For fans of Hitoshi Sakimoto,

I just released a preview of my string ensemble arrangement of Trisection from Final Fantasy Tactics. I am very proud of this one as it is certainly a labor of love given how much of a fan of Sakimoto's I am. The musicians were tested with the intricacy of the arrangement as I wrote original material as well as using the main melody of the original to create equally tense and moving sections. I hope you all enjoy and perhaps someday I can do a full orchestra version of this :).

https://soundcloud.com/josh-barron/trisection-for-string-ensemble-final-fantasy-tacticspreview

Is this thread dead?

Nah... :)

Sleeping, I think.

Every time it seems like this old thread has cashed in its chips, something happens and it all comes flooding back.

For my part, I've been working like a dog this last six months (out there in "real life") - but the holiday period is just a week away and I've got some nice projects coming up... I have a couple more Herr Salat albums, some compilations, some upgrades of old scores, etc. Additionally, I fully intend to resume making the opinionated, annoying posts that I have been neglecting of late...

There has not really been any noteworthy scores to talk about this season, sadly - but I'm ever hopeful for next year. And besides, when there's nothing new to talk about we can just talk about the old stuff...

Hope you're well mate. :)

New Yoko Kanno interview: Interview: Anime soundtracker Yoko Kanno on Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, and More | Red Bull Music Academy (http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/yoko-kanno-interview)

Nah... :)

Sleeping, I think.

Every time it seems like this old thread has cashed in its chips, something happens and it all comes flooding back.

For my part, I've been working like a dog this last six months (out there in "real life") - but the holiday period is just a week away and I've got some nice projects coming up... I have a couple more Herr Salat albums, some compilations, some upgrades of old scores, etc. Additionally, I fully intend to resume making the opinionated, annoying posts that I have been neglecting of late...

There has not really been any noteworthy scores to talk about this season, sadly - but I'm ever hopeful for next year. And besides, when there's nothing new to talk about we can just talk about the old stuff...

Hope you're well mate. :)

Glad to see your are busy! I am doing as well as I can :). My album and gathering support for it has kept me very busy for the time being. I managed to get the approval of both Sakimoto and Solar Fields for my arrangements of Trisection and Still Alive respectively so that definitely gave me the push to write considerably more. With two jobs it has been a little hard to write, but in what little spare time I get I write lol. So I can definitely relate to working like a dog as you so very vividly put it. Can't wait to hear what you have coming up and glad to see you are alive and well :D!

One could successfully argue that this isn't action music. Indeed, roughly half of it isn't even orchestral. As we enter the sixth year of this thread, its original title is even less relevant than it was on the day it started, but we nonetheless wear that title like a badge of honour. This thread, to me, is about friendship and good music - if it's rare and/or something unfamilar but instantly likeable, all the better. Therefore, I submit...


JEAN-MICHEL DAMASE
Silk Rhapsody and TRIO for Flute, Oboe, and Piano
Jean-Pierre Rampal (flute), Pierre Pierlot (oboe), and Jean-Michel Damase (piano)
Orchestre de l'association des concerts lamoureux, conducted by The Composer



My transfer from 1966 French vinyl pressing. FLAC at Level 8. Scans included.

https://mega.co.nz/#!w85DBbzD!WDVcCXHfrxnawYRZuJLXRElTiLQ553xo-02TI3kGqAw

Jean-Michel Damase is a brand new discovery for me; two months ago I hadn’t even heard his name, but I am now a convert. Sadly, this splendid composer passed away just one year ago at the age of 85. Despite a career spanning over sixty years, recordings of his work are few and far between and the majority of them were released only on vinyl. The glorious tone poem “Silk Rhapsody” is one such piece; recorded once in the mid-1960s by Erato. There is an MP3 transfer of this piece floating around, in addition to a poor quality version on YouTube. I present with great pleasure my own high quality transfer, from a mint condition original French pressing.

For those who begin to feel uneasy at the words “contemporary classical” please be reassured that this is no condescending squeaky-gate music written for the elite – it’s larger than life and indulgent, firmly in the tradition of the late romantic, impressionist French masters. Superficially, it has shades of Debussy and his peers, but Damase’s style is all his own. A sixth sense for sweeping melodies, a penchant for deliciously unexpected modulations, and an extravagant, perfumed orchestral technique combine to produce music immediately accessible – famous critic and organist Bernard Gavoty, in the liner notes, described it thus: “I feel sure that this delightful music will please wherever it is heard, combining as it does technical perfection and constantly-renewed charm.”

The Silk Rhapsody, scored for large symphony orchestra, plays for sixteen minutes without a break.

The Trio is cast in four movements and will hopefully appeal to people who hate chamber music. Harmonically exciting, sunny, rammed full of gorgeous melodies, immensely fun, and delightfully constructed.

Enjoy :)
TT

I was introduced to Damase by Herr Salat's upload of this disc: Thread 162753

Already more than a year ago... His music in that disc is a real standout even among the other gems (the Uebayashi is good while the Poulenc reading is reference). As for the works in this vinyl, I'm more drawn to the Trio. You just gotta love this kind of buoyant French chamber music for its infectious lightness.

