep down they know that they know almost nothing about the music they're listening to. From the first written note, to the midi-mockup, to the recording and then mixing and mastering. To even get to 30 seconds of film music, there is lots and lots of work involved (by many different people). But that is just one side of the coin. The other side (my main problem with modern scores) is composition and orchestration (which should be the same thing). Take Godzilla for example, I would not have a problem with it if it was the first piece of music ever written. The problem, however, is that there were already thousands and thousands of hours of music written before it to draw comparisons and analysis from.

I may be a bit too harsh with the folowing statement but this is my impression from listening to many modern scores: Most "composers" (excluding competent composers like Desplat or Doyle) don't know what they're doing. They got the job because of PR and then got some "all-in-one" cinematic pad from you're average sampler and that's it. They don't know that it takes real passion and work to write for an orchestra beautifully. They don't care about the magic they can create for their audience. They don't know tone colors and how understanding every instruments and all the possible combinations (even with synthesizer) can enrich the experience. Another thing they don't know (curse you Zimmer) is orchestral balance. It basically means every RC or modern Hollywood score will sound like shit for the trained classical ear because the orchestra is balanced wrong. This comes from the fact that those composers don't know the instruments they're using. You should know that a trumpet in its higher register will easily absorb the sound of many individual instruments. Not to mention that through Zimmer's brilliant rule of "no woodwinds", the orchestral balance is thrown out of the window. The 12 Horns and 8 Trombones and what not you have in a Zimmer score is total overkill. Do you want to know how many Horns were used for the most bombastic sounding symphonies ever written ... four! How many Trombones ... three! These orchestral works by Beethoven and others didn't sound so bombastic because of the number of Brass but because of the natural balance of the ensemble. Mahler or Strauss and Ravel used six or eight Horns but made adjustments in other areas. They never used 12 because it is almost impossible to balance this with the rest of the ensemble unless you make it even bigger.

Let me make my point clear: What some call the "modern film score" style is not a style in my opinion but simply incompetent music. This style is dictated by people who never seen a spectrotone chart and don't know how to write for orchestra and these people are forcing competent composers to write incompetent music. It's painful to hear. The music is unintelligent, dynamically flawed, without orchestral balance and almost no skill required to play. And that's excluding the biggest flaw, the story-telling aspect. There's no development of themes and motifs and it has nothing interesting to say. It's just a repetition of notes that get louder and louder (without dynamic equivalence). Even the players who have to perform this really hate this music. In fact I believe they must be laughing at the composers incompetence. (Don't believe me, try to search for different behind the scenes footages of modern scores or interviews with Hollywood players or take Mike Vertas word for it).

Film music comes from (as Tango said many times) the concert hall and the opera house. The size of you're average film orchestra is modeled after the modern symphony orchestra. Thus you shall write film music like you would write for the concert hall or the opera. The greatest power of this massive tool is to tell a story through the music. That's why a composer (in my opinion) should also be a writer in the literal sense: a storyteller, a poet, a spokesman. Take me from point A to Point B and let it feel like a journey. Now to make this analogy perfect: Let's imagine some guy writes a beautiful poem and wants to perform it before an audience but the guy in charge tells him no: "No one wants or needs this poem, people want swearing and shouting these days. Also every verse should be the same and write simple words that any idiot can understand or you get no audience". Now it is peformed and Person A says: Wow that was great but Person B says: It was shit.

Person A: Why is it shit? Are you mad? It was great?
Person B: Almost every sentence had the word "fuck" and "cool", every second verse was the same and it is far too simplistic and dull to be even called a poem.
Person A: Blablabla, I didn't hear "fuck" or "cool" or anything you described nor do I share your sentiments. You're just a cynic.
Person B: But it's not an opinion, it's a fact that "fuck" or "cool" were said. It's shit compared to any poem written before, how can you not see this?
Person A: It's shit according to you, you're just an arrogant cynic bastards with no friends, I hate your guts, piss off.
Person B: ... b-but I've known you for like 10 years, how can you say this!
Person A: Your fault for scaring of people with different opinions.

Sound familiar?

There were some occasions in this thread where Tango said some score was shit (could have easily explained why in detail but people don't want to hear that) and was personaly attacked. I really looked hard to see if the attack was justified but it was not. Some folks have to accept that not all opinions are equal. There is a difference between an opinion if experience and knowledge are thrown into the mix. I mean the very practice of consulting wouldn't exist if all opinions are equal. For example, whose opinion would you trust more when building a house? An architect's opinion or a fashion designer's opinion? Not to mention all the technical aspects you can break music down to. That's not to say music is a purely mathematical thing. Far from it. The very definitions of classical music are not technical or mathematical, they're feelings, you can not measure p or f, or Andante or Presto by mathematical terms, because it is relative to the recording environment and the players.

When I listen to an orchestral piece of music I picture a virtual concert hall (or scoring stage) in my head. I need a few moments to adjust were the strings sit (lost of different options), where the brass sits (is there a "Wall of Brass?") and where the percussion sits (woodwinds have almost always fixed positions). Then I can "see" the many different lines each section plays. I do that almost subconsciously now so I can imagine every story or image I want on top of it, be it a battle, a flight through the sky or a pastoral landscape. Given that some people cannot even hear the different sections but just the overall field of sound, I would say that my approach and perspective on music is fundamentaly different from others. That's why I have the opinion that film scores of today are not real music to me. There's noting cynic about it. It's just my observation. The scores of Rozsa, Korngold, Williams and Goldsmith will stand the test of time like Beethoven and Bach and all the Hollywood scores of recent years will be forgotten and thrown in the trash can by the next decade.

On the other hand it pains me greatly that the good music that is written today in Japan is not as popular over here AND not given the treatment it deserves. What I mean by that is the budget and recording environment. Let's not kid ourselves, there's a reason why Japanese composers with a good budget go to Moscow, Prague or Warsaw (aside from Hisaishi). But most TV scores over there have inadequate recordings when the music screams for Air Lyndhurst, Berlin Church or LA scoring stages. Take Sahashi's Simoun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Dp4Q4iAB0) for example: Look what a skilled composer can do with such a small ensemble. Imagine that score by a modern sized symphony orchestra with the best recording engineers around. If I was a Billionaire I would throw money left and right to re-record my favorite Sahashi scores with the LSO.

So I hope I made clear that I do not simply despise modern scores and modern scoring styles just because. There are numerous reasons why I hate it. Partially because I'm a music player myself and also a composer who wants an orchestra to sound beautiful and larger than life without simply being loud.

Very nice post klnerfan. I very much respect your experience and insight on the matter. I personally am lacking in knowledge about the inner workings of musical composition so it's always nice to read your as well as others informative and honest posts.

Considering the retaliation that you have gone through even when backing up your claims i think the problem is people are just very sensitive about such things. Even though i sometimes am unsuccessful at controlling myself if I'm watching an anime and am trying to explain what I disliked about it I tend to avoid using phrases like "It sucked" or "It's crap". Even if it is not your intention i think many people take it as a cynical insult to their tastes in music. It's very much akin to eating your favorite delicious dish at a restaurant only to have someone across from you spit it out and call it the worst abomination to ever exist. That's why I tend to try to use things like "I didn't care for it" or "It's not my cup of tea". I think many good reviewers on games (not talking about IGN, Gamespot or any other big name company) always try to keep this in mind and even when talking about a feature they didn't like in a game they try to look past their grievances with the particular issue and see the possible appeal behind it.

I know many people do not like to mince words here and that's fine. I think you have enough knowledge on the subject to be able to back up any claim you make. But I feel some of you are just asking for it when you say things like so and so isn't a real composer or everything someone makes is crap. Even if you back up those points it's not any less offensive or irritating for some to see. And saying something is only appealing to the lowest denominator of music fans is pretty much a full blown "your tastes suck" statement.

As for myself I do not care what people think of what I like. So I never really have gotten into this kind of situation unless someone is just being blatantly ignorant. I still respect many of your issues with modern music even if it I don't agree with some of them. Just put the buthurt fools behind you as they are not worth the time of day =).

I thought a bit about if I should post this long catharsis or not but since Tango's epic posts have been sort of silenced in this thread, allow me then
to continue with perhaps my longest post on the whole internet (I just had to get it off my chest).

Warning: There be dragons!


Let me make one thing clear before I start since I've seen good intention being sometimes misunderstood here: I don't want to attack anyone personaly and I respect any human being who posts in this thread. What matters is the music I will be discussing, the people responsible for the music and opinions about music stated as facts. That said, here we go...

First, it always bothered me when people express their love or enthusiasm for modern movie scores but can't explain why in detail and when I listen to it, I feel the opposite reaction. Then I ask why you love it because I hated it but I can at least explain why in detail. But immediately I am personaly attacked by those people with always the same response: "I think you're wrong because you don't know better!" But when I get technical and explain why I hate it, people get even more upset. "I don't hear anything you said", or "This is great music, bro, you're just a giant pessimist (and a faggot)." From my experience this comes from insecurity of those people because deep down they know that they know almost nothing about the music they're listening to. From the first written note, to the midi-mockup, to the recording and then mixing and mastering. To even get to 30 seconds of film music, there is lots and lots of work involved (by many different people). But that is just one side of the coin. The other side (my main problem with modern scores) is composition and orchestration (which should be the same thing). Take Godzilla for example, I would not have a problem with it if it was the first piece of music ever written. The problem, however, is that there were already thousands and thousands of hours of music written before it to draw comparisons and analysis from.

I may be a bit too harsh with the folowing statement but this is my impression from listening to many modern scores: Most "composers" (excluding competent composers like Desplat or Doyle) don't know what they're doing. They got the job because of PR and then got some "all-in-one" cinematic pad from you're average sampler and that's it. They don't know that it takes real passion and work to write for an orchestra beautifully. They don't care about the magic they can create for their audience. They don't know tone colors and how understanding every instruments and all the possible combinations (even with synthesizer) can enrich the experience. Another thing they don't know (curse you Zimmer) is orchestral balance. It basically means every RC or modern Hollywood score will sound like shit for the trained classical ear because the orchestra is balanced wrong. This comes from the fact that those composers don't know the instruments they're using. You should know that a trumpet in its higher register will easily absorb the sound of many individual instruments. Not to mention that through Zimmer's brilliant rule of "no woodwinds", the orchestral balance is thrown out of the window. The 12 Horns and 8 Trombones and what not you have in a Zimmer score is total overkill. Do you want to know how many Horns were used for the most bombastic sounding symphonies ever written ... four! How many Trombones ... three! These orchestral works by Beethoven and others didn't sound so bombastic because of the number of Brass but because of the natural balance of the ensemble. Mahler or Strauss and Ravel used six or eight Horns but made adjustments in other areas. They never used 12 because it is almost impossible to balance this with the rest of the ensemble unless you make it even bigger.

Let me make my point clear: What some call the "modern film score" style is not a style in my opinion but simply incompetent music. This style is dictated by people who never seen a spectrotone chart and don't know how to write for orchestra and these people are forcing competent composers to write incompetent music. It's painful to hear. The music is unintelligent, dynamically flawed, without orchestral balance and almost no skill required to play. And that's excluding the biggest flaw, the story-telling aspect. There's no development of themes and motifs and it has nothing interesting to say. It's just a repetition of notes that get louder and louder (without dynamic equivalence). Even the players who have to perform this really hate this music. In fact I believe they must be laughing at the composers incompetence. (Don't believe me, try to search for different behind the scenes footages of modern scores or interviews with Hollywood players or take Mike Vertas word for it).

Film music comes from (as Tango said many times) the concert hall and the opera house. The size of you're average film orchestra is modeled after the modern symphony orchestra. Thus you shall write film music like you would write for the concert hall or the opera. The greatest power of this massive tool is to tell a story through the music. That's why a composer (in my opinion) should also be a writer in the literal sense: a storyteller, a poet, a spokesman. Take me from point A to Point B and let it feel like a journey. Now to make this analogy perfect: Let's imagine some guy writes a beautiful poem and wants to perform it before an audience but the guy in charge tells him no: "No one wants or needs this poem, people want swearing and shouting these days. Also every verse should be the same and write simple words that any idiot can understand or you get no audience". Now it is peformed and Person A says: Wow that was great but Person B says: It was shit.

Person A: Why is it shit? Are you mad? It was great?
Person B: Almost every sentence had the word "fuck" and "cool", every second verse was the same and it is far too simplistic and dull to be even called a poem.
Person A: Blablabla, I didn't hear "fuck" or "cool" or anything you described nor do I share your sentiments. You're just a cynic.
Person B: But it's not an opinion, it's a fact that "fuck" or "cool" were said. It's shit compared to any poem written before, how can you not see this?
Person A: It's shit according to you, you're just an arrogant cynic bastards with no friends, I hate your guts, piss off.
Person B: ... b-but I've known you for like 10 years, how can you say this!
Person A: Your fault for scaring of people with different opinions.

Sound familiar?

There were some occasions in this thread where Tango said some score was shit (could have easily explained why in detail but people don't want to hear that) and was personaly attacked. I really looked hard to see if the attack was justified but it was not. Some folks have to accept that not all opinions are equal. There is a difference between an opinion if experience and knowledge are thrown into the mix. I mean the very practice of consulting wouldn't exist if all opinions are equal. For example, whose opinion would you trust more when building a house? An architect's opinion or a fashion designer's opinion? Not to mention all the technical aspects you can break music down to. That's not to say music is a purely mathematical thing. Far from it. The very definitions of classical music are not technical or mathematical, they're feelings, you can not measure p or f, or Andante or Presto by mathematical terms, because it is relative to the recording environment and the players.

When I listen to an orchestral piece of music I picture a virtual concert hall (or scoring stage) in my head. I need a few moments to adjust were the strings sit (lost of different options), where the brass sits (is there a "Wall of Brass?") and where the percussion sits (woodwinds have almost always fixed positions). Then I can "see" the many different lines each section plays. I do that almost subconsciously now so I can imagine every story or image I want on top of it, be it a battle, a flight through the sky or a pastoral landscape. Given that some people cannot even hear the different sections but just the overall field of sound, I would say that my approach and perspective on music is fundamentaly different from others. That's why I have the opinion that film scores of today are not real music to me. There's noting cynic about it. It's just my observation. The scores of Rozsa, Korngold, Williams and Goldsmith will stand the test of time like Beethoven and Bach and all the Hollywood scores of recent years will be forgotten and thrown in the trash can by the next decade.

On the other hand it pains me greatly that the good music that is written today in Japan is not as popular over here AND not given the treatment it deserves. What I mean by that is the budget and recording environment. Let's not kid ourselves, there's a reason why Japanese composers with a good budget go to Moscow, Prague or Warsaw (aside from Hisaishi). But most TV scores over there have inadequate recordings when the music screams for Air Lyndhurst, Berlin Church or LA scoring stages. Take Sahashi's Simoun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Dp4Q4iAB0) for example: Look what a skilled composer can do with such a small ensemble. Imagine that score by a modern sized symphony orchestra with the best recording engineers around. If I was a Billionaire I would throw money left and right to re-record my favorite Sahashi scores with the LSO.

So I hope I made clear that I do not simply despise modern scores and modern scoring styles just because. There are numerous reasons why I hate it. Partially because I'm a music player myself and also a composer who wants an orchestra to sound beautiful and larger than life without simply being loud.

I really love your post - not because i hate modern film scores (i don't) but because of how intelligently and thoughtfully written it is (your post, i mean). I've loved film scores my entire life (I'm in my 40s) and one thing i love about having found a place like this is not just the music, but the opportunity to learn. While your post isn't filled with overly complex details, it is still very informative. I'm not a musician, but my love of music makes me constantly interested in learning more about it. I have been to see the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra many times - i love hearing classical music live. I can also pick individual instruments out of pieces i listen to, so i definitely know a little about music. I was lucky enough to grow up in a school system that appreciated the value of teaching the arts. I remember going on a class trip to see a local Orchestra play Prokofiev and Saint Sans when i was in grade school. I was already hooked by then but it helped reinforce the magnificence of life classical music.

I say all of that because I'm still not a musician and that allows me, in this modern age, to listen to recent scores and still enjoy them (when I'm in the right mood). I think my limited knowledge of the subject matter allows me to listen without being overly critical. I'm glad for that, too. I don't see the modern material and the older material as the same thing though, I'm just able to appreciate the newer stuff for what it is. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

I would add this though: even though the Zimmer sound is all the rage currently (among producers and directors - but especially the bean counters), there are still some talented musicians working today. You mentioned a couple. I'm sure their are more though (working with their hands tied, often). Not that i really know much, but it seems that Giacchino might deserve to be included in that group. Rolfe Kent? James Newton Howard? James Horner? Even if these guys have to work off the dreaded temp score, they still get the opportunity to shine now and again.

I think people attack someone like you disagreeing with them because people really attach themselves to things they love. The music, whatever its technical value, becomes attached, in some small way, to their sense of self and how they see/experience the world. So they get defensive, like they themselves are being criticized, when you say you hate something they love. The common usage of terms like "hate" and "love", when it comes to music, is a perfect example of the emotional nature of art (both music and all other forms of art). I don't think this will ever change.

The tone of the response, however, is often in line with the tone of the initial statement. If you say you hate something, you're more likely to get an equal and opposite reaction (aka "love") or, worse, your same tone thrown back at you twice as hard (i.e. the personal attack). Say "it's not my thing" and the response you get back will, more often than not, be more reasonable as well.

There is, of course, the reality that 1) we're dealing with the Internet, where people his behind anonymity, and 2) a lot of people here are young and still tweaking their sense of balance with the world. Certainly those facts undermine what i was just mentioning, but i still think the responses you get would improve if you altered your own approach. And not that i advocate being a snob, but if you know your opinion is more valuable, then why let the less valuable opinions/comments get to you? Their sting should be diminished by your understanding that they don't know what they're talking about. In the end, you're not likely to change anyone else's opinion, but i love learning about this stuff so i hope you keep trying so i can continue learning. :-)

I guess I can take this one step further then ;)

1) I have no problem with modern orchestral music outside of Hollywood. I wouldn't love Toshihiko Sahashi so much if not for the fact that he combines so many genres into one score. My love for music is not limited to orchestral instruments alone. I love when different elements are mixed with the orchestra but to the strengh of each and for the right tone. I love Jazz and the Bigband sound in general as well as the sound of electric guitars and basses. I even think electronic beats are sexy and many syntheziser sounds and effects to this day are very interesting to say the least, just look at Vangelis. The instruments are not the problem, it's how they are used. Even the different musical genres should be no restriction to do amazing things within those borders. When I speak of the glory days, then let's keep in mind that it was not at all a time of only pure orchestral scores and nothing else. Ennio Morricone, Lalo Shifrin, John Barry or Jerry Goldsmith were very experimental with the orchestral sound at the time and thought of new and interesting ways to make the orchestra sound fresh and sexy (ironicaly more experimental than all those special snowflakes today who claim they're doing something never done before, put together). Let's also keep in mind that the orchestra has the advantage that it can play almost any musical style and is not restricted to only sound like Mozart or Williams. Today you only have to look at japanese game and anime scores to hear what an orchestra can do with a lot of creativity and people who know how to write for it. (Inazuma Galaxy being the most recent example).


2) Of course, James Horner "was" a great composer. Stuff like Star Trek II, The Rocketeer, Braveheart, Titanic, Legends of the Fall ... those were the days. James Newton Howard "was" a good composer as well. Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Peter Pan, Dinosaurs etc. It was a time when they could pretty much write what they want and when stuff like the Flying Horsemen comes around (which was a project of passion, not commerce), it's like Horner has never been away. Or when Brian Tyler wrote Lego Universe... you have to wonder what he could have become in a different environment. The only bigname who has kept his integrity intact today is John Williams, everyone else jumped the shark.

Some time ago I posted an insane long list of great orchestral japanese scores of recent years. I did not even list the countless experimental and hybrid scores. On the Hollywood side I got maybe three or four worthwhile scores. Even the dreaded modern Hollywood sound has been done by the japanese but with substance. Naoki Sato uses it to great effect and takes it to places where it actually becomes very enjoyable for me. I must stress, Japan is no magical wonderland of orchestral music with hundreds of little Mozarts or Beethovens (Ok, they still got Hirano). It's just that most composers working in the business have great knowledge of the orchestra and are classical trained. They are also not restricted and can write whatever the hell they want. A composer is still a "profession" over there. As much as I don't like Chaika (all synth and everything feels like it's been made up two minutes before the show) the composer can still write what he wants. On the opposite spectrum, when a director or producer wants you to cross Mozart with Tango and throw some little nods to Rozsa in there and one or two spanish dances to top it off you should be capable to write such music (Or more ridiculous, mix opera with dubstep ... oh wait, they've done that). I would trust your average japanese composer with such a task, it may not be great music but at the very least it will be competent music. In Hollywood everyone who is not a veteran composer is pretty much fucked and has to hire a ghostwriter (which is what Zimmer & Co did for such occasions).

Scorecrazy69,

Even though he isn't very popular in this thread, I think Bear McCreary is a good composer and one you could say is a talented musician in the modern score scene. I would like to see him write a serious film score, but his television works for Da Vinci's Demons and even Walking Dead have really good pieces. He uses themes, not simple ostinati either, full blown out themes. The themes are well placed and tell a story. Take Da Vinci's Demons for example, when one of the Medici asks who killed their most trusted adviser... Lucrezia's Theme plays in answer to the question although the characters in that scene did not have a clue who planned the assassination. Da Vinci's theme plays whenever he does something heroic or inventive. Rome's Theme plays when they conspire to find the book of leaves. These are well written themes and used wisely throughout to make the score relevant to the story. They become one and the music goes from being just simple accompaniment, mere sound effects, to a full fledged member of the grand story. I also like that Bear uses live musicians in every project and each project he is on he does his homework. He puts in the time and he makes sure the music is just as important as the show itself. Heck, I'm listening to the Walking Dead Theme right now lol. I love the Bernard Herrmann sound of it. It just gives me chills and yes it is driven by ostinati but it is so perfect for the show.

Herrmann is spinning in his grave...

2) Of course, James Horner "was" a great composer. Stuff like Star Trek II, The Rocketeer, Braveheart, Titanic, Legends of the Fall ... those were the days. James Newton Howard "was" a good composer as well. Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Peter Pan, Dinosaurs etc. It was a time when they could pretty much write what they want and when stuff like the Flying Horsemen comes around (which was a project of passion, not commerce), it's like Horner has never been away. Or when Brian Tyler wrote Lego Universe... you have to wonder what he could have become in a different environment. The only bigname who has kept his integrity intact today is John Williams, everyone else jumped the shark.

John Williams has the luxury of keeping his integrity because 1) no one is stupid enough to ask someone with 40+ Oscar nominations to follow a temp score, hahaha, and 2) he's old enough, with most of his career behind him instead of in front of him, too pass on anything he doesn't like. All the younger guys still need to make a living for another decade or three - they're kind of forced to pay the stupid games they're playing in Hollywood.

To Horner's credit, he has largely walked away from the big action epics because the stupidity of Hollywood has annoyed the hell out of him, but even he knows that you've got to do a big A list film every so often to keep yourself in the game. Just as Alan Silvestri has turned down big budget action scores for the freedom of smaller endeavors (like COSMOS, which is a wonderful score), i wouldn't be surprised if Horner didn't even want to do the Amazing Spider-Man followup. Btw, I'm going to have to look into this Flying Horseman thing.

I have started to download some of the Japanese work that's been shared in this thread. I'm very curious to listen and explore what's going on there. I followed a link just a couple of days ago to a Japanese take on a western piece (i forget exactly what it was). I enjoyed it until the orchestra suddenly tried to sound like a rock and roll band. I hate to say i, but that's not my cup of tea. Every time i hear an Orchestra try to break into another genre of music (especially rock and roll) it just sounds like elevator music to me. An Orchestra isn't made to sound like a band - it's not even made to sound like "big band", so it fails in the endeavor most of the time. In my humble opinion. I love big band, but if i want to listen to it I'll put on actual big band music. Same with jazz, same with rock.

There are always exceptions, of course. Some of Scott Joplin's rag work has been arranged into fantastic orchestral pieces. Rhapsody In Blue, one of my all time favorite pieces of music (of ANY genre) is jazzy from top to bottom, but it was written for the orchestra, which is why it works so well.

Most of the time, however, it just doesn't work for me, so I'm hoping the Japanese stuff isn't overly infused with that sort of thing. It's completely unfair to judge an entire country's orchestral works by one sampled piece, however, so I'm looking forward to trying more. Speaking about their composer's having freedom to use their talents and skills as they see fit is certainly very appealing.