Being a piano music nut I am, I've also skimmed over his solo piano output. Some real delights to be heard there too (e.g., Introduction et Allegro, 8 Etudes).

Thanks for sharing this rarity, tango!

It's easy to compare Damase to Debussy, everyone knows what is meant when one says Debussy. But Silk Rhapsody is definitely Poulenc-inspired. 8:01 sounds like it's directly from Les Dialogues. Poulenc loved to sit on those jazzy minor 7th chords.

Good stuff. I haven't heard of him before.

This is some of the best news I have heard of in a while and a great triumph for game music in general. Thomas Boecker just announced that Final Symphony will be recorded at Abbey Road with the London Symphony Orchestra :D. I am extremely happy about this news as it turned my awful day into a better one lol.

The Silk Rhapsody, scored for large symphony orchestra, plays for sixteen minutes without a break.

The Trio is cast in four movements and will hopefully appeal to people who hate chamber music. Harmonically exciting, sunny, rammed full of gorgeous melodies, immensely fun, and delightfully constructed.


I'll have to give this a listen.

Thank you Tango. Silk Rhapsody is a lovely piece. The trio is also a pleasant listen. I prefer orchestral works, symphonies and concertos in general but sometimes a small ensemble just hits the spot. I'm really looking forward to more of your wonderful gifts. They make a grey day a bit brighter.


I had some really rough weeks but just in time for christmas things have slowed down a bit. I've been listening to some gems from this thread I recently bought, the complete ballets of Tchaikovsky, Stokowski's Mussorgsky and lots of Korngold and Rozsa. Btw, I really miss Charles Gerhardt and Erich Kunzel :( , but then again there's not really any music worth it now in Hollywood anyway.
I wish the japanese had some counterparts but only Hisaishi does what they did to some extend and only to his own music. The many Symphonic albums of the past are now far and few between and unless some fan project magically earns enough to record in London or Eastern Europe for an anime orchestral album when copyright issues are out of the way, I fear my hunger for new symphonic music is limited to the occasional prestige score and the occasional fan project like Final Symphony. A shame but I can at least live with that.

On the soundtrack front, I'm really happy. Hellsing got postponed to february but in January I will be making a BIG purchase from CDJapan. I'm all for Reissues of past albums. I will be grabbing Gingaman (and almost all of Sahashi's Sentai scores), Sailor Moon Symphonic Poem, Yusuke Honma's "Boku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari" and many more for a dirt-cheap price (by japanese standards). I'm afraid I will save my money for that instead of all my other plans, including Rail Wars.

I'm also surprised that Ressha Sentai Toqger will be getting a sound box, how good is the music Tango :D

Toqger is excellent - and not just because it's by a guy with precisely zero symphonic credentials... it's just really good. I find it not a million miles away from Yamashita's - definitely better than Sahashi's Kyoryuger, Ohashi's Go-Busters, and any of Miyake's drab attempts. It's got some GREAT action, a bad-guy theme that almost rivals (and is clearly modelled after) Gokaiger's, and some downright dark suspense passages that I find really exciting. Harmonically they're pushing the Sentai envelope. Clearly Sentai scores are homogeneous to a certain extent but there are times in Haneoka's scores where stuff happens and I think "wow, even Yamashita didn't try that!" - which is a nice place to be...

A couple of cues from the first soundtrack release: https://kiwi6.com/file/8i3xuz8m75

I'm very relieved to find that the Sound Box is coming out - the first soundtrack was released on schedule in May, but since then none of the other three were announced and I began to fear the worst. It looks like they're wrapping up OSTs 3, 4, and 5 into one big package. Not sure why, and not sure if I should be worried... but at any rate I think this is a brilliant score and I'm very glad it's getting a proper CD.

Anyone have Gunshi Kanbee vol. 3??

James Horner's new concerto is coming early next year, here is a short preview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPVzkrjyGUU

I hear Star Trek. Thoughts?

The music at 1:25 sounds like Copland. :)

James Horner's new concerto is coming early next year, here is a short preview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPVzkrjyGUU

I hear Star Trek. Thoughts?

Yes, around the 2 minute part of the video, it's reminiscent of the softer bits of the STII score, when the Enterprise is leaving Genesis and Kirk & McCoy talk about Spock. The brassier bits towards the end are reminiscent of various rousing bits in STIII and STIII.

James Horner seems to have become "that guy whose stuff all sounds like parts of his other stuff" several decades in his life EARLIER than the great John Williams did. But kudos for him to be doing other things than the rushed and constrictive art of scoring!

Thanks very much for passing this news along!

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

Oh, wow... Gorecki's 3rd! And then OH FUCK ME! The end credits from STII and STIII, Cocoon, and a thousand other things. Doesn't he ever get tired of the same chord progressions? It's been thirty fucking years. Seriously. Write something new, for God's sake.

And what's with this completely over-the-top contemporary film music style tribal percussion crap?