As for Hollywood, this current phase will pass. It may take awhile, but it will. Hollywood has gotten away from classical orchestration before, in the 60's and 70's, when everything edged towards jazz, disco, and rock songs. John Williams is credited for bringing orchestral music back to Hollywood when Star Wars was released (Speilberg and Lucas certainly deserve some credit there since Lucas hired Williams off of Speilberg's recommendation). The situation is different now, of course, but it will change again anyways. It always does. Like you mentioned before, the product of fads come and go, while the great stuff that endures the test of time will always be there to rise back to the top.

In the meantime I've got tons of great movie scores from the previous generations as well as all of the amazing classical music that came before films, to keep me happy. Maybe I'll have some modern Japanese material to add to it, but I'll still enjoy some of the current hollywood stuff for what it has to offer. I enjoyed Zimmer's work on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It was fun. I really enjoy John Powell's work on animated films. I love pretty much everything Giacchino does (they're always fun, full of energy, composed for a full orchestra, and they're some of the only current music that stays with me the way Williams or Goldsmith's music always has). Rolfe Kent, Alexandre Desplat - i greatly enjoy most of their music as well. Horner, Newton Howard, Silvestri (even Elfman) - these guys will continue to work and will get the chance, every so often, to really shine. I look forward to those scores. And in between, i don't begrudge anyone else for liking whatever film music it is they like. Surely I'll like some of them as well and will be greatful that i CAN enjoy them.

I'm an artist of the drawing and painting variety - i have been for many years now. My knowledge in these areas makes me suffer from the same overly critical review of work in my fields, so to a large degree i understand your frustration. Luckily, in my life of work they're not quite as stagnated - editors and art directors still value uniqueness and still let artists do their thing for the most part. When that changes it'll be time to quit and get into another line of work, haha. Hopefully, by then, I'll be at that John Williams stage, where most of my career is behind me. :-)

Off the top of my head I can’t remember the exact quote or who said it, but I vaguely remember either a director or composer of years past say something to the effect of “the score is the heart of the film.”

Unfortunately, very little of what passes as pop art today has much heart. It is dictated by giant corporations to appeal to the broadest spectrum, and most people are too lazy, disinterested, or ignorant to notice, care, or demand better.

Having heard the Desplat cue that generated this discussion, I agree that it is not crap. However, I also agree that it is not really anything to get too excited about either. (The necessity of the very existence of the music, as part of the film that it accompanies, can also be called into question.) When the initial trailer saw fit to use some Ligeti, I thought that showed at least some willingness to think outside the rather confining musical box Hollywood seems to be stuck in, and Desplat, while having yet to truly impress me, at least knows his way around an orchestra. And indeed, in listening to the cue, it appears to be well-orchestrated. But as Tango said, it seems incomplete, as though it’s building up to something… and yet it never arrives. Substantively, what does it express? Not much. A sense of dread, perhaps the percussion suggests size, that electronic wail a sense of otherness… but it’s not assertive. There’s no real dynamic range, no sense of awe. Of course, not having seen the film, perhaps this cue fits the film perfectly. But purely as music it’s fairly dull.

But the cue is certainly more complex than what a Djawadi or a Jackman would have given us, or Zimmer himself. I actually like Zimmer. In fact, I’ll flush my credibility right down the drain and remind everyone that I actually enjoyed Man of Steel. I’ve developed a fondness for Djawadi’s work on Game of Thrones, although that is more as a reminder of the show itself rather than as music. Zimmer and progeny work best for me when they’re not trying to emulate an orchestra; probably my current favorite of Zimmer’s is Beyond Rangoon with it’s worldly textures. His Dark Knight scores do nothing for me. (Nolan’s films, as well, seem to hold up less over time; Heath Ledger’s performance and most of Batman Begins are about all I can stand these days.) When Zimmer sticks to his own idiom, I prefer him over someone like Giacchino, whom I find to be completely overrated and inferior even to someone like John Debney who, while admittedly seemingly only capable of writing in pastiche of his betters, can be far more convincing than Giacchino’s weak efforts (which include his Medal of Honor scores, btw.)

The real problem, as has already been mentioned, is the application of this style ad nauseum over everything that Hollywood churns out. It’s applied without imagination onto films with little to no storytelling ambition other than to line the pockets of the executives who greenlit them. While this has always been true since studios began making motion pictures, there had been a greater variety of subject matter and of styles. These days, to cut through the societal din of Honey Boo Boo and her ilk, every big movie is based on a tween franchise or a comic book and must be scored either by a Remote Control composer or in the style of one. The only films that are allowed to have any musical personality are kids’ films and comedies, because noticeable music apparently only plays against broad material. Fortunately, trends seem poised to shift as the new tween franchises seem to be having a harder time making bank and the superhero/destruction porn wave is nearing burn out. Once a few of these mega-blockbusters fail in a row (possibly putting a studio or two out of business), Hollywood will again have to diversify and make mid-budget adult fare and Mssrs. Zimmer and Co. will get fewer calls. It’s only a matter of time.

My own listening habits have shifted and I’ve mostly been listening to concert music and jazz lately, but I’m starting work on an action project and have started listening to more action film music again (well-timed for LLL’s release of Lair). I listen a lot while I’m writing or brainstorming and, contrary to the popular trends, I absolutely need my music to be bold and express something, whether that be giant dumbstruck awe-inspiring destruction (Independence Day) or rural charm and elegance (Black Beauty). While I have great affection for masters such as Korngold and Herrmann (less so for Rozsa, Newman, and Steiner), my tastes seem to run closer to the Silver Age due to sound quality and more modernity to the writing.

Regarding the Japanese posts that seem to dominate the thread these days, I must confess that with rare exceptions I do not particularly enjoy much of it. The 2009 recording of Symphony Yamato and Yasuo Higuchi’s Phoenix 2772 are probably my favorites (thanks Tango!), and I try to download anything of Hisaishi’s I can get my hands on, but the truth is that much of it sounds thin and poorly recorded and/or, despite technical compositional excellence, uninspired or forced. It’s hard for me to articulate why because I am no longer active as a musician and I am pleased that so many do seem to enjoy it, but much of the music just doesn’t suit my tastes. Instead, I’d rather go back to an old favorite by Williams, Goldsmith, Elfman, or Horner or look in the catalogues of Stravinsky or Prokofiev. There’s so much great music that’s been written throughout the centuries that it’s difficult for me to want to force myself to become attached to something that strikes me as mediocre (allow snarky Man of Steel comment here).

All in all, the current musical climate in mainstream big-budget filmmaking (the popular kind) is in something of a nadir and we all have differing tastes. Some of us get excited when something slightly askew comes along and some of us think it’s pure crap and a lot of passion gets expended over relative trivialities. Trends will change, tastes will change, and we’ll always find something to get excited about, either from the future or from the past. I think we can all at least agree that we’re all lovers of this grand style of music and, as something of a rarity in today’s world, that is to be commended.

In short, we all need to keep listening.


I'm an artist of the drawing and painting variety - i have been for many years now. My knowledge in these areas makes me suffer from the same overly critical review of work in my fields, so to a large degree i understand your frustration. Luckily, in my life of work they're not quite as stagnated - editors and art directors still value uniqueness and still let artists do their thing for the most part. When that changes it'll be time to quit and get into another line of work, haha. Hopefully, by then, I'll be at that John Williams stage, where most of my career is behind me. :-)

Try being a writer, trying to break into the realm of screenwriting no less, in today's film climate. The scripts make the scores sound like Mahler. Worse yet, any moron who can type or use a pencil thinks that they too are a writer. Once doing script coverage, I read one that began with the slugline "CLOSE ON TWO HORSES FUCKING" and the plot was an Adam Sandleresque road comedy concerning stolen horse semen and the mob. This script was represented and going out around Hollywood.

In other words, I'm totally screwed. And moving back to LA in a couple of months. The joys that await me.

Behind the Scenes: James Horner (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQINoi5LbBs)

Here's the flying Horsemen with an Interview of Horner were he (very) politely explains how much he hates what he has to write these days and how joyful he was to be given a project where he can express himself without any restrictions. He always wants to write like he does here (there was another interview about it but I can't find it right now). Also notice how Horner has very close relations to the orchestral placers. This is common for many veteran composers (of present and past) and you can bet your ass that they will all be laughing (or be depressed) at the scores they have to write and perform these days. I go by the rule that if the players love to perform it, then it translates to the overall feel of the music. It's also helpful that Horner gives a very accurate review of his piece at the very end :D

Regarding Japan: I of course enjoy the hybrid scores but that's just me. But the purely orchestral works are sometimes out of this world. Here's a short list of composers who have a very distinct style and compose at least competent pieces, if not outright fantastic music.

1. Joe Hisaishi (This is a given, the most popular japanese composer over here, and with good reason).
Works for Ghibli (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9mGQU7rGGM): His Budokan Concert has not only one of the largest ensembles ever assembled but it is also a pure joy to see and hear this musician have the time of his life. Ni no Kuni (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywmfAmX97So): Larger than life and drowning in beautiful melodies. One of the best game scores ever written.

2. Nobuo Uematsu (The second most known and loved composer over here, also with good reason).
Symphonic Odysseys - A Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6vD1Lc_34w): His music truely shines in the concert hall. The Final Fantasy Orchestral Album (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdL_HBSCwGU&list=PLhiVZoypWP6WFktgkMIryND7jTG4jGOgv) also gives a great overview over his work for this very popular game series.

3. Yoko Kanno (Also immensly popular, not so original, but I forgive everything when I hear the results)
Escaflowne (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORbnPOKOSKQ), Turn A Gundam (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdzyZO3fbDY), Genesis of Aquarion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_z8BtnROIo).

4. Michiru Oshima (she also did some very good Godzilla scores).
Her Moscow Symphony Scores are awe-inspiring in their beauty and they were written for normal TV shows Zetsuen no Tempest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcoxjondQcI) (Just wow). Full Metal Alchemist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRVrwJeZlHs) and Little Witch Academia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM9opTH-kTU&index=2&list=PL8uNs-8Zdr3FX6hv3XqUGxy3abkAHG_m7).

4. Yoshihisa Hirano (I agree that he is a genius).
Ouran High School (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8FLUUOkSZ4), Death Note (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAPGBBo6p_o), Tanken Driland (http://picosong.com/C3mU), Break Blade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C48cy7lR5ZQ).

5. Masamichi Amano (If Larger than Life is your thing, look no further, he is a regular at Warsaw)
Super Atragon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhv2YSdLt-8), Giant Robo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWAvmuefyE), Magi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTOh6YeFO9s) (at least orchestrated), Berserk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpXl7XUiUkY) (at least orchestrated), Phantasy Star Universe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8YzmJh1W5A) (orchestrated)

6. Toshihiko Sahashi (I love this guy, not so much because he writes the most beautiful things in the world but how he combines so many Hollywood composer styles, classical styles and bigband and rock styles into one cohesive work).
Gundam Seed Symphonies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgLv_hamy0s) (Do you hear Horner?), Gundam Symphony (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDkRThVEiuI&list=PL405596A0CE7BCDAA) (Do you hear Goldsmith?), Simoun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwCd5tiEIsQ), Steel Angel Kurumi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Iv9_jBScM) and Ultraman Super 8 Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0UkCLq2Oqg) (Funny thing, Sahashi, among others, is kinda related to Mike Verta, since he also scored for the franchise and even states one of his themes (I think it was Mebius).

7. Naoki Sato (Not only did he make enjoyable RC scores, he also is a serious orchestral composer when he wants to be)
Eureka Seven + The Movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrK0NmBetig), Priceless (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laRwRgLhwxA), K-20 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2pNNnd7HZA), Heroic Age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhQYahiVOdQ)

8. Kousuke Yamashita (Another great composer)
Glass Fleet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44EngvDNBkQ), Chihayafuru (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ne7oNIMJyA), Ozuma (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGlz9HW9JMw), Reign of Revolution (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP3S-VjmXX8) and Overture of the Earth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdN07HOtMIg)

9. Kohei Tanaka (A veteran composer who composes pure orchestral joy)
Sakura Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVapijo0EU), One Piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VI9o7cWcsw&list=PL2843D17CB2912665) (The TV series was my first anime score and always has a special place in my heart), Gunbuster (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0BqKGnDR0M)

10. Yuugo Kanno (A modern composer in every sense, but actually great)
Birdy: The Mighty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F9JjdEFYjA), Hatarik Man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnU5OUme9Rs), Library Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBfaWz6uF_w)

And that's just the list of regulars who compose for anime today. I did not even mention the game department or the occasional spark from many individual composers. Let's list some of them, shall we:

Hana Ki Sou (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBT9WmbWtbE) (Akiko Shikata, Moscow International Symphony Orchestra)
Romeo X Juliet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uMHvpolUT8) (Hitoshi Sakimoto, Eminence Symphony Orchestra)
Fractale (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFg726c_zxU) (Souhei Kano)
Hellsing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bO0hGHKAyc) (Hayato Matsuo, Warsaw Philharmonic)
Doraemon (http://picosong.com/C3SB) (Kan Sawada)
Pokemon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2FFDBIWOfs) (Shinji Miyazaki)
Girls und Panzer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e6EkNXCC0c) (Shiro Hamaguchi, Elmer Bernstein)
Candidate for Goddess (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUGwctej_Zw) (Tomoyuki Asakawa)
Star Driver (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6EeCs9orK4) (MONACA)
Kannazuki no Miko (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkCkYvmkWFI) (Mina Kubota)
Majestic Prince (http://picosong.com/C38G/) (Toshiyuki Watanabe)
Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUdXVGQ0hCk) (Akira Senju, Warsaw Philharmonic)
Tytania (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9htEc_3aXA0) (Hiroshi Takaki, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra)
The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACsrDhqNg80) (MONACA, Eminence Symphony Orchestra)
Nichijou (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9bHpzh_DmQ) (Yuuji Nomi, The Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra)
Afrika (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYl_jmOlL74) (Wataru Yokohama, Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra)
Intelligent Qube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO3iKURBxXc&list=PL2C207527A56D97E8) (Takayuki Hattori)
Tiara Concerto (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u243UTwDd8o) (Wong Kin Wai, Capellen Orchestra)
Skyward Sword (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSZBcPRQpO8) (Nintendo Composer Team)
Mario & Sonic: Olympics & Winter Games (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFdFiFGRLFA) (Nintendo Composer Team, orchestrated by Masamichi Amano)
Star Fox Assault (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti-ANm0kaV0) (Nintendo Sound Team, Tokyo New City Orchestra)
Mario Galaxy 1+2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBrwceBdDQQ) (Mahito Yokota)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BBsl7dtm28) (Motoi Sakuraba, Yasunori Mitsuda & Friends, arranged by Natsumi Kameoka)
Dissidia 012 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_2qFaqbdw) (Nobuo Uematsu, FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague, arranged by Kentaro Sato)

And I've not even mentioned old japanese composers works like Koichi Sugiyama's Ideon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dRv1vNvfuk) and Dragon Quest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1dYDo1kRgw), Yasuo Higuchi's Phoenix 2772 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9IQLFs1J0s) and After War Gundam X (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WklTQKUYHiE). There's also plenty of great symphony recordings for TV shows or movies like Sailor Moon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwQySY9s8sk) (CITY OF LONDON SINFONIA, arranged by Toshiyuki Watanabe) or the excellent Game Music Concert (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_-zCrN-MX8) series (Ah, Nostalgia...). There is alot of beautiful music to be found in the east. Most of it is not for everyone but at least it keeps me as a film and classical score lover on living.

klnerfan,

I really love that score by Akiko Shikata, Hanakisou... Do you know if this one is up on the forums? I am blown away by this! I will have to check out more by Shikata.

Some great discussions here. I tend to fall in line with others and don't spend a long time listening to modern film scores these days. Even the ones that grab me initially tend to drift out of my consciousness fairly quickly. They work to give me something new and slightly interesting for a time and then I tire of them faster than anything else. Ironically, speaking of Game of Thrones, I was watching the new episode last night and noticed some particularly frantic string writing in an early action scene and for a second I thought I actually heard something inspired, only to realize it was simplistic. I still am not sure if Djawadi uses an orchestra sometimes with how the music sounds. It is pretty ironic that even when Djawadi tries to write frantic action music without synthesizers it still largely sounds like he is using a machine.

When I complain about boring film scores coming out it is usually because I need something new to listen to and can't seem to find anything that satisfies. Someone can tell you they love the themes of a score all they want but if it doesn't interest you, it is hard to push yourself to listen to it further to see if you missed anything.

Good discussion, guys.

Tazer, I agree with your opinion on Zimmer and co. I actually like few tracks from Inception and The Dark Knight Rises and would prefer to listen to them over Giacchino or Desplat (I find them devoid of individual identity). I absolutely dislike modern film scoring for producing banging drum loops and one-dimensional minor key bullshit, but I think it has its place. There's just too much of the same repetitive, industrial scoring everywhere that I cannot find any soul in it. I believe we still have to acknowledge that music constantly evolves and will produce niche genres, all while our tastes shift here and there. I believe that if one likes Zimmer, Jablonsky, etc., one should go buy/enjoy their music while being open to exploring music of "higher" craft.

And Tazer, I also find your point about taste interesting. I have always thought that upbringing and culture hugely determine your perception of music. Willingness to try different music can help but it can only go so far. I absolutely detest western pop, electronica, rock, etc while liking some Japanese counterparts - mostly because I share the most empathy for their sentimentality due to my upbringing and experience. Ooshima or Kanno's music may not be as crafted as Williams' but I listen to their music far more often. I just feel more at home listening to Japanese-que melodies drenched in French impressionist harmonies. On a similar token, I do not enjoy Hisaishi (this one's relative), Amano, Goldsmith, or Mahler but I do understand why people like them.

Tl;dr - support your favorite artists, have fun discussions about why their music sound good/bad, promote the craft of said artists, and explore new music while recognizing the artistry of well-crafted music.

And good luck, Tazer. I wish you the best in your endeavor.

I liken film scores to woodworking or perhaps some other "workmanlike" craft of the past. If you go into a house or look at a piece of furniture, etc, made in the early 1900s or before, you can be amazed at what I call "casual genius." The intricate carvings or craftsmanlike touches were COMMON back then. Every chair leg was made by a person to whom it was just another task in a long day ... but you'd be hard-pressed to have somebody replicate that kind of "product" (that's what it is) nowadays, even with power tools.

When things were hand-done (literally or metaphorically), they had the human touch of flaws and imperfections, but also a baseline of competence that seems rare today. That's if you had a good carpenter or builder, of course.

I apply these thoughts to film music nowadays. Since perhaps the 1980s, much music for screen has been akin to cheap sidewalk cement dumped and smoothed over once. Or perhaps like that "wood trim" made from sawdust and glue covered with a vinyl finish.

I'm thinking of the Man of Steel soundtrack. I have an empty 80 minutes (or whatever) taken out of my life that was used up by the time I "listened" to this "music" trying to hear it AS MUSIC. It was effective enough with the film, but not it was not much except throbbing clangor, by itself.

(Hey! "Throbbing Clangor"! I've invented a great name for a band!)

Music reproductive technology makes it easier to crank out miles of drek in the same way that a factory can crank out miles of pre-fab "wood" wall paneling. There's nothing against this, except that it makes me miss the days when even by-the-numbers grind-it-out entertainment *might possibly* contain something valuable, because it was handled and created at a more direct level than nowadays with our digital whatchamacallits.

I'm not saying let's go back to Roger Corman (for example) any more than I'm saying let's go back to outside plumbing. Just noting the passing of the casually competent musical score. Long after the present-day blockbusters have faded away, there'll be folks who can't get the theme from The Brady Bunch or Room 222 or The Magnificent Seven or Star Wars out of their heads.


Thanks for letting me ramble, guys.


Mark
Mark's Super Blog (http://markssuperblog.blogspot.com)
Spock's Record Round-Up (http://spocksrecordround-up.blogspot.com)

Going back to business, in case no one noticed, the new Song CD of Tanken Driland has about 30 minutes of unreleased music from Hirano. I'm cutting my way through some boring j-pop and suddenly ... Gregorian Chants :D

Nothing big this time, but nonetheless some beautiful piano renditions of the Main Theme, as well as beautiful string pieces and even the usual enjoyable modern textures (the good kind). But this makes me wonder why some of this stuff didn't make the cut for the offical soundtrack when there was still enough space. I don't understand the japanese sometimes. Anyway, now I'm in a dilemma. On the one hand, it's not worth the price and there's no killer track this time, but on the other hand it pains me to know that my version of Tanken Driland is not complete and some tracks missing are beautiful.

Ah, what to do?



Also was anyone else a bit disappointed by LLL's release of Lair?
Of course I bought it to speak with my wallet but what's on the CD in terms of structure and content is sadly not up to some fan versions of the complete score. The sound is of course better but everything else was a bit lacking (I was a fool to expect a new recording of the Concert Suite). But it is nice to read (thanks to the booklet) one more case for my theory. A competent composer without restriction and music made with passion and less for the money = great music.

Off the top of my head I can’t remember the exact quote or who said it, but I vaguely remember either a director or Composer of years past say something to the effect of “the score is the heart of the film.”

Unfortunately, very little of what passes as pop art today has much heart. It is dictated by giant corporations to appeal to the broadest spectrum, and most people are too lazy, disinterested, or ignorant to notice, care, or demand better.

Having heard the Desplat cue that generated this discussion, I agree that it is not crap. However, I also agree that it is not really anything to get too excited about either. (The necessity of the very existence of the music, as part of the film that it accompanies, can also be called into question.) When the initial trailer saw fit to use some Ligeti, I thought that showed at least some willingness to think outside the rather confining musical box Hollywood seems to be stuck in, and Desplat, while having yet to truly impress me, at least knows his way around an orchestra. And indeed, in listening to the cue, it appears to be well-orchestrated. But as Tango said, it seems incomplete, as though it’s building up to something… and yet it never arrives. Substantively, what does it express? Not much. A sense of dread, perhaps the percussion suggests size, that electronic wail a sense of otherness… but it’s not assertive. There’s no real dynamic range, no sense of awe. Of course, not having seen the film, perhaps this cue fits the film perfectly. But purely as music it’s fairly dull.

But the cue is certainly more complex than what a Djawadi or a Jackman would have given us, or Zimmer himself. I actually like Zimmer. In fact, I’ll flush my credibility right down the drain and remind everyone that I actually enjoyed Man of Steel. I’ve developed a fondness for Djawadi’s work on Game of Thrones, although that is more as a reminder of the show itself rather than as music. Zimmer and progeny work best for me when they’re not trying to emulate an orchestra; probably my current favorite of Zimmer’s is Beyond Rangoon with it’s worldly textures. His Dark Knight scores do nothing for me. (Nolan’s films, as well, seem to hold up less over time; Heath Ledger’s performance and most of Batman Begins are about all I can stand these days.) When Zimmer sticks to his own idiom, I prefer him over someone like Giacchino, whom I find to be completely overrated and inferior even to someone like John Debney who, while admittedly seemingly only capable of writing in pastiche of his betters, can be far more convincing than Giacchino’s weak efforts (which include his Medal of Honor scores, btw.)

The real problem, as has already been mentioned, is the application of this style ad nauseum over everything that Hollywood churns out. It’s applied without imagination onto films with little to no storytelling ambition other than to line the pockets of the executives who greenlit them. While this has always been true since studios began making motion pictures, there had been a greater variety of subject matter and of styles. These days, to cut through the societal din of Honey Boo Boo and her ilk, every big movie is based on a tween franchise or a comic book and must be scored either by a Remote Control composer or in the style of one. The only films that are allowed to have any musical personality are kids’ films and comedies, because noticeable music apparently only plays against broad material. Fortunately, trends seem poised to shift as the new tween franchises seem to be having a harder time making bank and the superhero/destruction porn wave is nearing burn out. Once a few of these mega-blockbusters fail in a row (possibly putting a studio or two out of business), Hollywood will again have to diversify and make mid-budget adult fare and Mssrs. Zimmer and Co. will get fewer calls. It’s only a matter of time.

My own listening habits have shifted and I’ve mostly been listening to concert music and jazz lately, but I’m starting work on an action project and have started listening to more action film music again (well-timed for LLL’s release of Lair). I listen a lot while I’m writing or brainstorming and, contrary to the popular trends, I absolutely need my music to be bold and express something, whether that be giant dumbstruck awe-inspiring destruction (Independence Day) or rural charm and elegance (Black Beauty). While I have great affection for masters such as Korngold and Herrmann (less so for Rozsa, Newman, and Steiner), my tastes seem to run closer to the Silver Age due to sound quality and more modernity to the writing.

Regarding the Japanese posts that seem to dominate the thread these days, I must confess that with rare exceptions I do not particularly enjoy much of it. The 2009 recording of Symphony Yamato and Yasuo Higuchi’s Phoenix 2772 are probably my favorites (thanks Tango!), and I try to download anything of Hisaishi’s I can get my hands on, but the truth is that much of it sounds thin and poorly recorded and/or, despite technical compositional excellence, uninspired or forced. It’s hard for me to articulate why because I am no longer active as a musician and I am pleased that so many do seem to enjoy it, but much of the music just doesn’t suit my tastes. Instead, I’d rather go back to an old favorite by Williams, Goldsmith, Elfman, or Horner or look in the catalogues of Stravinsky or Prokofiev. There’s so much great music that’s been written throughout the centuries that it’s difficult for me to want to force myself to become attached to something that strikes me as mediocre (allow snarky Man of Steel comment here).

All in all, the current musical climate in mainstream big-budget filmmaking (the popular kind) is in something of a nadir and we all have differing tastes. Some of us get excited when something slightly askew comes along and some of us think it’s pure crap and a lot of passion gets expended over relative trivialities. Trends will change, tastes will change, and we’ll always find something to get excited about, either from the future or from the past. I think we can all at least agree that we’re all lovers of this grand style of music and, as something of a rarity in today’s world, that is to be commended.

In short, we all need to keep listening.



Try being a writer, trying to break into the realm of screenwriting no less, in today's film climate. The scripts make the scores sound like Mahler. Worse yet, any moron who can type or use a pencil thinks that they too are a writer. Once doing script coverage, I read one that began with the slugline "CLOSE ON TWO HORSES FUCKING" and the plot was an Adam Sandleresque road comedy concerning stolen horse semen and the mob. This script was represented and going out around Hollywood.

In other words, I'm totally screwed. And moving back to LA in a couple of months. The joys that await me.

I agree - a lot of people here have different tastes, but we all like movie scores and/or classical music, and that's a good thing.

Regarding that script you mentioned, i would definitely read that! Hahaha. That's how you've got to do it these days: you've got to grab people's attention right off the bat. The trick is then to follow rust up with a story worth the time.

Also was anyone else a bit disappointed by LLL's release of Lair?
Of course I bought it to speak with my wallet but what's on the CD in terms of structure and content is sadly not up to some fan versions of the complete score. The sound is of course better but everything else was a bit lacking (I was a fool to expect a new recording of the Concert Suite). But it is nice to read (thanks to the booklet) one more case for my theory. A competent composer without restriction and music made with passion and less for the money = great music.

Pretty much spot on with this. I don't regret buying it for the sound quality improvement alone, but the haphazard nature of the track order threw me for a loop. For my version, I had attempted to follow the concert hall/level structure of the game and it seemed to provide a semblance of structure to the experience, although I concede that such an arrangement lends to repetitive tracks (all the Mokai tracks in a row, for instance). I think they were trying to spread out the music to keep things interesting, but the most irksome choice was placing "Breaking the Ice" as the second track, right after the main theme. With no build-up, it just doesn't work.

I'd do unspeakable things for a decent re-recording of the concert suite.

I liken film scores to woodworking or perhaps some other "workmanlike" craft of the past. If you go into a house or look at a piece of furniture, etc, made in the early 1900s or before, you can be amazed at what I call "casual genius." The intricate carvings or craftsmanlike touches were COMMON back then. Every chair leg was made by a person to whom it was just another task in a long day ... but you'd be hard-pressed to have somebody replicate that kind of "product" (that's what it is) nowadays, even with power tools.

When things were hand-done (literally or metaphorically), they had the human touch of flaws and imperfections, but also a baseline of competence that seems rare today. That's if you had a good carpenter or builder, of course.

I apply these thoughts to film music nowadays. Since perhaps the 1980s, much music for screen has been akin to cheap sidewalk cement dumped and smoothed over once. Or perhaps like that "wood trim" made from sawdust and glue covered with a vinyl finish.

I'm thinking of the Man of Steel soundtrack. I have an empty 80 minutes (or whatever) taken out of my life that was used up by the time I "listened" to this "music" trying to hear it AS MUSIC. It was effective enough with the film, but not it was not much except throbbing clangor, by itself.

(Hey! "Throbbing Clangor"! I've invented a great name for a band!)

Music reproductive technology makes it easier to crank out miles of drek in the same way that a factory can crank out miles of pre-fab "wood" wall paneling. There's nothing against this, except that it makes me miss the days when even by-the-numbers grind-it-out entertainment *might possibly* contain something valuable, because it was handled and created at a more direct level than nowadays with our digital whatchamacallits.

I'm not saying let's go back to Roger Corman (for example) any more than I'm saying let's go back to outside plumbing. Just noting the passing of the casually competent musical score. Long after the present-day blockbusters have faded away, there'll be folks who can't get the theme from The Brady Bunch or Room 222 or The Magnificent Seven or Star Wars out of their heads.


Thanks for letting me ramble, guys.


Mark
Mark's Super Blog (http://markssuperblog.blogspot.com)
Spock's Record Round-Up (http://spocksrecordround-up.blogspot.com)

Interesting analogy. Well crafted, to use the woodworking term. :-)

Just as you can still find hand made furniture being made today if you look hard enough, there's still good music being created today as well. The prefab stuff is dominant, obviously, but it's never the only option.

Patema BD seems to be out in Japan. Would love to see it appear soon on the web...

Hana Ki Sou (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBT9WmbWtbE) (Akiko Shikata, Moscow International Symphony Orchestra)
.
What is this demonry?

Great thread. Thanks.

kinerfan, that post was beautiful. What's more, you've managed to name most of my favorite composers. I am truly amazed.

Here is another share of mine featuring Michiru Oshima and all her splendor with the Russian State Symphony Cinema Orchestra! Rainbow Live an idol based show is features a nice and enjoyable score though not quite up to AKB0048 standards. Nagi has some nice little melodies and piano pieces though most of the good stuff will be coming with the second OST.

ACXA-10901-CD | PATEMA INVERTED -SOUNDTRACK- - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44116)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img002_zps7a3ac36c.jpg.html)

Title: PATEMA INVERTED -SOUNDTRACK-
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Michiru Oshima
No. of tracks: 28
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: Apr 25, 2014
Size: MP3 156mb/ ALAC 248mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 Villain Izamura ~ Opening
02 Particles of Light
03 Day-to-day Movement of the Village - Patema
04 Porta and Fuzzy and Patema
05 Lagos
06 Bat Man
07 Encounter
08 Floating for the First Time
09 Movement of First Love - Age
10 Looking into the Starry Sky
11 Father Floating in the sky
12 Security Police Appearance
13 Flying Escape! (http://kiwi6.com/file/xa3dygzrpk)
14 Age of Shock
15 Villain Izamura
16 Sadness of Patema
17 Two People that Cannot be Saved
18 Strategy of Age and Porta Jie
19 Action 1
20 Age's Pinch
21 Ceiling of the World
22 Father's Airship
23 Patema Inverse
24 Moment Emotionally Accessible
25 Courage of Age
26 Rising Rubble
27 The Future of the Two People
28 Patema Inverse(KARAOKE)


320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - PATEMA INVERTED SOUNDTRACK (animeost).7z (http://www61.zippyshare.com/v/56003232/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!HAxHUDIQ!vEYLZwfJzbuhwbf-4EkAGRErY1ypX7_LVi-J6POYgpM

AVCA-74281~2 | Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live Prism?Music Collection - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44340)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img022_zps9e491095.jpg.html)

Title: Pretty Rhythm: Rainbow Live Prism☆Music Collection
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Seikou Nagaoka
No. of tracks: 18/40
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: Apr 23, 2014
Size: MP3 384mb/ ALAC 994mb
Host: Mega/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
Disc 1
01 Happy♥ Happy♥ Naru
02 BT37.5
03 Sweet time Cooking magic ～胸ペコなんです私って～
04 Get music!
05 Vanity♥colon
06 Blowin' in the Mind
07 gift
08 nth color
09 Reboot
10 pride
11 FREEDOM
12 EZ DO DANCE -DJ.COO ver.-
13 Rosette Nebula
14 どしゃぶりHAPPY!
15 cherry-picking days
16 ALIVE -TV mix ver.-
17 Little Wing & Beautiful Pride
18 SEVENDAYS LOVE, SEVENDAYS FRIEND

Disc 2
01 Rainbow Live ( Main Theme ) (http://kiwi6.com/file/cnc0zrzt8t)
02 Hapi naru na asa
03 Schoolyard Link
04 Yume ga yattekita
05 Kokoro wa dekkai Taiheiyo!
06 Welcome to the world of prism show!
07 Costume Change
08 With a sense of hope
09 The Story of Rainbow Heart
10 Sweets Mechauma, c'mon !
11 Evening in the Park
12 Cake -Making Hectic
13 A mysterious girl
14 Trailing the past
15 Lunch Break on the Roof
16 Conflict
17 A Subtle Relationship
18 Prism Stone's Opening
19 It doesn't work
20 A Gorgeous Dear Crown
21 Kettle of fish
22 Prism Stone's Great Success
23 Kiradeko trailer of DJ.COO
24 Piano of Memories
25 Reconciliation
26 Accusation
27 Street Boys and Girls
28 Past Koji
29 Warudakumi
30 Violin Music of Bell
31 Angel Ladder
32 Mysterious Behavior
33 Prism Live Otowa's Special Training
34 Love is just around the corner
35 Painful Memories
36 Breaking Up
37 A Happy Time
38 Moto shite ageru nya!
39 A New Friendship
40 Purizumusuta~a sparkling


320 kbs MP3
https://mega.co.nz/#!3AIQSYiY!TdzVfbp4YUl0LI4rjWiNs3Whr9KYEos1FMwagFC mMiM

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!qQpgTbbD!M7JQPj7kCXepXkZ7irmKVwLx0BSF3Pd4RcBTmjF wqZ4

GNCA-1404 | NAGI NO ASUKARA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 1 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44406)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img005_zps1fe5a3d7.jpg.html)

Title: NAGI NO ASUKARA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 1
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Yoshiaki Dewa, Zentaro Watanabe, Saigenji, Depapepe, Tomoyuki Nakazawa, Chiaki Ishikawa
No. of tracks: 31
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: Apr 23, 2014
Size: MP3 193mb/ ALAC 384mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 lull ~and we are~ [TV Size]
02 Blue Water
03 Hikari's Waltz
04 Stream
05 Silence
06 Fountain
07 Ship
08 Playing Pranks
09 Twill of the Waves (http://kiwi6.com/file/b8i650qs1f)
10 Heavenly Wind
11 Mirage of the sea
12 Polishing the Moon
13 Discord
14 Uroko-sama
15 Our Ancestors
16 Endlessly Deep
17 Can I do it?
18 Hikari Sakishima
19 Cry for the moon
20 Red Moon
21 Tears of the sea
22 Prayer
23 Heart That Slips Through
24 Solitude
25 Exile
26 The Coming of Winter
27 Marine Snow
28 Saltflake Snow
29 Legend
30 The Ofunehiki Song
31 Aqua Terrarium [TV Size]



320 kbs MP3
https://mega.co.nz/#!TJpC0ZRK!WSWhWx3t_NtfujWMRGmJmd1aP5IJAxhZEpRgldA J6PU

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!nM4GxYxQ!JW9KtUEmfCKimu_TbP9C4BLCqj2EAvG5PeSBPqp e_bE

Scans included as always. Enjoy http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq271/leatherhead93/kucing_mikir_zps95512653.gif (http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/kucing_mikir_zps95512653.gif.html)

Pardon my French, but FOURTEEN FUCKING MINUTES?! Jesus... I mean, it's just GLORIOUS - some of Oshima's best work in those fourteen minutes - but still... She's really making every note count here. Melodically it's on another level. The flying theme is the most delightful since Kanno's work on Escaflowne almost twenty years ago. I love the closing bars of "Flying Escape" - those descending chords and that very unusual sounding parallel modulation drop at the end. And "Ceiling Of The World" - another glorious theme used in a very music-centric scene of the film. Oshima carries those two minutes pretty much on her own. Every moment faultlessly orchestrated and unmistakeably Oshima.

Thank you! :)

Well at least that makes Aura, Hal and Patema fit nicely on one CD, does it not :)

I have to say, more than everything else that end title is among the best she has ever written. This is real golden age, larger than life, movie-magic music and absolutly beautiful beyond words. If this was part of some two hour score I would be crying tears of happiness but as is, fourteen minutes of wonderful timeless music.

Also, what is it with those english subtitles lately?

Awsome ! Thank you !

I know that this is not the most acceptable thread to write something as particular as this but...are we back?? I have been checking in every hour, at least, to see if we made it, and it seems that we did...phew. That makes me so happy. Huzzah!!!!

Well since we are back, we should really get some way of connecting with the majority of the members of the thread somewhere else. I keep thinking we're going to be gone and I will not have any way of connecting with the major members of the thread. I'm not sure the best way to do it but if people want to send me a PM with an e-mail or other contact then that would be a good start.

Someone should start a back-up forum if that day ever hits, but I guess a good forum will cost quite a bit.

I like the looks of http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/board/ forums, but they are expensive.

I have been saying for years that we should open up a forum somewhere. Zetaboards, ************... there are tons of options for free, easy to use forums.

To celebrate the return of this beloved thread, I am posting something I think all of you might enjoy. Christopher Tin has released a track from his follow up to "Calling All Dawns" album. The track is called Iza Ngomso (Come Tomorrow) from the album The Drop That Contained the Sea. The album has very cool concept and is more along the lines of the orchestral approach of the previous release. However, this track is better than anything heard on Calling All Dawns. It is sweeping and the rich orchestration is superb. I love the melody! Christopher Tin is quickly becoming one of my favorite composers.

https://soundcloud.com/christophertin/iza-ngomso-sneak-preview

Now a bit about the album, this is taken directly from the album page:

"I'm fascinated by the human voice. I love the different ways that people sing--from the early-morning call of the muezzin, to the melancholy lament of the fadista, to the lonely Mongolian long song echoing across the mountains. When I write new pieces, I try to share a bit of that love.

The Drop That Contained the Sea is a collection of commissioned works, reimagined and arranged for chorus and orchestra. Each of the 10 pieces is sung in a different language, exploring a different vocal tradition. Each piece also deals with water in a different form, arranged in the order that water flows through the world: melting snow, mountain streams, rivers, the ocean, and so forth. And like my last album Calling All Dawns, the end of the album flows back into the beginning, reflecting the endless nature of the water cycle.

Finally, the title The Drop That Contained the Sea comes from a Sufi concept: in the same way that every drop of water contains the essence of the sea, inside every human is the essence of all of humanity. In keeping with this idea I've introduced a water theme in the prelude, and woven subtle variations throughout the album. It contains all seven notes of a major scale-four descending and three ascending-mirroring the flow of water through our world, and representing the vast ocean of melodic possibility contained within a single scale.

- Christopher Tin"

Tracklist:

1. Water Prelude (in Proto-Indo-European)
2. Haktan Gelen Serbeti (in Turkish)
3. Temen Oblak (in Bulgarian)
4. Iza Ngomso (in Xhosa)
5. Tsas Narand Uyarna (in Mongolian)
6. Passou o Verao (in Portuguese)
7. Devipravaha (in Sanskrit)
8. Seirenes (Ancient Greek)
9. Haf Gengr Hrioum (in Old Norse)
10. Waloyo Yamoni (in Lango)

This is released on May 8th and it is available to preorder here: Christopher Tin - The Drop That Contained the Sea: Preorder Now (http://www.christophertin.com/presale/)

I plan on purchasing day one :).

I'm going to start a blog and move my posts there. The unreliability of this forum is beyond insanity. (Not to mention us being asked to pay the server bills incurred by Hotel Galbadia...)

Finally back home ...

I agree with Doublehex that we need some sort of backup. Doesn't need to be anything fancy unless it's permanent.

Glad to see you guys again.

I say we start looking to re-locate this thread to another board or create a new one.

I'm going to start a blog and move my posts there. The unreliability of this forum is beyond insanity. (Not to mention us being asked to pay the server bills incurred by Hotel Galbadia...)

I'm surprised people even use Galbadia Hotel.

I'm surprised people even use Galbadia Hotel.
Alexa.com can give a general idea of where users visit on this domain. They have 83% of traffic going to forums.ffshrine.org while only 7% goes to gh.ffshrine.org.

I will look into setting up another forum.

The point is, GH may be a small percentage of page visits but don't forget - GH is serving music downloads whereas the forums are sending, at best, a few screen-fulls of text. Downloading one (reasonably lengthy) track from GH swallows up about the same amount of bandwidth as entire thread's weekly activity. Five minutes of MP3 music @ 128kbps swallows 5,000kb - your average full page of a big, discussion-heavy thread like this one is about 350kb. That means you could look at fourteen pages of this thread and still only cost the site as much bandwidth as one MP3 download from Galbadia Hotel. (This is grossly over-simplified, absolutely - there are scripts running, CPU requirements, etc - I am merely making the point that serving a page of a forum is small potatoes in comparison to the expense incurred by merely one action on GH.)

Furthermore, storage space. GH costs money even when nobody's downloading anything because of the disc space requirements. GH hosts around 6,500 albums. Some of them are short, some of them are full length - let's be charitable and average each one at 50mb. 50mb x 6500 albums = about 320gb of disc space. The site is probably paying for backups, so double it. Overheads and database, triple it - let's say GH is about 1tb, give or take.

A forum of this size doesn't NOT cost $3000 a month to host and serve. I'd be surprised if it were a tenth as much.

I also think it is morally questionable to be fully aware that you're running out of money but not ask for donations ahead of time; it attracts more desperate people if you just slam the doors closed one day and say "pay up or we're closed for good" - and nobody ever asks for (or volunteers) a breakdown of where the costs are going. For a site which asks for donations - REPEATEDLY - and deliberately make itself unavailable during the donation drive - I think it has an obligation to be completely honest and straight about a) what the expenses are, and b) how they are distributed across FFshrine's two major "avenues" - the forum and GH. It would also be nice to get some assurance that the best deals are being constantly sought. I know of another forum which has reduced its bills every year and simultaneously grown larger (more bandwidth, more disk space, more CPU, more resilient backup procedures) because of the owner's dilligence and willingness to chase a bargain.

If you're in any way thrifty, you never, EVER buy a hosting plan and sit on it forever. It's like car insurance. Every year you ring around and see what other companies can do for you, then you call up your current provider and say "OK, Joe Bloggs Ltd is offering me more for �200 a year less. What can you offer me?" --- and invariably your current provider matches the discount to keep you on board.

GH costs at least half of the total monthly expense for FFShrine, and probably considerably more. Calling it now.

Well here's a quick thing.

THE BIG ORCHESTRAL ACTION MUSIC FORUM! (http://orc.prophpbb.com/)

Date A Live II Episode 4:

Go Sakabe is truly remarkable when he's allowed to cut loose. This seasons OST easily tops the last already imo. It is a pleasure to be treated to another full blown mechish score alongside Ryosuke Nakanishi's work for Daimidaler =).

*runs to download*

Edit: Blimey! The new music between 7:43 and 10:15 reminds me of vintage orchestral Sahashi! Well structured, suspenseful, good orchestration. And as for the rest, even the beat stuff is good. :D

In other news... It's my 30th Birthday tomorrow. Anybody got any advice regarding how to NOT get old?

I'm not there yet so I still have time to think of ways to avoid the inevitable.

Edit: Here's a preview of Go Shiina's music for the anime film Majocco Shimai no Yoyo to Nene, performed by a 50+ piece studio orchestra and orchestrated by Sachiko Miyano: http://kiwi6.com/file/1fht3etxwy

The soundtrack is due out on June 25th, the same day that Gunshi Kanbee Vol.2, Daimidaler, and Nanana Suite No.1 are released.

Oh, no...

The Shiina score is really lovely. And his stylistic footprint is clearly present even though he's working with a different orchestrator. I may have to modify my earlier opinion of him as a crap composer resting on skilled orchestrators...

Edit: Can you believe Daimidaler is getting a 2CD release? DOES NOT COMPUTE. Cheap 11 episode show. How is there enough music for two CDs? One of them has to be a drama or something...

I can believe it. There's actually been a good amount of new music every episode. It's great stuff too.

It's a small orchestra so it could be that he budgeted it so he'd be able to record a whole two discs worth of music.

IT all seems a little too well-thought out to me! ;)

It is shockingly good, isn't it? The show is terrible, cheap and nasty beyond belief. But somehow the guy has managed to sneak an orchestral score in the back door. Not a massive ensemble, but big enough and well used...

I think it has more to do with Ryosuke himself. Though some of recent work has been somewhat unimpressive he always composes as much music as he can and the majority of his compositions are 2 CDs. I still think it's a shame how much he is held back because he seems to get picked to do scores for all these perverted/comedy based shows. I do wish we could see a series where he didn't have to listen to the director telling him "HEY HEY! This show is terrible don't make the score stand out more than you have too!". xP

I strongly agree that some scores done by Ryosuke Nakanishi recently were rather lacking but what caught my ears to this composer was Highschool DxD nothing so far has come close execpt Hataraku Maou-sama! i do know that Yuki Kajiura is given free reign on what she likes do with the music and hands it in. If these said composers were given that we may have a 3CD ear-orgasmic music lenghly tracks not bias few secs XD

Michiru Oshima
Patema Inverted
The Complete Orchestral Score



Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!f9gDmDyK!Sf8kzCDL8PqasLTP9-ud7j7lmlNMtl1Xp3VeC98qDK8)

Now that I've seen the film I'm actually a bit angry now. Another case of baffling decisions regarding what's on the soundtrack. For all who have not seen the film, let me just say that almost the entire climax with a Tempest-quality showdown is not on the disc. Not to mention the variation of the Ceiling and the Main Theme (the very first piece of music in the film). Even the temp track for the bad guys is given some substance at the end and the villain motif (an important part of the score) and it's development is omitted as well. We have here a score almost twice as long as LWA and in terms of quality it is now my favorite short score for an animated movie. Oshima's music had a similar effect on me as John Williams ET. The movie is a nice simple story with some creative ideas but the music really makes certain scenes work and lets me feel the little wonder of movie magic again. What magic and goose bumps such a simple theme makes! So my enthusiasm for the score made me do a little rip of the film and thankfully, only little ambience and SFX most of the time. It's a quick rip and nothing fancy but it's good enough for me to get a taste of the whole musical experience. For example, the little hints of the villain motif in Captured and Sadness of Patema are now foreshadowing the climax. Here's the unreleased stuff:

01 Inverted (Blade Runner-esque opening, some SFX)
08 Cloudy Sky (Little statement of the Main Theme with the focus on the flute)
09 Starry Sky (Again, only with different orchestration)
11 Captured (First major piece missing, variations of Flying Escape! with stronger intro, villain motif and dramatic resolution, SFX)
14 Patema Rescued (Variation of Moment of Love, softer strings and more woodwinds, slight SFX)
15 Memory of Lagos (Variation of Lagos, slight SFX)
19 Return to the Surface (String version of Ceiling of the World, slight SFX)
20 Chase (Orchestral version of Bat-man with villain motif, slight SFX)
21 Descent (Shorter version with dramatic resolution, some SFX)
22 Momentary Victory (Heroic statement of Age, slight SFX)
23 Falling into Blackness (90s movie action with villain motif and some major SFX)
25 Showdown (Pure orchestral climax, major statements of the villain motif and dramatic resolution, some SFX)

The whole package is in chronological film order. Enjoy

Samples of Desplat's Godzilla:

http://www.screenarchives.com/flash_mp3_player/mp3player.cfm?ID=26993&TID=26993&pheight=184

OH YESSS!!!!! Thank you VERY much for this, Faleel, this really is appreciated!!! :D

Well... it sounds very good from the samples! Only a week or so left before the whole score is out.

Edit: Wierd, a part of the cue "Muto Hatch" reminds me of Basil Poledouris Robo Cop theme, is it only me?

I am thinking the same thing, aswell. ;) Also, indeed, the samples DO sound very good! This should be promising and exciting!!! xD :D :)

don�t you love it when you discover something that has been there for ages and you think how the hell is this not in my collection? happend today wheni received my package from SAE.It contained Eckhart Seebert expanded scores for 90s Low Budget Fantasy Movies To the Ends of Time and the Gothic Horror Bram Stokers Shadowbuilder. The cds are lomited to 500 each so be quick.To the Ends of TIme is a score for orchestra and choir and the trailer for the movie makes me think they used all their money for the score and had not much left for the movie.Its a massiv unshamefully romantic thematicly very rich fantasy score in the vein of krull, willow, lair and a bit of conan.tons of highlights.haven�t heard shadowbuilder yet but since its the same composer and the same orchestra and choir it should be great.more on that when if finished listening to shadowbuilder.

100% agree with that. They're excellent scores - to the extent where they play almost like symphonies. The performance, despite penny-pinching on the Ukranian State Radio Symphony Orchestra, is reasonable, if a little under-rehearsed at times. Both fantastic - although I personally prefer To The Ends Of Time - and WELL WORTH GETTING. I should add that they're exceptionally generous CDs too at almost 80 minutes each. :D

Like you i prefer To the Ends of Time before Shadowbuilder.Shadowbuilder is a fine score, too, propably for fans of Doyles Frankenstein, Goldsmiths Omen or Millers Hellriaser 3.But To the Ends of Time is soo colorful and rousing you cannot help but to fall in love with it.Even the schmalzy end credit song is wonderfull, like horner based on the lovetheme with full orchestra.stuff like that makes me happy.

CHILD OF LIGHT
Composed by B�atrice Martin
VBR 320 -0 .MP3| 1"48'15 | 204 MB .rar



https://mega.co.nz/#!3dxyXaTB!Nkx7sHTs2wZw_Mq7kjJMck-Tv08HCaX1LNH5G8uakPU

1.B�atrice Martin - Child of Light for Orchestra (4:34)
2.B�atrice Martin - Chapter I - The Girl and the Firefly (2:13)
3.B�atrice Martin - The Shadows of Pluto (2:05)
4.B�atrice Martin - Victory (0:51)
5.B�atrice Martin - Ever Wander Under Statues' Gaze (5:21)
6.B�atrice Martin - The Horn and the Spear for Chorus (4:04)
7.B�atrice Martin - Chapter IV - The Deep Dark Well (1:06)
8.B�atrice Martin - The Bitter Depths (3:36)
9.B�atrice Martin - From a Flock of Crows (1:06)
10.B�atrice Martin - Like a Bird Sung (1:13)
11.B�atrice Martin - Jovial (0:21)
12.B�atrice Martin - The Light of Jupiter (1:32)
13.B�atrice Martin - With Hair Argent and Crimson for Piano and Strings (3:00)
14.B�atrice Martin - Hope is Low for Solo Violin (2:57)
15.B�atrice Martin - Steamworks for Orchestra (5:48)
16.B�atrice Martin - Hope is Low for Strings (2:38)
17.B�atrice Martin - Child of Light in Agitato (1:25)
18.B�atrice Martin - Chapter VI - Of Mice and Magna (1:30)
19.B�atrice Martin - The Horn and the Spear for Orchestra (4:04)
20.B�atrice Martin - Into the Belly (4:04)
21.B�atrice Martin - The Rat That Plays (1:50)
22.B�atrice Martin - The Mirror Lightly (1:49)
23.B�atrice Martin - Umbra (2:34)
24.B�atrice Martin - Mother (1:09)
25.B�atrice Martin - Chapter VIII - The Highest of the High (5:00)
26.B�atrice Martin - A Serpent of the Twilight for Chorus (4:14)
27.B�atrice Martin - Chapter IX - The Piscean and the Ogre (3:01)
28.B�atrice Martin - The Sword of Mars (1:57)
29.B�atrice Martin - Steamworks for String and Piano (3:24)
30.B�atrice Martin - Chapter X - The Lowest of the Low (2:27)
31.B�atrice Martin - With Hair Argent and Crimson for Orchestra (2:11)
32.B�atrice Martin - Air Most Foul (1:09)
33.B�atrice Martin - A Serpent of the Twilight for Orchestra (4:14)
34.B�atrice Martin - The Land That Sung (1:57)
35.B�atrice Martin - Child of Light for Piano (4:15)
36.B�atrice Martin - The Hymn of Light for Chorus (4:36)
37.B�atrice Martin - The Hymn of Light for Orchestra (4:36)
38.B�atrice Martin - Wake Up (4:24)

A classical concert with music by Goldenthal, Horner, Williams, and Shore? And it's tomorrow? And Goldenthal's contribution is his first symphony? Where's the bootleg already??

Composers have their time in spotlight - Daily Pilot (http://www.dailypilot.com/entertainment/tn-dpt-et-0502-american-composers-festival-pacific-20140430,0,4475381.story)

Even more importantly, how did any of us not hear about it until now?

I knew about it for while...

Howard Shore's Mythic Gardens can be found here in case anyone wants to have a listen:

Movement I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rBp_jaXR8I
Movement II:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDZRAL9zgIc
Movement III: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS5e87Gejz0

A Herr Salat / Tangotreats Co-Production

KOICHI SUGIYAMA
Syrius no Densetsu (The Sea Prince and the Fire Child)
Shared for the first time online in STEREO



NHK Symphony Orchestra
Choir "Circus" (lyrics by Michio Yamagami)
conducted by The Composer

My transfer from vinyl. FLAC at Level 8. Tagged in English. I will personally hunt down and beat with a large stick anybody asking for CUEs and LOGs.

SAMPLE TRACK (Track 1) - 01. prologue ~ ai no cantata - Listen and download mp3 - Kiwi6 Mp3 Upload (http://kiwi6.com/file/nsxsu8cvq5)

FLAC with all scans in PDF: https://mega.co.nz/#!hswmgCZJ!dOvd6hKuMbXR1G4oUGtyfEo9yZdlBKF9t2ub2zS iUS4 (216mb)
MP3 (-V0 LAME 3.99.5) with all scans in PDF: https://mega.co.nz/#!doBjQQ5b!C_4pTG8oJAnUFzQpLyhVcxLAZ1ITrFRXlE1Bqyw Ujg0 (78mb)
SCANS ONLY in insanely high-quality (all .PNG format): https://mega.co.nz/#!59hDlaDZ!b4PN90XvrV0Voz1Iz7Jt0VZCq2tRO4KEBZnxc54 3vZs (209mb)

Also included, painstakingly assembled, restored, ludicrously high quality scans of the album covers, luxury booklet, insert sheet, and Obi strip.

A classic? Yes. Rare as hen's teeth? Absolutely. Up there with Sugiyama's most inspired scores? Definitely. Released on CD? Nope. Can be found online? Well, yes, after a fashion - a noisy, inexplicably mono, fairly amateurish MP3 transfer has been circulating in the soundtrack community for a number of years, so it has at least been possible to hear this wonderful work: Whoever was responsible for the first transfer surely deserves credit for that. Nonetheless, if any classic score has been crying out for the Deluxe treatment, it's this one. In the absence of an official CD release, and the unlikelihood of one emerging in the future, I humbly submit my attempt. As ever, I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude to Herr Salat for managing to find that which nobody else could. When I found out what was inside this particular package from Germany, I'm not ashamed to say I shed a manly tear of two.

The score is pure Sugiyama; and the central theme is gorgeous - one of the composer's loveliest melodies. (Which is just as well, because it features very heavily in the rest of the score!) It's hard to pick a highlight, but if I were forced, I'd single out track 5 for attention. A wonderful swelling brass chorale that's so simple on paper and yet utterly beguiling, as Sugiyama's best work tends to be. Track 6 pays tribute to Bernard Herrmann's "Beneath The 12-Mile Reef", and track 9 is a homage to Offenbach's famous "Can Can" (reimagined by Sugiyama as a bouncy piece for solo trumpet, oompah brass, and shrill woodwind. Track 11 begins with a brief quote from the final movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony.

Enjoy! And, thank you most sincerely, Herr Salat; you've done it again. :)

Technical notes for those interested:

This will be my second full transfer (after a one track test-run in the Abbey Road SFX Symphony album, and The Music Lovers soundtrack posted recently) made with a new and technique that eschews the traditional analogue Phono stage in favour of a flat, high bit-depth and high sample-rate transfer with the RIAA curve applied in the digital domain. I am now completely convinced that the process produces a superior sound. Doing more work digitally and removing an analogue equalisation stage (which introduces "colour" as a result of imprecise circuitry as well as distortion and noise - both of which are more than adundant in vinyl to begin with!)

As source material, I am happy to say I had access to mint condition, almost unplayed vinyl. The respect with which Japanese collectors tend to treat their records never ceases to amaze me, and inevitably makes the task of transferring most pleasurable. Clicks and other low-level typical vinyl noises were minimal and therefore easy to remove non-destructively. The close-miked brass presented a challenge as traditional automated click removal algorithms often mistake them for noise with obvious (and unpleasant) consequences. This was dealt with by careful intervention, a very light touch, and in some passages, click removal performed entirely by hand. Occasional artefacts remain audible where it would have harmed the original signal to remove them. Since the original LP was cut from a particularly hissy master-tape I have also applied a light and careful hiss reduction.

Enjoy! :)
TT

Thank you, Tango & Herr Salat, for this incredible share. The quality is superb! Excellent work!

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE CUES AND LOGS. FUCKING AMATEURS.

Thanks for the share Tango. I'll take a download and listen after my RPG session tonight.

:roflspock:

Would you believe, I still get asked? "How can I verify the quality of this release with no rip .LOG??!"

It's a fucking record, chaps. A piece of flexible black plastic you play by dragging a finely ground diamond over it whilst it rotates. Oy, vey...

Wow

So much beauty and grace. As always your hard work and dedication (this goes for Herr Salat as well) to bring great music to this thread, no matter the source, is more than appreciated. Another one for my "Classic Japan" folder. Thank you.

It is a beautiful score though sadly more vocals on the album than I would have hoped. Certainly not as distracting as some but there is a reason I listen to scores and first off that is to have something that I can listen to while I read. Certainly a well-done post and the sound is great.

With the router deciding to be a useless brick of plastic and cables(again), I'm unable to sample the new audio quality yet, but it did remind me to check out the old recording. Definitely a lot of ideas that would go on to reappear in some form in DQ(I hear Magic Carpet in at least a couple cues, Mysterious Sanctuary in track 6). Wasn't really expecting vocals from Sugiyama, but they're sparse and lovely to boot. The whole score is vintage Sugiyama, but lusher and a little more complex than his more pastoral game work. My only wish is that it were a little longer, and had a little more action to it.

Have a tracklist, gents.

1. Prologue ~ Cantata of Love
2. Beautiful Dawn
3. The Mariner Gang
4. The March of Prince Sirius
5. The Sanctuary of the Dragon God
6. At the Cape of Lyrica
7. The Sea Without Sirius
8. Malta's Destiny
9. High and Low
10. Eternal Sorrow
11. Departure to the Stars
12. Time Goes By

Aye, agreed. The perennial LP fail; 45 minutes of music at the most.

Sugiyama's action style is very interesting and he never really got to flex those muscles as well as he should, particularly in the last thirty years which has seen Sugiyama effectively retire except from Dragon Quest. The light dissonances, precise rhythms, dense orchestration, and classical poise of action cues in, say, the Ideon movies, I find very attractive. That said, I'm a sucker for a shameless Sugiyama flight of melodic fancy... and there's plenty of that here. :)

Hope your busted router sorts itself out soon. :)

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE CUES AND LOGS. FUCKING AMATEURS.

Thanks for the share Tango. I'll take a download and listen after my RPG session tonight.

Way to be grateful, asshole. Jeezus, grow up.

I think it should be obvious he was being sarcastic. Tango seems to have noticed that at least.

Has anyone had the chance of listening to Christopher Tin's latest album "The Drop That Contained the Sea"?

Friendly sarcasm was indeed received as such. :)

Not much of a haul this week but here are a couple albums i have that may tickle your fantasy.

ANZX-9290 | KILL la KILL ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD Vol.2 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/43242)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img010_zps4401da7f.jpg.html)

Title: KILL la KILL ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD Vol.2
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Hiroyuki Sawano
No. of tracks: 18
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 07, 2014
Size: MP3 196mb/ ALAC 500mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 Gekiban Tokka-gata Hitotsuboshi Gokuseifuku
02 Rhythm Kyouka-gata Futatsuboshi Gokuseifuku
03 Nichijou Gekijou-gata Mitsuboshi Gokuseifuku
04 Fuku wo Kita Buta-gata Yotsuboshi Gokuseifuku
05 Naming Sense 0-gata Itsutsuboshi Gokuseifuku
06 Tsuika Hacchuu-gata Mutsuboshi Gokuseifuku
07 Haikei Keigu-gata Nanatsuboshi Gokuseifuku
08 MT Hensou-gata Yatsuboshi Gokuseifuku
09 Tabun LASTBOSS-gata Kokonotsuboshi Gokuseifuku
10 Zenhan Saishuuroku-gata Tounohoshi Gokuseifuku
11 Tsuika Saishuuroku-gata Toutohitotsuboshi Gokuseifuku
12 Juuyoubutsu Hakkou Kyouchou-gata Toutofutatsuboshi Gokuseifuku (http://kiwi6.com/file/031rhermn5)
13 Before My Body Is Dry (Karaoke)
14 Suck Your Blood (Karaoke)
15 Blumenkranz (Karaoke)
16 Light Your Heart Up (Karaoke)
17 I Want To Know (Karaoke)
18 Till I Die (Karaoke)


English Tracklist (by NaotaM)

01 Special Edition 1-star Goku Uniform
02 Rhythm-Enhancing 2-star Goku Uniform
03 A 3-star Goku Uniform for the Common Man
04 Pigs in 4-star Goku Uniforms
05 Fan of 5-star Goku Uniforms (This one came out the weirdest, so whatever. If anybody has a better idea for it, shoot.)
06 Awaiting Orders in a 6-star Goku Uniform
07 Dear Sirs, Your 7-star Goku Uniform
08 MT Masquerade 8-star Goku Uniform
09 A 9-star Goku Uniform for a Likely Nude SBOSS
10 First Volume Reprise 10-star Goku Uniform
11 A 11-star Goku Uniform for Your Final Moments
12 A 12-star Goku Uniform for Someone Specia



320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - KILL la KILL ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK CD Vol.2 (animeost).7z (http://www23.zippyshare.com/v/66298334/file.html)


ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!aJIVnJrC!KIqEvXalz5Skq-Kj1yfaLio2BGdR1rSZr0tbIMnYQvM

VTCY-45 | ARPEGGIO OF BLUE STEEL -ARS NOVA- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 3 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/42844)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/42844-1398901344_zps03429ffb.jpg.html)

Title: ARPEGGIO OF BLUE STEEL -ARS NOVA- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 3
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Masato Kouda
No. of tracks: 10
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 02, 2014
Size: MP3 83.9mb/ ALAC 147mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Zippy/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)

01 Flute Requiem
02 Veil of Thorns
03 Behind the Hand
04 close game
05 Flowers Blooming on the Waterfront
06 Side by Side in the Calm Evening
07 Furioso War
08 Silver Sky ～another ver.～
09 Power Pioneer Routes (http://kiwi6.com/file/gbwhuzahw1)
10 S O S. (music box ver.)



320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - ARPEGGIO OF BLUE STEEL -ARS NOVA- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 3.7z (http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/35609624/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
Zippyshare.com - ARPEGGIO OF BLUE STEEL -ARS NOVA- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 3 FLAC.7z (http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/44811382/file.html)

Scans included as always. Enjoy http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq271/leatherhead93/kucing_tolong_zps4c5f6eed.gif (http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/kucing_tolong_zps4c5f6eed.gif.html)

On another note I'm really looking forward to Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii in a couple weeks. I actually haven't heard many works from Kousuke but he certainly leaves a very good impression with this one. That main theme sounds like something you'd hear out of a Disney movie ^_^. Real orchestra or not I'm loving it. Now if only the score wasn't for some cheesy romcom it'd be even better :P

Quite. Yamashita's music is so good that the potentially fake (at least, in parts) orchestra can't spoil it. That theme is an instant classic. A poster at VGMDB has derided it as "generic orchestral shit" but only one word of that assessment is true, and I don't think I need to outright specify which one that is...

You have a wonderful journey of discovery ahead of you regarding his music. He's easily one of the most skilled composers working today; in my top three with Hirano and Oshima.

Edit: More Sahashi-alike action scoring in Date-A-Live II episode 5 this week. Go Sakabe DEFINITELY one to watch in the coming years.

Quite. Yamashita's music is so good that the potentially fake (at least, in parts) orchestra can't spoil it. That theme is an instant classic. A poster at VGMDB has derided it as "generic orchestral shit" but only one word of that assessment is true, and I don't think I need to outright specify which one that is...
An opinion can neither be true nor false. It's just an opinion.

Like yours here:

He's easily one of the most skilled composers working today; in my top three with Hirano and Oshima.

I think it should be obvious he was being sarcastic. Tango seems to have noticed that at least.

Well, if that's true then i apologize. There's just so many yahoos that make these kinds of comments that AREN'T sarcasm - it gets old after awhile. Sorry for jumping in if I was out of place.

---------- Post added at 08:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 PM ----------

I was just reading through some of the previous posts and saw the comments about the CUES that i had missed before, so yeah, i definitely w wrong there. Sorry about that! My bad.

On a side note, I've finally started sampling some of the recent shares of the Japanese material and it sounds great so far. I'm looking forward to really listening to these, so thanks for all the shares.

No problem. You are new to the thread so I figured you just weren't aware of how Doublehex tends to do posts like that on occasion.

An opinion can neither be true nor false. It's just an opinion.

Like yours here:

Opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one and they usually stink. A man who states "facts" in his signature - and even emboldens "facts" for emphasis - should be a little more understanding. ;)

In all seriousness, my statement about this business was divided into two; one fact and one opinion. The opinion part was that he's one of the most skilled composers working; even though I doubt there are many (learned) people who would disagree. I think I signposted it clearly enough as an opinion by stating that he's in "my" top three.

I realise the "fact versus opinion" subject is explosive and frequently dangerous territory, but I believe interesting things can come from difficult topics - so let's press on regardless. After considerable thought and re-evaluation, I honestly believe that disputing "shit" and "generic" is possible strictly based around factual observations. Liking the score or disliking it doesn't come into it. Your vague comment (which wasn't made in this forum, and was intended for another audience - so I completely understand WHY it was vague) imposed characteristics on the music that simply aren't there. YOU, my friend, can do better than that - I know it very well. :)

To argue strictly with terminology - one cannot say it's generic because it's completely idiomatic of the composer's style. Granted, one needs to be intimately acquainted with that style in order to detect the finer points of it - and your willingness to absorb the style to that level of detail will probably be low if you find the composer's work distasteful on the whole, but it's all there to those who observe. Every note of that score - even the crappy synthy bits - are drowning with Yamashita's personal musical language. "Generic" describes something without personality, without distinguishing features - something interchangeable. I don't believe Yamashita's work can be described as such, for the above reasons.

Next to "shit" - well, that's a pretty all-encompassing word - one may even say as a derogative term it's quite generic ;) - but if we're looking for a musicological definition, it's difficult to match it up... the music is thematic, motif-driven, well-constructed, professional, maturely and symphonically developed, and is skilfully arranged for its performing ensemble. Therefore, I conclude that it isn't "shit" either.

I'll definitely, readily agree that it's not Yamashita's finest work - but completely aside from personal taste, it's uniquely the work of its composer and satisfies pretty much all textbook definitions of what "good" music should contain... Therefore, by all musical definitions - and isn't it wise to judge music with musical definitions? - it's not shit and it's not generic.

Technical construction aside, do you actually LIKE it? Does it appeal to you as an individual? No, not at all. I may not understand that, but I would never challenge it. I'd be fascinated to hear what it is you dislike so much, as I am sure others in this thread would too.

In any case, I only brought it up (deliberately not quoting you by name) in a light-hearted way to "counter-review" my own thoughts. I didn't intend to involve you personally, nor piss on your right to think what you think - it amused me. I have a habit of quoting excessively negative reviews when I'm talking about something I enjoy.

One of my favourites is William Sommerwerck's assertion that Miklos Rozsa was the worst composer ever to put pen to paper, and Ben Hur was a terrible, terrible failure as music and as a film score. I could never - and neither could pretty much anybody - listeners, casual fans, contemporaries, other musicians, etc - understand the basis for that. "I hate Ben Hur and Miklos Rozsa" would be unusual, and still difficult to understand - but I can at least respect it as a difference of opinion... but he presented his stance as unassailable fact - which it is not. It's an opinion; an unpopular, uneducated, unusual one at that. These gentlemen had good things to say about Rozsa; Charles Munch, Alexander Korda, Andre Previn, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, Janos Starker, Jascha Heifetz, Eugene Ormandy. If you're going to go against them you should probably make an effort to explain yourself!

Incidentally, I despise Hans Zimmer's music. I think he's a hack and a businessman, not a composer. BUT, I don't call him generic - because he's not. Love 'em or hate 'em, his scores are very easily recognisable as his own. The guy has an individual style - which is more than you can say for a lot of composers these days - and that style runs like veins through every single one of his scores - from The DaVinci Code to Inception. I respect that.

:)

Edit: Bloody hell, anybody heard Tenkai Knights yet? Another Monaca score, another Captain Earth!

Edit again: Kei Haneoka's 2014 Sentai score is really, REALLY surprising and impressing me in equal measure. Episode 11 is almost wall-to-wall orchestral score - some repeated cues from previous episodes, of course, and some brand new corkers. It's good by any standard, but from a newcomer it's just wonderful. It really is just a hair away from Gokaiger at this point. Sahashi's 2013 score was good in parts, but extremely lazy too. Haneoka is taking this very seriously and is clearly having a whale of a time whipping up his generous-sized orchestra into a good old-fashioned monster movie frenzy. He's making an effort even in those cues that other composers - even A-listers like Sahashi - usually get bored with and take the easy way out with cheap space-filling rock or some moody synth drone. Really pleased with this.

Sure, under your measures of quality something might be clearly not a good score. But typically people's statements of whether a score is good or not come down to personal preference and whether they get a positive response from it. For example I recognize that musically The Dark Knight isn't the most complex score or musically well written but I enjoy it quite a lot in the right mood. It hits the right notes and works great in some ways. If I called it a great score it wouldn't be accurate from the perspective of a big orchestral opus but it would still be accurate in that to me it is a very enjoyable score. Few people are able to differentiate between "I enjoy this" and "this is objectively good" because they don't have the proper way to measure objective quality in the first place.

Absolutely - that's why it's hard to come up with a differentiation, and it's really hard to have a discussion about it without people ending up feeling insulted.

I thought this one was interesting and worth talking about. One can argue whether a theme is a theme or a motif, or whether it's a good theme or a bad theme, or a forgettable theme or a great one - your mileage may vary... but it occurred to me that if you "drill up" to really simple language, it's possible to describe something in pure objective terms. Figuring out what's objective and what's subjective is very interesting to me.

Currently listening to atrocious, hideous, terrible, shockingly hilariously bad score I really love - Andrew Powell's Ladyhawke. :D

And THAT'S how you argue ladies and gents!

Yup, today I listened to the full score of The Dark Knight while doing a bit of planning for an upcoming trip. It was great, so much so that I didn't even notice when I started playing The Dark Knight Returns after that. Oops... Until the Bane theme started going.

The only music I have been listening to is lately for filling out the playlist for my RTG group. I am almost at my 26 hour goal, but I'll be damned if finding music for certain fantasy races and factions are not driving me crazy up the wall.

I should just listen to Godzilla to calm myself.

26 hours? That's awfully short for you, isn't it? ;)

No, actually that's pretty long. Allow myself to explain.

The guys and I are playing 13th Age, which is a D&D-like game that is a mixture between the rules heavy D&D and the rules light story focused games, such as World of Darkness or Nobilis. Alot of the awkward mechanics, such as size and speed, were thrown the fuck out in the name of combat being lightning fast and your characters doing wicked cool shit.

One aspect Rob Heinsoo and Jon Tweet took from story games were the idea of factions. But instead of playing it straight by allowing people to choose between the Thieves Guild of the Paladin Order or the Mage's Collective or whatnot, you get Relationship Points with the Icons. See, Icons are the game's terms for the big movers of the world. And every Fantasy setting has those big name NPCs that change the ebb and flow of that world, so its not like this is something restrictive to 13th Age's default setting. So, 13th Age has 13 Icons (http://chaosinferred.com/personal/13thage/the-dragon-empire/the-icons/), and I quickly realized something when I took a look at them.

They are all homages to big fantasy aspects!

The Archmage is the Gandalf and Merlin of every heroic fantasy world. I mean, has there ever been a LOTR knockoff without a big name Wizard or groups of them? The Crusader is that big evil military man that is just asking to be kicked down by the heroes, and of course the Diabolist is the iconic force of the hells. Because when in any DND setting has there never been demons and devils causing trouble? And...well, you get to the idea.

So I decided for my 13th Age playlist I would base each folder off one of the Icons. And each Icons folder would be far reaching - the Archmage would deal with more than just any mage or sorcerer the party comes across. It would cover dealing with any sort of entity coming from another dimension, or other planes of reality. Or just wicked weird and absurd stuff in general that is just BEGGING me to play some Philip Glass and Wendy Carlos.

Let's just say some of the Icons have been easier than others.


AREA COMBAT
ARCHMAGE X X
CRUSADER X X
DIABOLIST X X
DWARF KING 40 25
ELF QUEEN X 46
EMPEROR 35 X
G.G.WYRM 36 X
HIGH DRUID 36 2
LICH KING X X
ORC LORD 44 X
PRIESTESS X X
PRINCE OF
SHADOWS 51 1
THE THREE X X


I have no idea what I am going to do about combat music for the High Druid and the Prince of Shadows. How do you express fighting wolves and bears and thugs and crime warlords through music? The Dwarf King is gonna be a bitch too, cuz how do you get battle music for a race that has been brought low and is trying to fight against everything to climb back up? I already exhausted the Banner Saga for those purposes - which fit like a glove, I should add.

Well, tango, I'm in total agreement of your statement about Yamashita. He's a very skilled composer indeed. His music is very well put together and thought out, as he knows how to use, but not overuse motifs, use brilliant harmonies, and make music that is just pleasing overall. What's more, he's a great person to talk to.

could it be? a month where i buy 3 new hollywood scores? godzilla was allright, even if besides the theme not much memorable left.still nice to hear in the background.now people seem to go crazy over JNHs maleficent itunes clips.i cant hear them but i keep been told that they sound like 90s JNH without any modern sound whatsover.i would buy that instantly.and we have mcneelys upcoming western comedy score a million ways to die in the west which was inspired by how the west was won.seth mcfarlane doesn�t like modern scores and it showed in ted.ted was a pure 90s comedy score like the ones debney used to write back in the days.no release of course.

Fuck, I feel old.
It's not the age; it's experience :)

Michiru Oshima
Fullmetal Alchemist
The Moscow International Symphonic Orchestra
Conducted by Konstatin D. Krimets



Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!PsJgBSTS!RJ3tVkAN9XWb5OCCisOxJgSv_bEsRWZ730QgPJn Qqo4)
MP3 / V0 / 88 Tracks / 2h 46 min


So this is it folks, here's every composer's dream. An enormous budget, a superb orchestra and conductor, an excellent recording environment and just one guideline: Go Big!
For most composers (who did not work for old Hollywood) this was a once in a lifetime chance to express themselves. Michiru Oshima is not only a very gifted composer, she is also one of the lucky few who got not one but numerous opportunities to work on such an enormous scale. Even my favorite composers like Yamashita or Sahashi have yet to write that BIG one. Oshima's score for the 2003 TV-Anime "Fullmetal Alchemist" and the 2005 movie "The Conqueror of Shamballa" can only be described in superlatives. Before I'm getting to the score in more detail, let me just say it's everything I could ever want from an orchestral score. Everytime a japanese composer goes to Warsaw or Moscow, magical things happen. This time Oshima wrote perhaps the best score in her entire career but that is of course up to debate. While I agree that Tempest is the better score from a purely technical standpoint (not to mention that her most accomplished pieces are in that score), I think that overall there is just a tiny bit more magic in Fullmetal Alchemist. Perhaps it was her enthusiasm to finally get such a prestigous orchestra or her enthusiasm for the Anime itself, regardless, we have here a score that is bombastic as well as militaristic, adventurous, dramatic and tragic.



The score was written for an animated version of the manga "Hagane no Renkinjutsushi" by Hiromu Arakawain in 2003

When I say I love japanese scores then this is exactly what I'm talking about. I can't get enough of these giant prestige scores that pop out even today every now and then and they usually are in every sense of the word "epic". I consider them to be the modern version of the Golden Age scores for Hollywood Epics. Just like Magi or the recent Gunshi Kanbee, this score shows what true epicness is: Something that the hundreds of Hollywood composers and DJs today can never hope to achieve with one million drum loops and monster brass stabs on top of each other. The score is not purely orchestral bombast ala Lair either. Like the story of the Anime it has a really dramatic and tragic core. Let's not forget that the goal of the music was to tell the story of two brothers who lose everything for not accepting the death of their mother and wanting to gain it back. They become part of a military nation that commits genocide and does horrible experiments on citizens. The brothers are confronted with horrible scenes and crimes and at the end even with their past sins. Even the conflict of religion and science is adressed and the story has no happy ending for everyone. The music incapsulates these elements beautifully, giving us real tearjerker moments and operatic drama. No wonder even Beethoven rises from the grave (for an anime original twist).
However these serious moments make the adventurous, uplifting and heroic moments shine even brighter. The Alchemist Theme is of course the highlight of the score. It goes through one hell of a journey, appearing in full front as a heroic march, a dark sinister march, a smashing action piece or a pastoral string piece. But the motif is appearing in numerous tracks as well, played bold or subtle, heroic or tragic. We have of course many secondary themes and motifs, often for individual story arcs. The movie score also has a very sinister villain theme that is played in numerous variations throughout the score.
Going a bit more into detail I absolutly love how this orchestra sounds. The first bars for the horn in "The Way Home" instantly put me in the world of alchemists. But what really puts me on the edge of my seat are the strings in "Determination", god that is beautiful. "Reminiscence" is one of my favorite orchestral pieces in all of anime and "Hope for the Future" is the best closing title Oshima has written yet, reprising the lovely "Refreshing Weather" at the beginning. Btw, Oshima really loves her cymbal crescendos and clashes, doesn't she.



Michiru Oshima wrote the score for Fullmetal Alchemist with classical music in mind.
The sound director gave her numerous pieces to get inspiration from and she fleshed out her ideas accordingly.

This score presentation has every orchestral track from the four soundtracks but I put them in a sensible listening order, providing a narrative that the album presentation is sadly lacking. I made the movie villain theme the primary antagonist theme of the whole score, connecting the individual story arcs (Chimera & Lab, Ishval, Greed or Dante). The Alchemist Theme is also more prominent thanks to the movie, making it really evident as the Main Theme. I also tried to give it more of a "serious Indiana Jones" feel (considering Shamballa and everything). I think this makes the score as a whole more satisfying. I also divided the score in two parts: The orchestral part and the Piano/Solo part.

The orchestral story:



Track 79 composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven (Symphony No.5, Op.67)
Track 86 composed by Frederic Chopin (�tude Op. 10, No. 3)

The works for Piano/Solo:



This is everything she has written for piano and solo instruments as well as alternate versions of orchestral pieces. Making them seperate is also helping the flow of the orchestral story (not to mention the almost three hour length). I also put Bratja there as well. It is my favorite "song" Oshima wrote but the orchestra version is better suited for the musical story.

I wish I could post this in FLAC but it's almost one gig ... but I may have better internet next month so perhaps I will update it.

With all that said I hope you enjoy this new take on a well known and loved score around here. And if you haven't heared it then you're about to discover an epic journey.


All is one and one is all

Nice write-up, klnerfan. I also love this score dearly (my first Ooshima score) and more than Tempest. The music felt more magical as well as the show (Tempest sucked).

Musically speaking, I think this is also superior to Senju's effort on Brotherhood, but Senju's fewer, yet extremely lyrical themes stuck with me a tad better.

FANTASTIC!

I've always thought Oshima was at her best in those "big tune" moments... because a) can she write the big tune, and most importantly b) when she's got a good one she makes it work and shows it off. Not all composers can get away with this - such a melody-dependent driven style, but Oshima can... because she's got the "melody" gene... that rare knack for a tune that she shares only with Joe Hisaishi. Nobody, not Sahashi, not Yamashita, not even Hirano (although he comes close) can do those "I AM AN IMPORTANT AND MEMORABLE MELODY!" pieces quite like Oshima and Hisaishi.

Oshima's lyrical ear has been brilliant from day one; I think what sets her recent efforts apart is their fluidity. In a comparison between Alchemist and Tempest, I find Alchemist to be a parade of great melodies tied together with skilled orchestration... but Tempest's cues aren't fragmented ideas, they're one fully conceived and developed idea - as in, each cue is one completely encapsulated melodic seed, with an ebb and flow, a sense of inevitability, that sounds completely natural and yet responds to the needs of the image. I absolutely concur that Alchemist wins for sheer bravado and larger than life enthusiasm that's endlessly effective and completely addicting - at the same time I find Tempest to be the superior composition, the work of the more mature, more experienced composer.

I hold both as two of my favourite scores of all time - and I thank you for your great effort and presentation, clearly made with love and determination so that others may experience something great. My greatest compliments, my friend. :)

Akashi: Oh, Christ, thank you! I thought I was the only one. I tried watching Tempest but GOOD LORD IT WAS BORING.

"Time is out of joint!" / FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT / Kaboom! / BOOBS / Moody plot exposition / Cod-philosophical jibber-jabber / "Time is out of joint!" / "You must find the talisman!" / FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT MASSIVE EXPLOSION! / "Oh no, everybody's dead!" / "I will take revenge!" / BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS / Magic / BOOBS / More magic / Endless grey scenery and drab artwork / FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT BANG KABLAMMO BIG IMPRESSIVE SHOWDOWN WITH SPELLS AND STUFF / FIGHT BANG BOOBS / Moody exposition / Time wasting episodes with silly childish love story / Moody exposition / BOOBS / THE END.

How Oshima managed to write such wonderful, colourful, thematic music for that monochrome monstrosity, I will never know. That's genius, I guess.

I was sorely disappointed at how the show turned out. I mean, with that music you would think making wonderful scenes is a piece of cake... Terrible executions, non-existent character development, meaningless Shakespeare references... Animation and character design were nice though.

Lately, I've been interested in how music and what's on the screen combine to make beautiful moments. It's been a long time and I don't remember how Ooshima's music was used in the original FMA series, but Senju's music (e.g., "Battle Scherzo") was used decently well - relative to other anime shows, at least. There are two BEAUTIFUL Kanno cues that I still haven't heard with their respective scenes on: the end of Escaflowne cue and "My Little Flower" from Wolf's Rain. Even without any visual or narrative association, those cues are beyond tear-jerking. :'( Anyone here recommend watching Escaflowne? The reviews of it seem pretty divided.

WildStar
Composed by Jeff Kurtenacker
128 CBR - 320 V BR- 0 | 2"19'49 | Mixture of SoundCloud extracts and game rip



1.Jeff Kurtenacker - WildStar (6:59)
2.Jeff Kurtenacker - Systematic Domination (2:29)
3.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Chosen Cassians (2:54)
4.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Stainless Mechari (1:20)
5.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Bloodthirsty Draken (2:25)
6.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Insane Chua (1:27)
7.Jeff Kurtenacker - March of the Empire (2:49)
8.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Emperor's Will (1:58)
9.Jeff Kurtenacker - Hymn of the Church (1:58)
10.Jeff Kurtenacker - A Tribal Heritage (1:53)
11.Jeff Kurtenacker - No Price Too High for Progress (0:56)
12.Jeff Kurtenacker - March (0:48)
13.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Cold Science of Supremacy (2:47)
14.Jeff Kurtenacker - Saving the Universe (3:11)
15.Jeff Kurtenacker - "We've Got a Bomb!" (2:15)
16.Jeff Kurtenacker - Really Big Explosives (1:00)
17.Jeff Kurtenacker - Divide Them (0:30)
18.Jeff Kurtenacker - "Our Cold Will" (2:54)
19.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Ferocity of the Drakken (2:26)
20.Jeff Kurtenacker - Old Grudges (1:56)
21.Jeff Kurtenacker - Imperial Might (0:41)
22.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Imperial War Machine (1:56)
23.Jeff Kurtenacker - Tooth and Claw (0:42)
24.Jeff Kurtenacker - "We Cannot Be Stopped" (0:41)
25.Jeff Kurtenacker - Bandits, Thieves and Epic Loot (2:05)
26.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Roughneck Humans (2:42)
27.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Hard Headed Granok (2:26)
28.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Contemplative Aurin (2:00)
29.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Dying Mordesh (3:40)
30.Jeff Kurtenacker - Justice Doesn't Always Wear a Badge (1:47)
31.Jeff Kurtenacker - Defend The Gates (2:24)
32.Jeff Kurtenacker - "We Will Grow" (2:24)
33.Jeff Kurtenacker - A Right Mess (0:29)
34.Jeff Kurtenacker - "What We Now Call Home" (2:18)
35.Jeff Kurtenacker - "This is Our Song" (4:30)
36.Jeff Kurtenacker - A Matter of Neccesity (4:16)
37.Jeff Kurtenacker - A New World (2:44)
38.Jeff Kurtenacker - Bunch of Boneheads (2:42)
39.Jeff Kurtenacker - "We Are Dying" (2:24)
40.Jeff Kurtenacker - Alchemy (2:07)
41.Jeff Kurtenacker - Land Drenched in Fog (2:07)
42.Jeff Kurtenacker - An Explosive Situation (2:04)
43.Jeff Kurtenacker - Blood in the Mud (0:46)
44.Jeff Kurtenacker - "We Won't Perish From This Earth" (2:01)
45.Jeff Kurtenacker - Hollywood Style Shoot Out (2:13)
46.Jeff Kurtenacker - Ancient Secrets (1:59)
47.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Dominion is on the Move (1:52)
48.Jeff Kurtenacker - "Plotting Our Course" (1:32)
49.Jeff Kurtenacker - Our Savage Nature (0:40)
50.Jeff Kurtenacker - BEER (1:30)
51.Jeff Kurtenacker - "You Won't Knock Us Down" (2:13)
52.Jeff Kurtenacker - "They are Coming" (1:19)
53.Jeff Kurtenacker - Some Foolishness (1:18)
54.Jeff Kurtenacker - A Touch of Poison (0:26)
55.Jeff Kurtenacker - We Rise (1:17)
56.Jeff Kurtenacker - "Our Goal is to Live" (1:30)
57.Jeff Kurtenacker - Ready for the Fight (1:21)
58.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Hunt (2:34)
59.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Rescue Mission (1:06)
60.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Stand (0:58)
61.Jeff Kurtenacker - Screws and Bolts (1:07)
62.Jeff Kurtenacker - Synths on Horns (1:03)
63.Jeff Kurtenacker - Freedom's Goal (0:48)
64.Jeff Kurtenacker - Momentum (0:59)
65.Jeff Kurtenacker - "Somebody's Gotta Do It" (0:40)
66.Jeff Kurtenacker - Vim and Vigor (0:58)
67.Jeff Kurtenacker - Dropships (0:25)
68.Jeff Kurtenacker - Homestead (0:46)
69.Jeff Kurtenacker - Onwards (0:52)
70.Jeff Kurtenacker - Awkward Tech (0:56)
71.Jeff Kurtenacker - All Together (0:40)
72.Jeff Kurtenacker - Enemy Territory (3:17)
73.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Last Beacon of Hope (2:30)
74.Jeff Kurtenacker - Fight for Survival (2:29)
75.Jeff Kurtenacker - The Singularity (WildStar Beta Trailer) (1:40)


https://mega.co.nz/#!PIh1QYJb!ZF-wFSTtGtywcCQ85TK5chsJIVZLkuD5oHYr9qJ9WW8

WildStar is the "Next Big MMO", after the PR disaster that was Elder Scrolls Online. In development more or less since 2007 by Blizzard upstarts Carbine Studios, WildStar mixes Sci-Fi with Fantasy elements and throws in an inspired art design and downright wacky humor to create the type of setting that is not often seen in MMOs. For the music they got Jeff Kurtenacker, who's previous composition project was Pirates of the Burning Sea.

WildStar is in the pulp tradition of Star Wars, Buck Rogers, and Edgar Rice Burrogh's Barsoom. It is over the top, romantic, and completely out of its mind. Looking at all the stuff going - people made out of rocks jumping into battle with a sword, killer racoons devising weapons of mass destruction, pompous nobles so far up their ass all they smell is shit, and roughneck space cowboys with an accent so thick they could give Larry the Cable Guy a serious run for his money - Kurtenacker did the only thing he could do.

He played it straight. Mostly.

WildStar's opening theme is a good representation of what he was going for with the score. It opens with an mostly orchestral, classically inspired cue that just says "Hey, its time to go on an adventure". By no means is it original, but it is well done and memorable. The soundtrack is a mix of pure orchestra, orchestra mixed with electronic elements, and elements so loud and obsessive it could easily be confused for dubstep. The soundtrack shines with Kurtenacker allows himself to go with the orchestra and the let the music speak for itself. The more electronics he has in a cue, the worse the music gets.

By no means is this a bad soundtrack, but it is a flawed one. Still worth your time, and with it being only 2 hours you won't lose much if you feel this isn't to your liking.

Akashi San, Escaflowne is a timeless classic and well worth your time to check it out. It sounds great, obviously, but almost more impressive is how pristine it looks, even today. The TV series isn't the most original thing you'll ever see, but it's one of the Ur-examples of how sterling execution and likeable characters with strong motivations can overcome well-worn tropes. It's regarded as a sunnier sort-of reaction to Evangelion, tho I've never thought to connect the two while watching it. YMMV

The film, ehhhhh, not so much, but it's still gorgeous.

The use of Oshima's score in FMA was pretty standard stuff; appropriate cues used to their appropriate scenes and emotions, with little in the way of surprises or showboating aside form the sudden Beethoven. Senju's Brotherhood has grown on me a tiny bit, but the way it was deployed in context left a ton to be desired, using the same three or four tracks for the same situations every ep, sometimes twice. And not in a good, "so dumb it's fun" Kill la Kill sorta way, either. A decent, workaday score with some powerhouse themes here and there that, tragically, was wielded with all the subtlety of a tack hammer.

Watching a certain scene just to hear the effect of the music is something I've been doing a lot recently as well. Especially when I heared another masterpiece. Worst case is something like Conan, one of the greatest fantasy scores of all time and the movie is so damn corny. Riders of Doom deserves a better scene. The original FMA used it's score better than Brotherhood, the same scenes in Brotherhood pale to the original. It always felt scored to picture, something I didn't get with Brotherhood most of the time. The Funeral scene or the Chimera scene are better executed as well.

Regarding Escaflowne: Worth it! But avoid the movie. Also watch it in HD. There is something about those mechs fighting like giant knights that I have not seen in anime since. The fights have some sort of grace to them. They feel realy theatrical at times, like your watching a stage play. The music is used to great effect as well. The first hidden ambush of the enemy is so damn well done thanks to "Zaibach". It also has the most dramatic kiss in anime history. And contrary to it's popularity, Dance of Curse is rarely used in the show.

As long as we're talking about Oshima and favored scores, I'm gonna throw my vote in for Xam'd. FMA is thematically competent, thrilling in places and tragic in others, but has a fair amount of chaff, and Tempest is gigantic in scope and power, but as a stickler for the "sit down and take in an entire album" experience, the way it was packaged sequentially strikes me as unsatisfying and disjointed. They're all brilliant, full-bodied cues, but as a whole, don't seem to build to anything and mostly leaves me feeling exhausted.

Xam'd stands out to me as the most cohesive, thematically rich and overall most satisfying of her recent works. There's just something timelessly old-fashioned yet mystical about that score for me. Every time I listen, it's like I'm truly hearing a grand story play out before me. Plus, afterward you can chill to that kickass OP. :p

I don't know - I honestly think Xam'd us her worst output to date. It is all so forgettable. I have listened to it twice and could not tell you a single thing about it.

I could say the same about HAL, Aura, Fuse or any of her super early game stuff. To each their own.

Xam'd is by no means a bad score. I would even argue that it's better than all Hollywood scores of recent years combined. It got all basic ingredients for a great Oshima score. Orchestral Song, check. Moving, sweeping, Hisaishi-like Main Theme, check. Villain Theme and motif that is played both boldly and subtle, check. The usual Oshima closing title with cymbals galore, check. Many variations of the Main Theme, tragic, heroic or sinister and Secondary Themes like Nakiami, all check. It's captivating from the very first note of Prophecy. You have larger than life show-off pieces like Hiroken Emperor/Pilgrimage, the War Zone, the jolly military march, the brassy fight with the Emperor or the dramatic orchestral version of the Main Theme. It is a score with many highlights, full of drama but also gentleness. Even though I might be biased since my version is only 80 minutes long, has no electronics and has it's own narrative. But unlike Alchemist, there are some subpar cues and temp tracks I did not like. It's no Moscow score but it is among her finer works in my book.

Regarding Tempest, this is the only logical track order for me, it really works best when you approach it like a stage play, the rest is up to your imagination:

ACT I (Prologue)

01. Zetsuen
02. Reminiscence
03. Uneasiness
04. Encounter
05. Collapse

ACT II (Peaceful Village)

06. Innocence (Kusaribe)
07. Mischief
08. Hakaze
09. Waltz (Kiraku)

ACT III (Awakening an ancient evil)

10. Mysterious (Strange, OST 3)
11. Reasoning
12. Strange
13. Shadow (Sudden)
14. Shiver
15. Appearance

ACT IV (War Times)

16. Deal
17. Nostalgia
18. Comrades (Samon)
19. Intricacy
20. Idling
21. Hamura
22. Suspicion

ACT V (Climax and Last Resolve)

23. Emergency
24. Resurrection
25. Fate (Natsumura)
26. Conflict
27. Defeat
28. End
29. Dance of Encounters
30. TEMPEST

ACT VI (Yet Happiness and Finale)

31. Memories
32. Change
33. Relief
34. Confession (Heart's Sensation)
35. Aika
36. Hope

I don't know Klner - I just can't say anything about it. I mean, it sounds nice. But as soon as a track is over I completely forget about it. There's nothing really memorable with Xam'd. Even her action cues - which are usually top class - I can't recall a note about.

Xam'd is by no means a bad score. I would even argue that it's better than all Hollywood scores of recent years combined. It got all basic ingredients for a great Oshima score. Orchestral Song, check. Moving, sweeping, Hisaishi-like Main Theme, check. Villain Theme and motif that is played both boldly and subtle, check. The usual Oshima closing title with cymbals galore, check. Many variations of the Main Theme, tragic, heroic or sinister and Secondary Themes like Nakiami, all check. It's captivating from the very first note of Prophecy. You have larger than life show-off pieces like Hiroken Emperor/Pilgrimage, the War Zone, the jolly military march, the brassy fight with the Emperor or the dramatic orchestral version of the Main Theme. It is a score with many highlights, full of drama but also gentleness. Even though I might be biased since my version is only 80 minutes long, has no electronics and has it's own narrative. But unlike Alchemist, there are some subpar cues and temp tracks I did not like. It's no Moscow score but it is among her finer works in my book.

Regarding Tempest, this is the only logical track order for me, it really works best when you approach it like a stage play, the rest is up to your imagination:

ACT I (Prologue)

01. Zetsuen
02. Reminiscence
03. Uneasiness
04. Encounter
05. Collapse

ACT II (Peaceful Village)

06. Innocence
07. Mischief
08. Hakaze
09. Waltz

ACT III (Awakening an ancient evil)

10. Mysterious
11. Reasoning
12. Strange
13. Shadow
14. Shiver
15. Appearance

ACT IV (War Times)

16. Deal
17. Nostalgia
18. Comrades
19. Intricacy
20. Idling
21. Hamura
22. Suspicion

ACT V (Climax and Last Resolve)

23. Emergency
24. Resurrection
25. Fate
26. Conflict
27. Defeat
28. End
29. Dance of Encounters
30. TEMPEST

ACT VI (Yet Happiness and Finale)

31. Memories
32. Change
33. Relief
34. Confession
35. Aika
36. Hope

I was curious where you got ceratin tracks you mentioned, like Innocence and Waltz, and then while looking, I found this. ANZX-6956 | BLAST OF TEMPEST SHAKESPEARE "HAMLET" SPECIAL DISC - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/38055) Innnnn-teerestin'.

Akashi i haven't seen the movie but the Escaflowne series is worth of watching, and yes the end of the series with Kanno music gets really emotional, but i admit that much of this is due by nostalgia factor.

Appreciate the feedback, guys. Looks like I have a marathon planned for this weekend. :o

This will be my second or third mecha anime if you want to count Code Geass as one. Rahxephon was the first and music used in it was unique and very effective.

And I kinda like that OP to Xam'd

did you know that a second score from batman live composer james seymour brett for another arena live show has been an itunes for seven years? Walking with Dinosaurs The Live Experience is every bit a fun and exciting and orchestral as his batman score.shame there�s no cd, but better this than nothing.

There is a CD, and I posted it ages ago... ;)

Takayuki Hattori confirmed for Gundam: Origin!

^^ Beat me to it.

So now we're guaranteed two great Gundam scores over the course of the next year. I hope this'll be his best since Shinsengumi.

WHAT?! Really?!

I see this "Origin" is a "series of films"... I hope that doesn't mean years and years waiting for the score...

It's a 4 part film series.

We won't be left waiting, I'm sure. They didn't put Gundam Unicorn's soundtrack on hold until the very end. Nope, they've released 3 soundtracks so far with the fourth and final one coming next week. And Unicorn was a 7 part OVA series.

I'm guessing Origin will have more than one soundtrack as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8E66C1BDA0FF098E&v=H0tsvRctTY4

Bear McCreary's final blog on the show Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is up and the music included within are what he considers to be the best representation of his work for the show. He is confident there will be a release of the music so I am hoping for a release announcement within the month. Da Vinci's Demons Season 2 soundtrack will be released May 27th :).

Soundtrack details of How To Train Your Dragon 2 have emerged complete with two full length samples from Powell as well as a release date set for June 9th. My complaint is that the score seems like it is shorter than the last. However, this score sounds just as sweeping as the last one but with more punch if that is possible lol.

?How to Train Your Dragon 2? Soundtrack Details | Film Music Reporter (http://filmmusicreporter.com/2014/05/17/how-to-train-your-dragon-2-soundtrack-details/)

More clips of the score including an interview with John Powell:

https://soundcloud.com/fsm-online/john-powell-on-how-to-train

Yugo Kanno's Gundam recording has begun in Tokyo. No Warsaw this time, I guess. It should still be a good sized studio orchestra though. I wonder if Hattori will have better luck.

I suspect they'll both be domestic scores... but I think they'll still be very good.

Kanno's will be somewhere in the world of Tetsuwan Birdy - lots of hybrid cues, lots of electronica, but also lots of purely symphonic cues for the big moments.

Hattori... whew, who knows? Has he ever done sci-fi action adventure before? I'm expecting something like the orchestral parts of Code Breaker.

:D

Nextday: Where did you find that out? It's not Masatsugu Shinozaki's blog, is it? :D

I'm several months late to the party but... I've been hooked on Date A Live soundtracks. There's something fun and addicting about Sakabe's music. He's definitely a strong melodist and he seems versatile with pretty much everything - pop, rock, orchestra, jazz, and even some tender piano pieces to sweeten the goods. "Rhapsody-Rage" has to be my favorite. It's just stupendously fun and harmonically very interesting.

Can't wait to hear what the second season has in store in terms of new music!

RANDOM EDIT: Haha... if anyone wants a crazy/exhilarating anime/VG piano arrangement: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1395336. It's a four-hand piano medley of popular anime, video game tunes. Pretty fun stuff.

It is, tango.

Listened to Yamashita's latest. Definitely enough to satisfy but there's still some penny pinching going on with a few synthy tracks. Kind of odd that he wasn't able to record the whole thing with real instruments. Didn't budget accordingly, perhaps?

Phew, the fake brass isn't everywhere - most of the symphonic cues are real brass players - two trumpets, three trombones, two horns.

*relaxes*

Edit: Oh, my... This is just glorious. The first cue may be one of Yamashita's finest ever... where to begin? THAT THEME! And how gloriously it's constructed! We get a romantic prelude-cum-fanfare introduction, and then the theme itself at 0:19 - and then, at 0:26... that's when it stops being a motif and becomes a theme. At 0:52 we get a sub-theme on woodwind with harpsichord accompaniment... oh, remember that sub theme, folks... The sub theme is passed to oboe, and then that wonderful little motif gets swept up by the full brass compliment. 1:37 to 1:44 may be my favourite Yamashita passage of all time - grand, romantic, melancholy, quality... and then back comes the first theme... but Yamashita's not going to take the easy route out with just a bland restatement of the melody and a timpani roll; at 2:29 we get a delicious key change and a brief snatch of the sub theme before a tutti finish that's pure orchestral muscle flexing.

This is symphony-grade construction, folks. Simply stunning.

Was requested in the taiga thread new uploads of Tenchijin Vol. 3 and Shinsengumi. Here are new links from Sirusjr and ShadowSong original posts.

Tenchijin Vol. 3: Sendspace (http://www.sendspace.com/file/638m8o)

Shinsengumi: Sendspace (http://www.sendspace.com/file/v9v5eh)

Here is a share i have been looking very much forward to getting. As tango mentioned Soredemo's main theme is absouletly fantastic and while the rest of the score most likely holds up pretty good I haven't been able to get past it yet lol. Sawano returns for his final run with Gundam and Witch Craft Works while full of lots of bippy boppy noises there are still some nice string arrangements near the end of the first CD. Hiroshi returns with precure and is better than ever. Even the filler daily life tracks have a bit more substance than DokiDoki did. Can't wait to see how he continues to improve with the series. And finally an order I had to wait nearly 2 months to finally get. Two unreleased scores by Taku which provide us with his usual melodic genius and even a orchestral opera track. They easily outclass the CD that got a physical release.

GDDL-1046 | BLACK CAT DVD Vol.6 PREMIUM EDITION Original Soundtrack... - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44056)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img002_zps3f40b313.jpg.html)

Title: BLACK CAT DVD Vol.6 PREMIUM EDITION Original Soundtrack "Nekomanma"
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Taku Iwasaki
No. of tracks: 15
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 24, 2006
Size: MP3 110mb/ ALAC 274mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 Nightmare
02 The Slumber of the Shiki
03 Noon of Ghosts
04 Pop Eyed You
05 Evil Dance
06 The Killer Elite
07 Whisper of the Phantom
08 Lizard Kings
09 Sad Prophecy
10 Intercept
11 The Cat
12 Sunday Rain
13 Last Waltz (http://kiwi6.com/file/5yvcf00k5v)
14 Cathedral
15 Obsession


320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - Nekomanma - Black CAT Original Soundtrack (animeost).7z (http://www31.zippyshare.com/v/30565121/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!zAhR2LQR!NoJaK3ZewbIwbXcyPstZAmKa-PhrRqp7PZPL3y7WWVU


GDDL-1050 | BLACK CAT DVD Vol.10 PREMIUM EDITION Original Soundtrack... - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44057)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img017_zps940f3318.jpg.html)

Title:BLACK CAT DVD Vol.10 PREMIUM EDITION Original Soundtrack "Nekojarashi"
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Taku Iwasaki
No. of tracks: 15
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: Sep 27, 2006
Size: MP3 110mb/ ALAC 242mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 TI UCCIDO MA NON MI SODDISFO (http://kiwi6.com/file/k7zgjgqsru)
02 Saiento Silence
03 Rose Miya
04 Apple Snake
05 Eden
06 Sweeper's Pose
07 7 am at the Mall
08 Morning-Friendly
09 Children Empire
10 Songs of this World (mountain fog ver.)
11 Song of this World (featuring: Saki)
12 Peace of Eternity
13 Freedom Soldier
14 End of the Battle
15 Wind

320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - Nekojarashi - Black CAT Original Soundtrack (animeost).7z (http://www31.zippyshare.com/v/95926309/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!CRYCzDJC!T4WVszzMuBaYO_vb4vNPyEbCpid8Ft1it7BhK8E 2ns4


VPCG-84972 | Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii Original Soundtrack - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44903)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img025_zps9f776406.jpg.html)

Title: Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii Original Soundtrack
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Kousuke Yamashita, hirao, Yusuke Sakamoto, Kohei Segawa
No. of tracks: 32
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Size: MP3 182mb/ ALAC 416mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 The World Is Still Beautiful (http://kiwi6.com/file/xyh82cl8iu)
02 Beautiful World
03 Crisis Looming
04 Peaceful Moments
05 Tenderness And Warmth
06 Playful People
07 Landscape Of The Castle
08 Nike's Mysterious Business
09 Sun King Livius Orvinus
10 Senior Three Amigos
11 Counterattack Start
12 Principality of rain
13 Glimpses Of Sheila
14 An Evil Hand Creeping
15 Song ~ Beautiful Rain ~ Aplysia
16 Promise <instrumental>
17 Funny Couple
18 Present From Nike
19 Welcome to the Country of the Sun
20 Domestic Training
21 Infiltration
22 Desperate Situation
23 Wedding Dress
24 Confession of Luna
25 Dance of the People
26 Splendid Bardo
27 Wrapped In Starry Sky ...
28 Welcoming Reception
29 Tohara Vs Nike
30 The World Is Still Beautiful <ballad Version>
31 Promise
32 Song ~ Beautiful Rain ~ <orchestra Version> Aplysia


320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii Original Soundtrack (animeost).zip (http://www68.zippyshare.com/v/53965822/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!qEBTnCbQ!s0mPHeU40bqhkQg5tLBNt9bMC_a-Ck0I9tKAEiukLLA


MJSA-01109 | Happinesscharge Precure! Original Soundtrack 1: Precure... - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44532)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img006_zps95a31a29.jpg.html)

Title: Happinesscharge Precure! Original Soundtrack 1: Precure Sound Charge!!
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Hiroshi Takaki, Kasugi Yasuo
No. of tracks: 38
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Size: MP3 135mb/ ALAC 310mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 Happiness Charge Pretty Cure! Main Theme (http://kiwi6.com/file/tx8rxgs3y8)
02 Happiness Charge Precure ! WOW! (TV size )
03 Subtitle
04 Theme of Grace
05 Princess's theme
06 Town full of smiles
07 Queen of Phantom Empire
08 Saiaku appearance
09 Mirror Change! Pretty Cure! ! -Short ver -
10 Invincible Pretty Cure!
11 Happiness Full Bloom
12 Blue's theme
13 Love Ban?
14 Too revved up to be idle
15 Feeling Depressed
16 Thoughts out of Reach
17 Happiness Catch !
18 The plot of Phantom Empire
19 Theme of Cure Fortune
20 More Strongly !
21 Cherry Flamenco
22 Lollipop Hip-Hop
23 Sherbet Ballet
24 Macadamia Hula
25 Aiming to Win
26 Suspicious?
27 Carefree People
28 Hearts Crossing
29 Someone in Thought
30 Shadow Creeping in Town
31 The Incident!
32 Dashing Appearance! Happiness Charge !
33 Pretty Cure in a Pinch
34 As long as there is love in this chest
35 Pretty Cure Twin Miracle Power Shoot!
36 Melody of Friendship
37 Pretty Cure Memory (TV size )
38 The Happiness full full charge in everyone!

320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - Happinesscharge Precure! Original Soundtrack 1 Precure Sound Charge!! (animeost).zip (http://www19.zippyshare.com/v/86069328/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!mR4AnSiQ!KCs5tFM6TybuPNkFQ3geh2CYXIBw7eSLnxR9KEH ZaZc


SMCL-30001~2 | MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UNICORN ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 4 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44941)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img064_zps7851714d.jpg.html)

Title: MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UNICORN ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK 4
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Hiroyuki Sawano, Daisuke Inoue, Gojiro Nakayama
No. of tracks: 13/18
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Size: MP3 317mb/ ALAC 774mb
Host: Mega/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
Disc 1

01 1stMob.:2009522or0311
02 2ndMob.:MSGUCEP7
03 3rdMob.:RE: I AM MARIE
04 4thMob.:New TYPE-OYM
05 5thMob.:UXO→RX0
06 6thMob.:UNICORN GUNDAM (http://kiwi6.com/file/n0js8jgjpr)
07 7thMob.:20140517
08 8thMob.:BEGINNING <ORCHG-VER>
09 9thMob.:流星のナミダ <ORCHG-VER>
10 EGO <nZK Ver.>
11 A LETTER <nZK Ver.>
12 Sternengeang
13 PM-20:10→20:14

Disc 2

01 ZERO GRAVITY
02 MOBILE SUIT <W-REC MIX>
03 THE BATTLE
04 ON YOUR MARK
05 BANSHEE
06 FULL FRONTAL
07 DESTROY→SELF-SACRIFICE
08 RX-0
09 PSYCHO-FIELD
10 E.F.S.F.
11 MOBILE ARMOR
12 LAPLACE
13 THE UNIVERS
14 ANGELO
15 U.C.0096
16 MAD-NUG
17 GUNDAM
18 UNICORN

320 kbs MP3
https://mega.co.nz/#!CBoXGbYY!7eqNnPp51k1uv1prdT8nUrIa2PUoj6O4ynZKPVl bcnk

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!nIQVia6A!Paq6A-Owm7ywWNlkKXIZgmgsfITed9LcSVEp8JMcj_k


LACA-9348~9 | WITCH CRAFT WORKS SOUNDTRACK - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44883)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img038_zps9716133d.jpg.html)

Title:WITCH CRAFT WORKS SOUNDTRACK
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND
No. of tracks: 35/24
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Size: MP3 337mb/ ALAC 879mb
Host: Mega/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
Disc 1

01 Witch Craft Works Main Theme
02 La Princesse
03 M�lancolique et doux
04 La m�t�o du jour
05 Lapin blanc Chevaliers de papier
06 Chaos Magic
07 AGRESSION
08 Le Grand Grimoire
09 Le pente de silence
10 BAD END
11 Fire Starter
12 L'�me �vapor�e et souffrante
13 DEAD END
14 LAST WATCHER
15 Floating On The Air
16 tr�s calme
17 �norme
18 RIOT
19 Nostalgie
20 MEDUSA
21 discorde
22 Waters von Nous
23 Libert� de la captivit�
24 triste
25 Fugue
<a href="http://kiwi6.com/file/9dvj954ocm">26 Le M�moire Perdue</a>
27 J'ai trouv�
28 Drifting snow
29 WEEK END
30 Million Clover
31 tr�s decide
32 EVERMILLION
33 Noblesse Oblige
34 Walpurgisnacht
35 Accord de l'Amour et de la Mort

Disc 2

01 Preview
02 �trange
03 To les jour
04 EASY ACTIVITY
05 Simplicity
06 STRONG STYLE
07 HYPERACTIVITY
08 cadeau
09 Pastorl days
10 printemps
11 Cutie Righteousness
12 Machination
13 triste (non rhythm ver)
14 Hexennacht
15 TECHNICULTURE
16 SIMPLICITY
17 LAST WATCHER
18 DRIFTING SNOW
19 WITCH ACTIVITY
20 Saturday Night Witches featuring Hideaki Matsuoka
21 WITCH ACTIVITY[THE MIX]
22 WITCH ACTIVITY[k]momimi NON STOP Remix
23 divine intervention (TV SIZE)
24 WITCH ACTIVITY (TV SIZE)


320 kbs MP3
https://mega.co.nz/#!mcAGkaAT!Jn8x9376ULsetIEzTGvFZSmZlkp-N5iTZJFRmR_NJd0

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!6RZW1RyD!PjtKrwiP887DH5g7MvII2yijOaRzgtnGW63o-NeDUIs

Scans included as always. Please enjoy http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq271/leatherhead93/kucing_malu_zps1ed6d008.gif (http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/kucing_malu_zps1ed6d008.gif.html)

Ah, what a perfect way to enjoy this sunny day with some new Yamashita. Great stuff as usual.

Thank you for Happiness Charge! I'm really loving it. Apart from the purely orchestral pieces, we even have some fun hybrids like More Stongly! (Seriously, Funk Guitars are sexy litte things :D) and I'm really enjoying the beat on the orchestral tracks. It all feels very retro in a good way, although there are still some little winks to Takanshi's style. It also sounds more like Sentai than ever (No surprise there). But my favorite track has to be Mirror Change! Those vocals ... so retro ... so cheesy ... and so good damn catchy.

Infact, Takaki should have scored the new Sailor Moon and Takanshi should have played the Guitar :D

Wow, that was an amazing post. Yamashita is a genius, and Takaki looks like someone to keep an eye on in the future. I have a score for you today. I managed to find an MP3 320 of it, and that's all I can find so far:



MJSA-01070 | Eiga Dokidoki! Precure Mana Kekkon!!? Mirai ni Tsunagu... - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/41307)
Eiga Dokidoki! Precure Mana Kekkon!!? Mirai ni Tsunagu Kibou no Dress Original Soundtrack
Hiroshi Takaki
30 Tracks
MP3 320kbps
Released Oct 23, 2013
MP3 95.3MB
https://mega.co.nz/#!gAtzGI5L!W-BFfWn8FXh-dISH9Kr4xJnpSkf3vL43qP3yiOHxnhY

Takaki's Precure orchestra is just 32 players. All the percussion is fake. A perfect example of the right way to do it if money is tight. Takaki's abilities as an orchestrator are invaluable...

A new Japanese drama Mosaic japan aired on the 18th with what's supposedly Hirano's new composition. I don't have high hopes for it but was wondering if anyone skimmed through the first episode yet.

Also hoping Yamashita's soundtrack for Otto no Kanojo will pop up somewhere...

John Powell's How to Train Your Dragon 2 sounds better than his score for the first film! I did not expect this! Here's ~30 minutes of the score - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-awW_JTHAok

It would be cool if he got an Oscar nomination for this one as well, but I sadly think the chances are low for that since it is a sequel.

TAKAYUKI HATTORI - SYMPHONIC SUITE "THE LONGEST TOUR"
FLAC, LOG, CUE | 184.2 MB | 10 TRACKS | 00:37:32
Studio Orchestra, conducted by Takayuki Hattori


Catalog Number: TOCT-8368
Release Date: Mar 30, 1994

Tracklist
01. Another Planetの動機
02. 夜の視線
03. 閃光の磁力
04. 目覚め
05. 変身の回廊
06. 今だから
07. Old Friend
08. 頬杖の中のメモリー
09. 過去と未来の約束 (http://kiwi6.com/file/xzifbqdn5n) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif
10. 野いちごがゆれるように

10 composed by Ryo Aska

Ripped, etc. by me.

Download: https://mega.co.nz/#!hYl3kRqC!mwcgH-Dmo95QNVkX13KxDszs5zeNTwzJK46zjGlTlfw

This is Hattori's first soundtrack and was written around a year and a half before Kura (Thread 169292). It's pretty similar in style, though doesn't sound as refined since it was performed by a studio orchestra. For a debut work it's not bad at all.

A new Japanese drama Mosaic japan aired on the 18th with what's supposedly Hirano's new composition. I don't have high hopes for it but was wondering if anyone skimmed through the first episode yet.

Also hoping Yamashita's soundtrack for Otto no Kanojo will pop up somewhere...

I watched the first episode... I've never seen anything like it from Japan. It's about a guy who works at a porno company; the show is endless softcore pornography from start to finish. Hirano's score is so-far rather unremarkable - string quartet Bach pastiche for the sex scenes, and cool sax/percussion stuff everywhere else. Can't think why he wants to take these crappy projects, unless he's just having a rest and doing silly shit for fun...

Edit: Nextday - THANK YOU for the Hattori! Who cares about the small orchestra? The music is fantastic. Endless gratitude to you, friend. :)

I also really enjoyed this new Yamashita score. Much more in the style of what I like to hear from him.

Also A Million Ways to Die in the West is now streamable on this site through soundcloud. People say Joel McNeely wrote a huge thematic score similar to the classics. I haven't gotten through it yet to say so. The opening track song is quite enjoyable to me.
'A Million Ways to Die in the West' Soundtrack Premiere and Composer Interview (http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-soundtrack-premiere-and-composer-intervie)

Sounds quite Bernstein/Tiomkin-esque to me and very good!

A proper Western score! Seth MacFarlane... why the fuck aren't you directing the next Star Trek movie? Imagine that, with McNeely or Ron Jones making his feature debut...

Also A Million Ways to Die in the West is now streamable on this site through soundcloud. People say Joel McNeely wrote a huge thematic score similar to the classics. I haven't gotten through it yet to say so. The opening track song is quite enjoyable to me.
'A Million Ways to Die in the West' Soundtrack Premiere and Composer Interview (http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/a-million-ways-to-die-in-the-west-soundtrack-premiere-and-composer-intervie)

Tiomkin, Bernstein and Moross cast a long shadow, undeniably. Still, at least it's nice to hear something thoughtful, studied and coherent. A change of pace from the usual electro-drone doodling that passes for dramatic scoring these days.

TAKAYUKI HATTORI - SYMPHONIC SUITE "THE LONGEST TOUR"

Thank you. This is great, but I kinda wish he wrote faster, more energetic cues given how good the orchestration is here. Track 9, for example, has a great opening but devolves into something rather soupy. Hattori needs more brass because that's what he shines with.

Quite... I don't think we've heard anywhere near Hattori's best.

Moments like 1:08 to 1:20 in track 3 and pretty much all of track 7 - must surely convince anybody alive that his potential has barely been tapped in recent years. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Hattori's Gundam will finally allow him to let loose in the way he so clearly loves doing, but doesn't do nearly enough. Code Breaker gives me hope. His style has moved on over the years - there is more melody and less showing off in Hattori 2014 as compared to Hattori 1995-2000 but there is never any mistaking his harmonic and melodic trademarks, nor the skill of his melody construction, or his immaculate orchestrations. I can't wait for him to tackle some good old-fashioned sci-fi action.

A proper Western score! Seth MacFarlane... why the fuck aren't you directing the next Star Trek movie? Imagine that, with McNeely or Ron Jones making his feature debut...

Because most people wouldn't want MacFarlane to touch Star Wars with a 12 foot pole, whereas Abrams' directorial style syncs up well with the pulpy mess that is Star Wars? And we're getting Williams to compose it, so what's to complain about on the musical side of things?

Who's complaining? I just said that Star TREK would probably get better music if MacFarlane were at the helm. A Star TREK movie helmed by MacFarlane would likely result in the return of Ron Jones, with a gargantuan budget and music like that glorious three minute opener of Brian Griffin's House Of Payne; some of the twenty-first centuries finest sci-fi music scoring basically an extended Family Guy cutaway gag. You bet I'd be interested to see and hear the results of a MacFarlane-directed serious sci-fi picture.

He's a very good director - and I think there's much more to him than Family Guy and endless generations thereof.

I haven't got a single problem with Williams scoring Star Wars, provided the musically illiterate Abrams has the decency to let the master get on with his job. The mere concept of a brand new symphonic John Williams sci-fi action score is miraculous. Whatever he does - even if he turns in the biggest turd of his career - it's going to sweep the floor with pretty much anything that's been heard in the last fifteen years.

Except if it is the biggest turd of Williams' career it won't come close to War Horse or The Book Thief.

Haha, true!

Obviously, I exclude his other works in those kind of comparisons. Williams has been a legend for over sixty years.

Well even then, I think something worse than War of the Worlds or a few other strange Williams scores would not beat out The Monuments Men or a few other recent thematic scores.

.

Who's complaining? I just said that Star TREK would probably get better music if MacFarlane were at the helm. A Star TREK movie helmed by MacFarlane would likely result in the return of Ron Jones, with a gargantuan budget and music like that glorious three minute opener of Brian Griffin's House Of Payne; some of the twenty-first centuries finest sci-fi music scoring basically an extended Family Guy cutaway gag. You bet I'd be interested to see and hear the results of a MacFarlane-directed serious sci-fi picture.

Speaking of which, might you (or anyone else here) know of any released Family Guy music? It's one of those shows that constantly impresses me with its score, much like Spongebob (really Ren and Stimpy).

Danny Elfman. I think he's actually Elton John's secret younger brother.

Bleh has anyone else watched the Magi Sinbad OVA? The music is about as cheap as you can get and it really sounds like a completely different composer scored it.
I know that this sometimes happens with OVA's but at the end when they advertise the next OVA we clearly hear a track that was from the original series.

I was actually kind of excited for it since it might have been a chance to give us another Shiro/Amano score release =/.

I just watched it. Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh... Cheap and forgettable. Sort-of expected for a cash-in low budget side story OVA, though.

I think there will be another volume of score from the TV series, though - klnerfan says there's tonnes of music still unreleased, and they'll make a CD with just about anything with Shiro Sagisu's name on it. Totting up what we've had so far, standard session length strongly suggests there is another 20-25 minutes of Warsaw score still to come. :)

It could be some time though - there was a nine month gap between Vol 1 and Vol 2. Not that I think they'll wait that long since Magi is well and truly finished now, apart from the OVA... but it may be a few months yet. Start getting worried if there's nothing by October.

While it's true Shiro's scores always receive releases whether they are complete or not really depends on the publisher. And of course this is Aniplex we are talking about. Bleach which is one of Shiro's most popular scores still has a but-load of unreleased music. That might be because of the simple fact that the series has ended for now (until the manga finishes) but when it comes to long running shounen shows there times when Aniplex sadly won't foot the bill and give fans a complete collection (cough Naruto). If it was Lantis or Pony Canyon I'd be more optimistic but alas it tis not =/.

As far as the series is concerned though I wouldn't count another season out just yet. The anime ended where it did because it was very close to catching up with the manga at the time. I wouldn't put it past them to announce another season after another year. The manga is consistently selling pretty well and it makes it in the top 20 sales wise with each volume release. This is largely due to the good old "anime bump" which in some cases is all the reason they need to continue a series even if the disc sales for it are atrocious. This would be the only way for us to receive another MAGI score in my opinion which is why I'm hoping for a continuation.

I know i'm being a little unpositive about this but Aniplex has destroyed my faith in them time and time again so I never get my hopes up anymore when it comes to music in their ballcourt =(


Edit: I just noticed that the Black Bullet OST got postponed.............really hope the release date for it isn't to far off from the original.

Edit: I just noticed that the Black Bullet OST got postponed.............really hope the release date for it isn't to far off from the original.

I hope so to since it does have some good music in it hats of to Shiro once again i prey the ost is not cut down into vol* that come as encloseure bonus, i too hope that Magi gets another ost release seeing as there's still some music unreleased but then again its upto the companys publisher despite many fans requesting for soundtrack release.

I just saw an interesting piece of news: the Twitter account for Terror in Tokyo reported (https://twitter.com/zankyono_terror/statuses/453966703936819200) last month that Yoko Kanno went to Iceland to record the music for the show.


By the way, about that Magi OVA, they did hire another composer for it. Just some random J-pop composer with only a few credits to his name. I believe this was announced in advance.

ICELAND? Fascinating! What could they possibly be doing out there?

Black Bullet is a weird one... So far, we're at episode 8 and we've heard about ninety seconds of orchestral score. What's going on? Are they saving up masses and masses of music for the last three episodes? Did they go all the way to Warsaw for a five minute session? Did they record a few minutes for Black Bullet at a longer session for something else? Is Black Bullet's orchestral music actually off-cuts from another Sagisu/Amano score we don't recognise? CONFUSING.

Still, I think OST 3 will turn up... and I think it will be a standard release. They will probably throw on some tracks from the OVA.

I think Black Bullet is slated for 14 episodes so far according to blue-ray/dvd release seven vol's besides i think it best since a soundtrack release this early maybe unwise depends on how well the former sells, i did find the Gokukoku no Brynhildr soundtrack release to early since at the time only 2 episodes aired at the time despite being premiered early April as well as soundtrack release late April of same month. If they could do that with many anime i'll be one happy lad XD

Well the Iceland Symphony Orchestra is based in Reykjav�k, where they were...

Wishful thinking.

Haha, don't be silly...

That would be almost as nutty as going to Vienna, hiring an opera orchestra, and using them to record music for a silly daytime TV drama about cooking.

Oh, wait...

Haha, don't be silly...

That would be almost as nutty as going to Vienna, hiring an opera orchestra, and using them to record music for a silly daytime TV drama about cooking.

Oh, wait...

Wait, they got an orchestra for a show about cooking?

They have a show about cooking?

They cook?

And in other news, apparantley GMail doesn't have an inkling for email from the Shrine cuz I haven't gotten any updates from the Thread. Helllooooo 3 days worth of content. Which is only 15 posts.

Aw well. Still more content per day than Miura.


Who's complaining? I just said that Star TREK would probably get better music if MacFarlane were at the helm. A Star TREK movie helmed by MacFarlane would likely result in the return of Ron Jones, with a gargantuan budget and music like that glorious three minute opener of Brian Griffin's House Of Payne; some of the twenty-first centuries finest sci-fi music scoring basically an extended Family Guy cutaway gag. You bet I'd be interested to see and hear the results of a MacFarlane-directed serious sci-fi picture.

He's a very good director - and I think there's much more to him than Family Guy and endless generations thereof.

I haven't got a single problem with Williams scoring Star Wars, provided the musically illiterate Abrams has the decency to let the master get on with his job. The mere concept of a brand new symphonic John Williams sci-fi action score is miraculous. Whatever he does - even if he turns in the biggest turd of his career - it's going to sweep the floor with pretty much anything that's been heard in the last fifteen years.

That was a misreading on my part. For some reason my brain replaced the Wars with Trek, and thus that is how you got my weird commentary.

I would still say McFarlane shouldn't touch either property with a 10 foot pole. He doesn't have a legitimate bone in his body. He is nothing but third rate humor skits.


ICELAND? Fascinating! What could they possibly be doing out there?

Obviously they are getting on with their inner Viking. If there are no press photos of Japanese people in Historically inaccurate horned helmets I will be sorely disappointed.

On a more serious note, I don't really recall if Iceland has much of a musical prestige. The only composer to come from there is Knut Avenstroup Haugen of Age of Conan fame.

...No, wait. Haugen came from Norway. So there is NOTHING I know about when it comes to Iceland.

ICELAND? Fascinating! What could they possibly be doing out there?

Black Bullet is a weird one... So far, we're at episode 8 and we've heard about ninety seconds of orchestral score. What's going on? Are they saving up masses and masses of music for the last three episodes? Did they go all the way to Warsaw for a five minute session? Did they record a few minutes for Black Bullet at a longer session for something else? Is Black Bullet's orchestral music actually off-cuts from another Sagisu/Amano score we don't recognise? CONFUSING.

Still, I think OST 3 will turn up... and I think it will be a standard release. They will probably throw on some tracks from the OVA.

So far i think i recall about 3 orchestral tracks that are gleaming with Amano all over them but other than that the score has been significantly more Shiro driven than Magi was. His somewhat obnoxious techno babble mixed with chilling choir vocals really remind me of Bleach in a way. But I wonder if they are working with the London Studio Orchestra again since as you pointed out it really wouldn't make sense for them to go to Warsaw for maybe 10 minutes of music.

The score has been rather repetitive in it's use of the same tracks over and over through the course of the series so I don't know if they'll just suddenly unload the real "meat" of the score in future episodes.

This might be a stretch but what if the all of the Warsaw scores that Amano and Shiro have worked on were just in one giant recording session and they simply divide them among the shows they are chosen for? That would be my guess.

London is further away from Tokyo than Warsaw... and more expensive.

I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't some grouping going on, though, as you say. It's hard to envisage the level of planning that must go into such things, but this is Japan.

They seem to make a holiday of these things, sending over a dozen people with a camera crew, a photographer, a translator, a valet, etc, etc, etc... It's a strangely extravagant way to go about it, when you consider that if all you want is an orchestral score, you can email the sheet music to a fixer in Eastern Europe, he records your score with 80-pice orchestra while you watch and listen over a webcam. When it's all finished he dumps the master in Dropbox, and you don't even have to get out of bed. THAT'S cheap. What they do is anything but. They're spending their music budget on having fun - which is encouraging in the sense that they have enough surplus to do so, and intensely annoying when you realise that if they'd stayed at home there would have been enough cash for double the session time.

And then, you see the flipside; scores where there is patently no budget at all and you discover people literally working themselves to the bone making the best out of the twenty people they could afford, or even using their fee to pay for more players. I wonder how they feel when they see Yoko Kanno's latest holiday snaps from Israel, Vienna, Warsaw, New York, Shanghai, Prague, Iceland, etc... or hear Masamichi Amano jetting off to Poland for the thirtieth time to conduct one of Europe's most prestigious ensembles?

Oh, well... Sorry, I'm ranting.


He doesn't have a legitimate bone in his body. He is nothing but third rate humor skits.

I know a lot of people find his humour distasteful... but I think there's infinitely more to the guy than meets the eye. Ted as an example; yes, tasteless humour, crass jokes... but also a genuine old-fashioned love story, a fantasy romance just like they used to make. MacFarlane can do gravitas when it's called for. I genuinely think that if he were ever to take on sci-fi and do it his way, we could be looking at genuinely great things.

You think they could use that extra money for more music, I think they could use extra money for everything else. Better VO, better animations, better anything.

I guess anime can be pretty cheap to produce, considering you'd never see people turning a work trip into a vacation in any other industry.

Well, quiet - but if there's, say, �50,000 music budget and you spend �25,000 of it on plane tickets and swanky hotel rooms for a dozen people... I would rather the music budget be spent on the music - in its entirety - not in funding a jet-setter lifestyle for the chosen few composers who "made it" while the others have to fight for the luxury of six brass players in a grotty tin can studio in Tokyo.

I can't see any anime producer saying "You know what? We don't need that big expensive climactic battle scene at the end. We'll come up with something in the edit, and use the cash to pay for a beach holiday in Okinawa!"

Music, on the other hand, gets the shaft - every time.

On the borderline cheap scores - the ones we all moan about, which are really good musically but sound awful because some idiot decided to use horrible 80s samples instead of real brass players... it infuriates me no end to know that with a bit of budget management - as little as a few hundred quid extra (the same amount of budget Yoko Kanno consumes in one day simply by eating dinner in a reasonably-priced restaurant and then going to bed in a hotel room) if they timed it right - would have sorted it out.

Anyway, enough bellyaching for one evening. :)

godzilla was an allright start for the big hollywood score season but the real stars are malificent, how to train your dragon 2 and a million ways to die in the west.HttyD2 is every bit as fun, exciting and enjoyable as the first if not more, malificent is JNHs best score since King Kong and i like it more since somehow King Kong seems soulless to me.only a very small part of the score has a more modern feel, and even that sounds more than what JNH already did 20 years ago in dinosaurs, vertical limit and others.beautyfull themes, magical choir and dark, powerfull and massive action.very, very close to his disney scores back in the day.and based on the clips to a million ways to die in the west mcneely does what he does best...rearanging other peoples works and give it a little bit more edge and power.

What Godzilla lacks in thematic writing it abounds on the spectacle of its orchestrations. In that aspect it reminds me Williams War of the Worlds.

Totally agree with you on Maleficent. You have lyrical music, action tracks, choirs, etc. Everything you need and want to hear in a fantasy movie score is here. It is stunning.

I'm gonna have to agree. Godzilla was not an intelligent score, but I'll be damned if it wasn't well written and fun as hell to listen to a thousand times. Maleficent, on the other hand, is an expertly crafted, delicately written score that reminds us why we love this medium to begin with.

This is a damn good start to the Summer.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Score?! WHERE?!?!

EDIT: Ok, I calmed down and scrolled up a bit. Sounds great, can't wait to hear it in full.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Score?! WHERE?!?!

EDIT: Ok, I calmed down and scrolled up a bit. Sounds great, can't wait to hear it in full.

you can download it already here in ffshrine.its a rip from the youtube videos in mp3.couldn�t wait for the cd.the score is breathtaking.the download version has track one twice and track ten has 2mins of unneccecary silence at the end but other than that it sounds ok and is all the cd material.

Am back from three months in northern China now.

You may be interested to know the Shrine can be accessed in China, unlike Facebook, YouTube, normal Google (censored Hong Kong Google is obtainable) and other favourite Western sites, which are censored. Internet is unreliable and very slow, even in the capital though. I managed to get online wirelessly in the many Starbucks caf�s there, there is even a Starbucks in a hutong!

If there is interest I can post Chinese classical and film music of CDs I bought there, including the extremely rare 'Battling the Typhoon' piano concerto by LIU Shikun. My laptop is faulty due to the stress of being in the Middle Kingdom and the CD tray is broken so I need time to get it fixed first.

Little disappointed with this batch of releases today. Koichiro Kameyama gives a splendid performance delivering some great classical tunes in Kiniro. Tokyo Ravens however lacks Kenji's orchestrations that made the first volume so enticing. It's pretty much just Maiko Iuchi doing her usual thing. Not exactly a bad thing but still makes me a little sad =/.

VPCG-84973 | Kiniro no Corda Blue?Sky Original Soundtrack - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/44904)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img009_zpsf5d737f6.jpg.html)

Title: Kiniro no Corda Blue♪Sky Original Soundtrack
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Koichiro Kameyama, Takamitsu Shimazaki
No. of tracks: 27
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 28, 2014
Size: MP3 163mb/ ALAC 347mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 WINGS TO FLY
02 Iza.chouten No Oto He (http://kiwi6.com/file/nj2w95tgh3)
03 Hitonatsu No Atsuki Tatakai
04 Yasuragi
05 Makerarenai Riyuu
06 Seiso Gakuin No Theme
07 Tomo Ni Kanaderu Hibi
08 Chiisana Yorokobi
09 Ushinawareta Hikari
10 Shinjiru Oto Wo Motomete
11 Shiseikan Koukou No Theme
12 Kurai Shuunen
13 Tsunagareta Kokoro
14 Natsu Ga Hajikeru Jikan
15 Jinnan Koukou No Theme
16 Gousha Na Bara
17 Amai Hitotoki
18 Fuujirareta Kako
19 Ano Hi No Kioku
20 Jibun Kara No Touhi
21 Kanki No Stage
22 Amane Gakuen No Theme
23 Koi Wo Sagasu Tenshi
24 Dareka No Kawari Deha Naku.jibun No Oto Wo
25 Hikari Afureru Sora He
26 WINGS TO FLY -TV Size-
27 WINGS TO FLY -Instrumental ver.-

320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - Kiniro no Corda Blue?Sky Original Soundtrack (animeost).zip (http://www75.zippyshare.com/v/14376816/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!fJYk2bhD!LSJy1okLQ0OdwhWsZMqpv8aRLt167ng20_Ztwwh b6io


GNBA-224602 | TOKYO RAVENS The Original Soundtrack vol.2 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/45184)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img020_zps1c0f0b7f.jpg.html)

Title: TOKYO RAVENS The Original Soundtrack vol.2
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: Maiko Iuchi, HoneyWorks, Takeshi Ozaki
No. of tracks: 38
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 28, 2014
Size: MP3 199mb/ ALAC 379mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 ～Outgrow～(TV-size)
02 000
03 Digress
04 U-debut☆
05 Dispute
06 His Battle
07 Mirror-Ling Road
08 Fear
09 Generation ri
10 Phase 4
11 Magical Sword (http://kiwi6.com/file/wptaisyqht)
12 D Case
13 Ryo Saotome
14 Waves
15 Strategies
16 A Moments Rest
17 Chase the Dream
18 Plan to Move
19 Soma Multi Tracked Child
20 Kurahashi Division Source
21 Hall of Yin and Yang
22 Analog War
23 Dark Jump
24 Sacred
25 Yashamaru
26 Good Sky
27 Sign
28 Gravity
29 Drove
30 Runaway Crow Feather ~
31 Ashiya Road Journal
32 Chord
33 Night
34 Extermination Chase
35 Satoru's Awakening
36 Calm Death
37 Epilogue-and New Beginnings
38 Break　a　spell　(TV-size)


320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - TOKYO RAVENS The Original Soundtrack vol.2 (animeost).zip (http://www75.zippyshare.com/v/88284563/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!KFRU3bgQ!PdpsCjOl-X5Yts01oiGzISZU9315dCfYLe_du-1q8TA


1000450659-CD | STRIKE THE BLOOD ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Vol.2 - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/45403)
(http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/img047_zps47120f26.jpg.html)

Title: STRIKE THE BLOOD ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Vol.2
Type OST: Anime Soundtrack
Composers: ASSUMED SOUNDS
No. of tracks: 30
Format: MP3 and ALAC
Bitrate: 320kbs and Loseless
Release Date: May 28, 2014
Size: MP3 196mb/ ALAC 409mb
Host: Zippy/MP3 Mega/ALAC

Tracklist (sample included)
01 Fight 4 Real (TV-size)
02 Seesawing
03 Assault
04 Wiseman's Blood
05 Witch's Wish
06 Speculation
07 Dance and Dance
08 Kaze ga Kami o Nabikasu
09 Poem-God Island Street
10 Tea Time
11 Namioboro-in Festa
12 Under the Sunlight
13 Dependable Sister
14 Day-to-Day Monitoring
15 Did you mean...
16 Unchanging Memory
17 Fight 4 Real (piano ver.)
18 Glimpses
19 signal (piano ver.)
20 Form of Kindness
21 Stretch out Hand
22 Reason for Tears
23 Girl Talk
24 Prison Barrier
25 Person to Joint the Bloodline
26 Power of Magic
27 Void Witch (http://kiwi6.com/file/fmnkw77g6x)
28 Hard Attack
29 MaiTakeshihime
30 signal (TV-size)


320 kbs MP3
Zippyshare.com - STRIKE THE BLOOD ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Vol.2 (animeost).zip (http://www75.zippyshare.com/v/5924516/file.html)

ALAC (Loseless)
https://mega.co.nz/#!GFxnXbwA!NnDOGE0QVNy92NmFndXaBwq1U6hVqlramPGfHom oXvI


Scans included as always. Enjoy http://i455.photobucket.com/albums/qq271/leatherhead93/kucing_mentok_zps5d5118d9.gif (http://s455.photobucket.com/user/leatherhead93/media/kucing_mentok_zps5d5118d9.gif.html)

Thanks for Kiniro no Corda. I only briefly skimmed it so far, but I liked what I heard.

And Klnerfan, I can't stop looking at your sig for some reason... It's glorious. :angel:

Also liking the new (?) Super Mario soundtrack you linked.

Isn't it just lovely :3

... and yes, it's from the newest Super Mario game, I like it a lot, just really love the Big Band sound in general. It's also a killer theme :D
I have major respect and admiration for Nintendo's new trend of hiring real musicians that started some years ago. With a few exceptions they almost always hire real players for their games and the music is of the highest quality most of the time. The new Super Mario Kart 8 has real players as well, it rocks! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RslKeW5SHcw). It's so nice to see and hear the big importance that live music has for Nintendo these days. Pretty much any major game release has music that is not only well composed but also immensly fun to listen to. Makes me really excited for the next Smash Brothers and Hyrule Warriors.

In general my adoration for Japan grows with each passing year. Sure there are many dull scores or musical experiments that don't work for me but at least it's a country where nobody raises an eyebrow when the music for a major project is freaking Bossa Nova, Swing, Funk & Disco mixed in with some Shostakovich. These old musical genres still thrive in Japan, along with Golden-Age and Silver-Age film music. It's so crazy and bizzare, like the country itself is stuck between multiple dimension of musical time periods. But that makes it so wonderful and thank god it's not stopping any time soon with upcoming composers like Go Sakabe and Misa Chujo.

Really enjoying the very lyrical Blue Sky, the classical more than the rock and jazzy parts. Thanks LeatherHead!

A thousand thanks for Blue Sky from me as well. WHAT. A. SCORE.

Not exactly a ton of orchestral cues, but what there is is a) real, and b) extremely good. Kameyama was a superb choice for this show, I think. (I drool at the thought of what Hirano would've done with a budget; but it's a pleasure to say that what we did get doesn't disappoint at all.)

One would expect it to be a thankless task, writing "background" music for a series which is itself about music. Kameyama turns in an elegant, classically-perfurmed, romantic, and emotionally genuine score.

Kanno's been delivering some hearty cues in Jojo, gotta say. That big, booming reprise of what I guess is DIO's theme this week gave me chills. David production really know how to ratchet up the tension with the soundtrack this go around. Really makes for some quality ghost punching.

I have updated a post from earlier this year - the Rachmaninov Symphonies collection by the RLPO and Vasily Petrenko. I have added another, slightly earlier, disc in the series - it has the Symphonic Dances, The Isle Of The Dead, and The Rock.

Please direct your attention here: http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/562.html#post2576059

Well, fragments of Hattori's "Origin" score have emerged in the promotional video... and whilst there is a fairly substantial orchestra, I'm not massively thrilled. It's a lot of slamming noises, accompanied by themeless minor key posturing. I do not for one moment think the rest of the score will be like this - or at least, I pray to Buddha that it won't be; previews are rarely representative of the overall style of the score, and are basically useful only to confirm that a) the composer you were expecting is indeed involved (yes) and b) there's a decent budget (also yes) - I'm still pretty sure it will be good overall...

Anyway, for your perusal ladies and gentlemen... https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5my_qw4zjc

Lyrics, Composition and Arrangement by
YŪJI NOMI
Saki Hiwatari's
PLEASE SAVE MY EARTH
Studio Orchestra, et al.
conducted by Hiroshi Kumagai

Release Date: 21.08.1988
Publisher: Victor Musical Industries
Catalog Number: VDR-1529



01. 1991 TOKYO
05. V.S. ESP Power
07. Prelude ~ Dawn
08. Fuga ~ Interstellar War
09. Scene ~ Keyword
10. Etude ~ Fantasy of Reincarnation
11. Aria ~ Shion and Mokuren
12. In Paradisum ~ Reincarnation

Duration: 24:31

02. Green ~Whisper of Green
Composition, Arrangement: Hajime Mizoguchi

03. The Dangerous Bubble Gum Boy ~Rin~
Composition, Arrangement: Hajime Mizoguchi

04. Stairway to the Moon ~Alice~
Composition, Vocals: Taeko Ōnuki
Arrangement: Febian Reza Pane

06. Moon Light Anthem ~Enju 1991~
Lyrics, Composition, Vocals: Akino Arai
Arrangement: Satoshi Kadokura

Duration: 18:51

My wonky rip.

<hr>

FLAC + LOG + SCANS
Part 1 (https://rbfi.io/dl.php?key=/KJBs/1-ADHDTwoPills.zip)
Pt. 2 (https://rbfi.io/dl.php?key=/8qfY/2-CroukaNnoDance.zip)
Pt. 3 (https://rbfi.io/dl.php?key=/5sLM/3-CrazyAmerieLove.zip)

Well, fragments of Hattori's "Origin" score have emerged in the promotional video... and whilst there is a fairly substantial orchestra, I'm not massively thrilled. It's a lot of slamming noises, accompanied by themeless minor key posturing. I do not for one moment think the rest of the score will be like this - or at least, I pray to Buddha that it won't be; previews are rarely representative of the overall style of the score, and are basically useful only to confirm that a) the composer you were expecting is indeed involved (yes) and b) there's a decent budget (also yes) - I'm still pretty sure it will be good overall...

Anyway, for your perusal ladies and gentlemen... https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x5my_qw4zjc
I highly doubt they've even recorded the score yet considering the release is still 10-12 months away. They probably just got him to whip something up for the trailer.

What, and record it with a 60 piece orchestra? It's Japan - it's possible... But it wouldn't be the first time music was in the can months or even years before release. Hope you're right... but doubt it. ;)

Yep, it can happen. Recording some trailer music - just trailer music - with a large orchestra, that is. Or they could have had him tack it on at the end of a session for something else.

I think both these possibilities are much more likely than recording the score a whole year in advance. You just don't see that, even for big projects like Gundam.

If you can point me to any other times it's happened, I'd be most interested. 99.999% of (Japanese) previews/trailers feature either a) generic trailer music, b) synthesised mockups of what turns out to be the actual score, or c) the actual score.

Then again, it's Gundam - who knows? We'll find out in due course... :)

Words, Music, and Conducting by
YŌKO KANNO
SONG OF DEPARTURE

Commissioned & Performed by
The Waseda University Glee Club

Waseda University Glee Club 60th Regular Concert (1st December, 2012)
At the Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya Public Hall

Release Date: ?
Label: Sound Studio Oka
Media Format: CD
Catalog Number: OCD-12120

1. Planeta (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHjR256BgsE&t=65)
2. Grindel
3. Vulcanus
4. Rosalind
5. Hyquiella
6. Hikari
7. Patria
8. Dinga linga
9. The Departure

Duration: 27:40

My rip.

<hr>

MP3 -V0 (English tags)
https://mega.co.nz/#!K5QwgZJb!33soyDEhOra45kSNy-egF1rGJZMepIIT6jfUJi_-INc

FLAC (Japanese tags)
https://mega.co.nz/#!zkJBFJiR!F8WYeBpTpj9cmPLqm-zhhcgIhh20PBlEXhaErg6UlPE


Yoko Kanno conducting the choir
(from the DVD recording, screenshot by J.M. Schaeffer from the 'WorldWide Yoko Kanno' Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=891553204227741&set=gm.825748690880635&type=3&theater))

This has its own thread, which I would very much appreciate you bumping if you like this. This one was about three days of solid work, posted less than two days ago, and the thread is already on page 8! (It's also highly relevant to this thread - being impeccably crafted orchestral music as well as one of my own personal favourites.)

Thread 174480


SIR EDWARD ELGAR
The Sketches For Symphony No. 3
elaborated by
Anthony Payne



BBC Proms Premiere | World Television Premiere | Second Performance

BBC Symphony Orchestra
conducted by
Sir Andrew Davis

VIDEO of the complete concert (MKV format, H264 video) with FLAC audio - https://mega.co.nz/#!wt4mlTTJ!NeCCiWkN1He6R2CNf0BS6Uyj6v5YNPQd35S21Bf k8q0 (61:44) [762mb]

VIDEO of the complete concert at YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnor-Hg7Utc (61:44)

Music Only - FLAC - https://mega.co.nz/#!dhxVwQCY!fzd1k2Kv0FhZqUUNdK5Kl1_DewI7R7QVBcmWcl7 AZeA (55:10) (241mb)
Music Only - MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 -V0) - https://mega.co.nz/#!otIQ0bCJ!I3wO_Uj6L2Da0KtwSijJm08xO6JTbLtc3hU-Nyil2sQ (55:10) (90mb)

The story of Elgar's third symphony is well known - but briefly, the composer started writing the work but unfortunately succumbed to cancer shortly after, leaving only sketches. On his deathbed, he is said to have stated (emphatically) that the work should be destroyed and certainly never completed ("tinkered with") after his passing. Although the sketches were published by Elgar's friend and confidant Billy Reed a few years later, the family prevented unauthorised completion just as the composer had desired. In the mid nineties, fuelled by renewed interest in the work (driven largely by Anthony Payne, who had been intimately familiar with it since the 1960s) and with the knowledge that the surviving fragments would soon fall out of copyright, Elgar's descendants came to a decision. Realising that after the copyright had expired, their control over the sketches would cease, they decided to commission Anthony Payne - the man whom they felt knew the music the best - to complete the symphony. He did so, and the work received its premiere in 1998, to (mostly) rave reviews.

The arguments continue to rumble on, even today: Was it right to complete the symphony in defiance of the composers wishes? Did Payne's completion do justice to the sketches? My own personal thoughts are a hearty "yes" to both questions; the idea of this glorious music dying with Elgar turns my stomach. Of course, it's never ideal for another composer to "pastiche" the style of another - but in this instance I genuinely believe - as do many critics and listeners alike - that the final product is a completely valid, musically excellent, thoroughly Elgarian work.

The new work was premi�red in early 1998 in the Royal Festival Hall, and received its Proms premi�re in August; it is this performance presented here. We are most fortunate that the concert was broadcast on television; enabling us to see and hear this historic performance again and again.

You have no idea how happy I am to be able to make this available. This recording has been missing for the better part of a decade, and I had somewhat given up hope of seeing it again. This afternoon, whilst searching for something completely unrelated, it appeared. I took a deep breath and put in the tape, fully prepared to discover that it had deteriorated or didn't play at all. I was proven wrong! Despite the recording taking place in "long play" mode, the tape was of good quality (a British-made Scotch cassette) and time has been very good to it. Picture quality is above average for a long play recording, and the sound is almost spotless; dynamic, low-noise, full-range stereo that compares very favourably to CD. In the main programme, I have included lossless audio.

The picture, for those who are interested in such things, is at an aspect ratio of 1.53:1 - the BBC upgraded their production path to widescreen in the mid nineties, but didn't broadcast widescreen until Digital TV services began in November of 1998. During the "transition" period, therefore, it was common practice to show 16:9 material in this "compromise" aspect ratio.

In addition to the video presentation (which is well worth watching) you also get "just the symphony" so to speak, as FLAC files - these have been slightly edited to remove the typical mid-movement "stretch and cough" noise (which can be distracting if you're looking exclusively to enjoy the music away from the live concert atmosphere) and also some unfortunate sporadic applause at the end of the first and second movements. Finally, the "just the symphony" edition is presented additionally in MP3 format (LAME 3.99.5 -V0) for those thus interested.

BONUS FEATURES:

The Interval Feature

A 20 minute television mini-documentary, presented by James Naughtie, chronicling the history of Elgar's "mythical" third symphony. It contains passages from the original sketches, performed by David Owen Norris and Robert Gibbs, as well as interviews with Elgar's God-son Wulstan Atkins, other members of the Elgar family, and Anthony Payne himself. It's a fascinating potted history (featuring rare archive footage of Elgar, George Bernard Shaw, and an excellent primer if you're not familiar with "SYM III" or its turbulent history.



Video (MKV format, H264 video) with MP3 audio- https://mega.co.nz/#!9hwFFaQb!CAx_0ySeTS3NiREix5z8LT3vehUgnUN04Zzvgv4 AR88 (20:20) (85mb)




"Sketches from Symphony No. 3"
A 32 minute radio documentary from 1995 (before Payne had completed the symphony), featuring a selection of the sketches (performed by Keith Swallow, and the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier) with interlinking commentary by Payne.

FLAC - https://mega.co.nz/#!c1YEhbIS!IqfIFneYFJU4W2eEhL9j3FTbOW9wm4z1DvD1SeK 781c (31:36) (102mb)



NMC's "The Sketches for Symphony No. 3"
The complete surviving sketches, performed by David Owen Norris (piano) and Robert Gibbs (violin) - again, with a more detailed commentary by Payne in which he explains how he was able to fit the jigsaw puzzle together. Orchestral passages are performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.



FLAC - https://mega.co.nz/#!chIyCBhI!e1_AqCk08EIbIMYspYYJNHZfsoxfDIwJTStA9fY sQRw (69:28) (269mb)

Very interesting Tango. I was a bit unsure if I should bother until I got down to reading your description. Now I am excited. Thanks for sharing this. If only I had recorded and saved something worthwhile all those days ago when I was recording on VHS.

Words, Music, and Conducting by
YŌKO KANNO
SONG OF DEPARTURE

This is amazing. I don't understand how Kanno can out-compose Eric Whitacre, a guy who spent his life writing this kind of music, with such ease. I wish I could wake up one day, have some breakfast, and be like "I think I will write some men's a capella with Latin text" and then completely nail it. It reminds me a lot of Poulenc's a cappella motets and chansons (but don't worry, I don't detect any unoriginality here.) :)

For anyone that wants a cover image for Song Of Departure:



Thanks for finding this obscure CD, Salat.

I'm gonna love it if it sounds anything like Poulenc. Thank you, Herr Salat.

Yugo Kanno's latest main theme, Hanasaki Mai ga Damattenai.

Zippyshare.com - 01 花咲舞が黙ってない.m4a (http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/49264326/file.html)

Well any chance of the new show Crossbones having any decent music was dashed in the first episode. Music was by some guy I had never heard of and it was as generic as it comes. No unique theme, no unique identity, just boring uninspired attempts at writing something orchestral.

Please help me ID this classical piece from Shadow Man. The excerpt is at 0:23 and ends at 1:31...try to ignore the disturbing sound effects. I believe the original was a lullaby by a famous composer.

Shadow Man Soundtrack - Asylum: Playrooms - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsHA1DJ_ya4)

Thanks, ~ Z

It's a piano piece by Brahms: Brahms Waltz in A-Flat Major, Op. 39 No. 15 - Evgeny Kissin - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy6uV-eMOEs). The original is for four hands.

Also in the YouTube comment if you scroll down.

Pili Heroes Music Picks 49 mp3-320k
霹靂俠影之轟霆劍海錄劇集原聲帶
轟霆劍海錄原聲帶精選49
雙CD超值收錄：素還真氣勢登場、雙秀抒情曲、玄同太子、森獄閻王、蛻變黑后、凜若梅之「風塵續曲」、以及 荒山亮「崩天裂地」、阿爍「心罪」、蔡佳瑩「天下獨行」、荒山亮與風采輪真情對唱「癡情難忘」等二十五首精 選曲目。二○一四年五月三十日即將推出，專輯預購活動五月十六日全面啟動，敬請期待！
CD-1曲目:
01.戰歌狂囂（轟霆劍海錄預告曲）
02.叱吒風雲（雙秀戰玄囂）
03.耀世白蓮（素還真氣勢登場）
04.秋楓暮霞惋紅曲（玄同太子）
05.道真雙秀（雙秀抒情曲）
06.森獄閻王（珈羅殿）
07.漂鈴殺響（漂鳥少年武曲）
08.藍山姑娘（葬千葬萬葬藍山）
09.垢浪明珠（道魁央千澈）
10.翠環山玉波池（素還真文曲）
11.風塵續曲（凜若梅之歌）
12.浩氣破天（倦收天破天氣勢）
13.天疆牧神（天疆之主）
14.恩怨情仇江湖路（弁襲君悲曲）
15.日落煙都（古陵逝煙悲曲）
16.蛻變黑后（森獄黑后）
17.玄臏太子（森獄大太子）
18.白雪紅梅（凜若梅角色曲）
19.劍舞虹霓（玄同氣勢曲）
20.一殉王魂（玄囂悲曲）
21.佛謎心懷鉛（心懷鉛角色曲）

CD-2曲目:
01.崩天裂地（轟霆劍海錄第一片頭曲）
02.心罪（轟霆劍海錄第一片尾曲）
03.天下獨行（轟霆劍海錄第二片頭曲）
04.癡情難忘（轟霆劍海錄第二片尾曲）

https://mega.co.nz/#!o88UQDIY!cTYJsEDydEIBI8RJ_gEynkZM6qxbBhvjBSMkxq4 dtNc

^

Any Chinese translators in here :>?

James Horner wrote a double concerto? DATES ANNOUNCED FOR HORNER&#039;S DOUBLE CONCERTO* JAMES HORNER (http://jameshorner-filmmusic.com/date-announced-for-horners-double-concerto/)

And conducted by Petrenko to boot. Nice.

Streich, I think I saw here somewhere that you like Myaskovsky? I got to explore his piano sonatas and my god, his sonatas, especially Nos. 1-4 are godlike (pieces before giving into socialist realism). Any from his symphonic output you recommend in particular?

Just thought you should know that Tiomkin's It's a Wonderful Life is going to be released by Kritzerland on Monday morning from the original tapes. Previously this was only available in a delightful Telarc re-recording.

Myaskovsky has to be one of the MOST underrated composers ever. I'm actually angry at how overlooked he is when compared to his best buddy Prokofiev. Prokofiev is definitely a better composer (more original) and enjoyed the spotlight more (as did Ravel and Stravinsky), but Myaskovsky had something personal to say, and in that respect he's more of a Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich-like figure. He probably did himself a disservice by writing 27 symphonies, because people will look at that number and think "if it takes this guy 27 attempts to say what Prokofiev said in 7, then he must not be a very good composer." This mindset is wrong, but unavoidable, as I thought the same thing too.

The truth is, each of the 27 symphonies is unique in its own way. I have my favourites, but I can't easily call any one of them terrible. I can't even call a single movement terrible. The guy was a master of his craft, extremely traditional, and fond of romantic melodies. He's like the Russian (Polish?) equivalent of Arnold Bax, mixed with some Rachmaninov and Wagner. Similar to Mahler, many of his movements are self-contained mini-symphonies, like the first movement of the 4th.

I can't easily pick favourites here. You really have to hear them all at some point. Symphonies 5 and 6 are "war" symphonies in the vein of Shostakovich, so I particularly enjoy those. Symphony no. 17 is heartbreaking (dat second movement!) The Symphony-ballad no. 22 is an epic tone poem similar to Strauss or Gliere. If I had to choose a favourite at gunpoint, it would be Symphony no. 24 in f minor. The second movement is one of the few times I've ever had to put down whatever I was doing to just listen.

It's no coincidence the symphonies I picked out (6, 17, 22, 24) are in minor keys. Myaskovsky can write some uplifting tunes, but he really shines in the minor keys.

Thanks for the response. I'm gonna start from there.

I must agree about his mastery of the craft - it's really top notch. From what I have gathered, he wasn't much of a pianist-composer like Liszt, Ravel, Prokofiev, or Scriabin, etc. were. His sonatas, though, are really well constructed and show all the good influences (e.g., Lisztian virtuosity and ferocity, Scriabin-esque harmonies). You get to hear early modernist in sonatas in 3 and 4. Too bad he couldn't compose 5 more like that :( Not that his later ones are bad, but they are significantly dumbed down.

Most classical composers, and even film composers, have an early period where they are young and full of awe and wonder, heroism, strict good vs. evil morality, romance, sexuality, anger etc. Then as they get older they become introspective, disillusioned, stoic, complentative, and philosophical. It's about the transition from entering the world to leaving it. Not all embrace this metamorphosis as obviously as Beethoven or Stravinsky did with their early and late periods, but I challenge anyone to name a composer that didn't ultimately fulfill this rite of passage in some way.

I prefer early Mahler, Stravinsky, Bruckner, Shostakovich, etc. but for some reason late Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. This can probably be explained by reasoning that composers don't usher in a new era of music until their late periods, so if you have a favourite period (as I do: late 19th-early 20th century Romanticism), then you have to look at the composers of that era who were on their way out and those who were just starting off.

I prefer early Mahler, Stravinsky, Bruckner, Shostakovich, etc. but for some reason late Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. This can probably be explained by reasoning that composers don't usher in a new era of music until their late periods, so if you have a favourite period (as I do: late 19th-early 20th century Romanticism), then you have to look at the composers of that era who were on their way out and those who were just starting off.

I like the works of Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninov the best. My favorite work out of all of those would be Capriccio Espagnol by Korsakov. It is so well orchestrated and full of energy. I had the luxury of hearing it live at an outdoor venue performed by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. I loved it!

Well, of course all composers go through stylistic changes. But Myaskovsky was forced to adopt a conservative, nationalistic style due to the government oppression of art. Prokofiev was exiled, Feinberg was lobotomized, Roslavets had his records deleted, and Mosolov was arrested. These are just few examples of many. I imagine Myaskovsky would have continued composing in the harmonically adventurous style if it weren't for the government.

It's a shame because I really love the bleak, desolate music of Russian pianist-composers. At least smaller labels are trying to unearth these forgotten composers, but there's still a lot missing. I largely prefer the more modern, Lisztian/Scriabinesque approach, but that's just me.

Anyone happen to have Ryuichi Sakamoto's score to Ichimei (Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai) and his collaborative album with Jacques and Paula Morelenbaum titled Casa? I have looked all over for it and normally I would buy it on iTunes however I am a bit broke at the moment :(.

Well, of course all composers go through stylistic changes. But Myaskovsky was forced to adopt a conservative, nationalistic style due to the government oppression of art. Prokofiev was exiled, Feinberg was lobotomized, Roslavets had his records deleted, and Mosolov was arrested. These are just few examples of many. I imagine Myaskovsky would have continued composing in the harmonically adventurous style if it weren't for the government.

Indeed. Gavriil Popov is another example of a composer who stifled his personal voice (to the end of his career) following public censure from the cultural czars.

Popov is great too, especially the Symphony no. 1. Another great composer who drank the Red Kool Aid is Kabalevsky who wrote awesome concertos.

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107



BBC Philharmonic
Guy Johnston, cello
Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor

Live recording from the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester - a concert performance given at the Finals of the BBC Young Musician Of The Year 2000 competition.

Video (MKV format, H264 video) with FLAC audio - https://mega.co.nz/#!VtB3FbpZ!bjFPOWQr_JXQWtaf1PPU8l11_f5Ci4DE4xZxoZJ nckA (35:17) 535mb
Music Only - FLAC - https://mega.co.nz/#!h0gxzapT!bSuZCy0-NYVjZL6KN_LqfzeDMPZaWAGAB9VpZQBwPyM (26:38) 112mb
Music Only - MP3 (-V0 LAME 3.99.5) - https://mega.co.nz/#!Qs4VkbTT!PLZclQiDTWmV4NzXKBIVVUFa5wV7H7jY8oW-VQFd2n8 (35:15) 44mb

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vnDpDucGnk

Speaking of abrasive Soviet music... how about a little Shostakovich? This is a stunning performance of the first cello concerto - the performance that won Johnston the BBC Young Musician Of The Year contest in 2000. Despite dramatically breaking a string on his cello in the just three minutes into the concerto he kept his cool, fixed his cello, went back to the beginning, and like a man possessed, turned in a white-hot, energetic reading. He received a standing ovation and my own favourite of the evening (David Childs, the euphonium player) lost out to a very worthy winner indeed.

For those of you not familar with the composer, the piece isn't particularly approachable - though Shostakovich's trademark sense of humour is very present, the music is on the whole nervous, agitated, brutal, powerful, and very direct.

Johnston is now an internationally known, frequently recorded cellist - and it all began here.

Enjoy! :)
TT

Sorry to dumb down the conversation, but I thought I'd share what occupied most of my weekend:


MARIO KART 8 [Gamerip]
Music by Shiho Fujii, Atsuko Asahi, Ryo Nagamatsu, and Yasuaki Iwata
FLAC | 44 Tracks | 96:30 | 589.4 MB



All I could find were YouTube conversions, so I took it upon myself to make a better quality version available. With one exception explained in the album thread, I ripped this myself. Not a whole lot of this is orchestral; a lot of jazzy brass and rock, but most of it is live players and it's big silly fun. Enjoy. :)


https://mega.co.nz/#!x4pVxBSK!GdbOvfw5bHIAycLfIKiG7Z9iIJxO7bBEGMN-vtBOz5E

[CENTER]DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107



BBC Philharmonic
Guy Johnston, cello
Yan Pascal Tortelier, conductor
/CENTER]

This is brilliant, brilliant stuff. Guy Johnston is a pip, I can see how we won.

I'm only just recently starting to develop more of an appreciation for classical music in general. Right now, the old "absorb everything you can, however you can"(which in my case, includes taking any recommendation I see, looking up noted influences of my fave modern composers, being a cheating poser and going down Classic FM's Top 500, etc.) adage has been the name of the game, and one I always worried would be a formidable, overwhelming task, but the payoff has been extraordinary. There are so many little facets of the experience; the countless different interpretations, contests between promising upstarts like above; that I had no idea about. It's all terribly exciting. :)

So this is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvraGNfKVY

Wouldn't allowing composers to be paid less or pay for orchestras out of pocket just because the small game studio cannot meet union contract demands devalue the work? I know Wintory likes to use live musicians, but if he's paying out of pocket for it, and taking a personal pay cut, that would set a bad precedent for other composers who cannot afford such luxuries. Composers would thus be expected to use a portion of their personal fees to pay the recording studio/musicians.

Live orchestras are a luxury that small time production companies cannot afford. But if composers like Wintory are saying "You can afford it! We'll just record in Dallas!" then that is a slippery slope to outsourcing to other countries. I cannot wait to hear his next masterpiece performed live by the Democratic Republic of Congo Philharmonic where they accepted payment in the form of clean water rations. Wintory broke his own union's rules and devalued his music at the same time.

GUSTAV HOLST
The Planets - Suite For Orchestra, Op. 32
followed by
COLIN MATTHEWS
Pluto - The Renewer




City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Sakari Oramo

Live Recording from the BBC Proms 2000

MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 -V0) - https://mega.co.nz/#!xhoTja7K!cl_y9Sbks9Jt7Fp0cpANii6FkIx8SzmdBqccZha NdvU (95mb) (57:44)
FLAC (Level 8) - https://mega.co.nz/#!5wgCGKjY!NLYRSnpJIKkdB8bTcAI_wwtmnZdUqb1fAyblLVq bfOg (244mb) (57:44)

This is a good one. Everybody knows The Planets. I love it to pieces - it's maybe the most "filmic" of all the serious classical repertoire... and yet, I've never posted it.

Holst's piece unwittingly became the blueprint for dozens and dozens of grand Hollywood sci-fi movie scores, not least John Williams' famous "Star Wars".

I'm sure everybody's already heard it - or at least knows of it - "The Planets" is a 50-minute suite of symphonic pieces, each of them a musical "portrait" of one of the planets in our solar system, excluding Earth, and Pluto which was yet to be discovered.

I think the performance is most excellent throughout - Mars brutal and relentless, Venus silky and seductive, Mercury flighty and light, Jupiter rousing and happy, Saturn cold and lonely, Uranus boisterous and magical, and Neptune mysterious and dreamlike.

Oramo's "Saturn" is fascinating. The composer himself whizzed through it in just seven minutes in his 1923 recording, shaving a further four seconds off in 1926. Holst's own recordings are almost ludicrously fast but we can put this down to the usual grammophone-era "three-minutes-a-side" dictat that ruined so many vintage recordings. More leisurely, we have Sir Adrian Boult (1977, 8:23), Sir Andrew Davis (8:24), Sir Malcolm Sargent (8:46), Sir Adrian Leaper (9:00), Leonard Slatkin (9:31), Geoffrey Simon (9:43) and Herbert von Karajan at almost ten minutes. Sakari Oramo beats them all, allowing Saturn to magnificently unfold over a magical ten minutes and twenty-one seconds. It packs a punch. Boult's landmark 1977 recording remains my favourite, by as far as Saturn is concerned, I think the slower the better - within reason, of course - we're dealing with the Bringer of Old Age, after all. (Incidentally, if you're curious, Albert Coates conducted the fastest Mars in history in 1926 - finishing it off in an alarming six minutes flat. He went so quickly that even the London Symphony Orchestra couldn't keep up. I shudder to think what Holst's impression might have been.)

When Holst completed "The Planets" in 1916, Pluto had yet to be discovered. Though it was during Holst's lifetime, he expressed no interest in adding another movement - in fact, he became somewhat disillusioned with the popularity of "The Planets" as he felt - rightly - that it took attention away from his other works. Nonetheless, the Halle Orchestra commissioned "Pluto - The Renewer" from Colin Matthews in 2000. I'm actually rather fond of it - though it met with a mixed (and, if memory serves, predominantly negative) reaction with critics and audiences alike. (The complaints were predictable - "Why mess with a masterpiece?" / "It's dissonant and modern!" / "Holst would have disapproved!" - all valid, of course, and for those and other reasons, it is seldom performed these days. (Pluto's demotion from "planet" status didn't help.)

"Pluto" has a handful of commercial recordings available - the most recent I believe with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. Matthews ultimately writes very much his own piece; thankfully he doesn't fall into the trap of trying to emulate Holst or emulate the style of "The Planets" - though the piece grows naturally out of the dying embers of "Neptune", it's unique and quite self-contained. At the time, it was a little too "modern" for me - but I find that I grew more tolerant of atonality as I got older.

I re-discovered this recording whilst transferring the Guy Johnston performance of the first Shostakovich cello concerto. There it was, sitting there at the end of the tape, in disturbingly high quality stereo sound. My "radio to VHS" technique was pretty good by 2000, yielding a final recording that's infinitely better than a sixteen year-old amateur deserved. Indeed, at the time, I don't think I actually realised how good it really was; my only concern was that the tape didn't run out!

I did wonder if I should perhaps let this one pass due to the slight radio interference. I personally do not find it intrusive, although it may well be a deal breaker for others. I have been able to tame it slightly as part of my usual mastering process but it's the kind of noise that's hard to remove without destroying the music - and because the sound quality is so good otherwise, I have resisted the temptation. Minor VHS head-switching artifacts were less of a bother and all in all, I think we're left with truly wonderful things. A testament to the high standards of the BBC, and a splendid example of what "old" analogue technology could do.

So this is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvraGNfKVY

Wouldn't allowing composers to be paid less or pay for orchestras out of pocket just because the small game studio cannot meet union contract demands devalue the work? I know Wintory likes to use live musicians, but if he's paying out of pocket for it, and taking a personal pay cut, that would set a bad precedent for other composers who cannot afford such luxuries. Composers would thus be expected to use a portion of their personal fees to pay the recording studio/musicians.

Live orchestras are a luxury that small time production companies cannot afford. But if composers like Wintory are saying "You can afford it! We'll just record in Dallas!" then that is a slippery slope to outsourcing to other countries. I cannot wait to hear his next masterpiece performed live by the Democratic Republic of Congo Philharmonic where they accepted payment in the form of clean water rations. Wintory broke his own union's rules and devalued his music at the same time.

I don't understand where your worries are coming from. Wintory never in that video said he paid for anything out of pocket or that he was taking a pay cut to allow that to happen. And I don't know how performing in Dallas is anywhere remotely the same thing as contracting an orchestra in a foreign country.

Transaltion from above,
Perak Man Shadow Boom Ting Hai Sword soundtrack was recorded episodes
Boom Ting Jian Hai recorded soundtrack featured 49
Double CD Value Index: Peanuts and Dried momentum debut, double show ballads, Xuantong Prince, Sen prison Hades, after metamorphosis black, cold Ruomei the "dust continued song" and barren bright "collapse days fracturing," Ah Shuo " Heart crime, "Cai Jiaying 'world alone" style wheel light and truth barren duet "infatuation memorable" etc. twenty-five selection of tracks. May 30, 2014 upcoming album pre-order activity May 16 started, so stay tuned!
CD-1 Tracks:
01. Battle Hymn of the mad clamor (Boom Ting Jian Hai notice recorded song)
02. Masterful (double show battle mysterious clamor)
03. Yao Shi Lian (Peanuts and Dried momentum debut)
04. Bischofia sigh red twilight Xia Qu (Xuantong Prince)
05. Road show true double (double show aria)
06 Sen prison Hades (Jia Luo Dian)
07. Drift kill bell rang (juvenile birds drift Wu Qu)
08 Blue Mountain Girl (one thousand funeral funeral funeral Wan Blue Mountain)
09. Scale waves Pearl (one thousand Che Road Central Quebec)
10. Cuihuan mountain jade wave pool (Peanuts and Dried Venturi)
11 dust continued song (Rin Ruomei song)
12. Noble Happening (tired closing days Happening momentum)
13-day Xinjiang Faun (day Xinjiang Lord)
14 pains and sorrows lakes road (Bian Jun hit sad song)
15. Sunset smoke are (Gulingqu evanescent smoke sad song)
16 After metamorphosis Black (Tucson prison after dark)
17. Hyun Bin Prince (Prince Mori large prison)
18. Baixue Hong Mei (Rin Ruomei character song)
19 Sword Dance rainbow (Xuantong momentum song)
20 I. King martyrdom Soul (Xiao Xuan sad song)
21. Buddha mystery heart lead (lead role hearts song)

CD-2 Tracks:
01. Collapse days fracturing (Boom Ting Jian Hai CONTENTS Theme Song)
02 Heart sin (Boom Ting Jian Hai recorded first OST)
03. The world alone (Boom Ting Jian Hai recorded the second opening theme)
04. Infatuation memorable (Boom Ting Jian Hai record second OST)