James Horner's new concerto is coming early next year, here is a short preview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPVzkrjyGUU

"I see animals�" HA HA HA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha HA *spit* *gag* *choke*. And Andrea Boccelli doesn't pop in for a la-la-la oooooh either? Damn.

Oh, wow... Gorecki's 3rd! And then OH FUCK ME! The end credits from STII and STIII, Cocoon, and a thousand other things. Doesn't he ever get tired of the same chord progressions? It's been thirty fucking years. Seriously. Write something new, for God's sake.

And what's with this completely over-the-top contemporary film music style tribal percussion crap?

Take it up with the sibling musicians who commissioned Horner to write the piece in the first place, Mari and Hakon Samuelsen. Horner gave them precisely what THEY wanted which was indeed those same chord progressions and that big finale. They wanted Horner's established sound and familiarity. If you don't like it, cool. I prefer to remain well-informed about the reasoning behind these things rather than the criticism.

Ah, this attitude again - the "any criticism of my favourite composer must be met with indignant anger and accusations of stupidity" - I thought we'd settled our differences some time ago, but your unnecessarily aggressive response suggests otherwise. Your implication that my criticism is ill-informed (wrong) is unwelcome, but sadly typical of the attitude shown by Horner's more obsessive fans. It is entirely possible to be a fan and at the same time acknowledge failings and accept criticism. You jumped down my throat (again, unjustified, crude, and rude) some years ago and I see that you're at it again. I do wish you would stop.

Anyway, to the "point"... I am fairly certain that nobody asked Horner to regurgitate thirty year-old film scores for a concert hall piece. If you can cite a reputable source that the commission specifically stated "crib mercilessly from your back catalogue, repeat passages entirely verbatim, steal additional passages from a multitude of famous classical composers, etc" - or at the very least a statement that he was asked specifically to quote his previous work, I will be most intrigued and grateful. By suggesting that I am ill-informed, I presume that you are well-informed and will thus be able to provide those citations. Nobody asked Horner to do this. Nobody asked Horner not to do this. Horner did it, because this is what he does. It's what he's been doing since 1980 when he stole from Goldsmith's "Alien" in "Humanoids From The Deep". Horner has carved a phenomenally successful career doing just that and apparently nobody minds (and, as we are well aware, those who do mind, or even notice are quickly shouted down, denounced as ill-informed, or simply encouraged to button it) one could certainly say it's no surprise that's what they got. (One could argue that nobody minds because his music is excellent regardless - and I would definitely concur with that argument.)

Asking a composer to write something for you, BY DEFINITION, includes the assumption that they will write in their own recognisable style. You don't ask James Horner unless you want something that sounds like James Horner. I'm not quite sure why you felt the need to tell me this since a) it's completely obvious, and b) I never disputed it in the first place. As I'm quite sure you are aware, a composer's "style" goes further than simply inserting passages from previous compositions. I'm also sure that you can instantly spot James Horner's technique in more-or-less any of his works, regardless of whether those passages include "borrowing" or not. His language is quite unique - his melodic style, his harmonic tendencies, his orchestration technique, his penchant for expansive, grand melodies. These constitute Horner's style. Horner would sound like Horner even if he didn't feel the need to dig up entire pages of a 1982 science fiction film score and randomly insert them into his concert piece.

You know this; because you love the guy. There must be a reason why you fixate on Horner. It's because there's something about his music that reaches you.

I love James Horner too; he's my favourite Hollywood composer after Jerry Goldsmith. He's contributed some genuinely awe-inspiring music to cinema over his thirty-odd year career. He's the first composer who ever made me cry in the cinema (Casper). I don't know why I should feel the need to re-iterate my status as a Horner fan in order to "earn the right" to have an opinion, but there you go...

In summary - please, calm down and give the attitude a rest. You have to stop yelling at anybody who acknowledges the flaws of your favourite composer. We are both fans of James Horner, and (I see from your other posts on the forum) great believers in the "old fashioned" (ie, good) film score. We're on the same side. Not every Horner basher is trolling. Even Horner's most dedicated advocate must acknowledge that he is the most notorious musical kleptomaniac, possibly of all time - and they must also accept that people will continue to recognise and make criticisms around the same. :)

INTERESTING NEWS:

Tsuneyoshi Saito's new score for the new Fafner series has turned up on VGMDB already - it's showing a release date of February and March 2015 (OSTs 1 and 2 respectively) and it's also showing the score as performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic.

SERIOUSLY?

CDJapan has listed the albums too and also mentions Warsaw.

Now wouldn't that be something... :D

And what's with this completely over-the-top contemporary film music style tribal percussion crap?

Me too -- what was the attraction of having three hundred people banging coconuts in the same room (or something like that) for the alleged music featured in The Man of Steel?


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

---------- Post added at 08:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:54 PM ----------

And here I was trying to be very polite in my observations of consistent similarity in Horner's product ....

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

Horner will always be my favourite film composer, but this will probably not be one of his best, most original works.

But hey, even Prokofiev recycled a ton of his own compositions, and I hear he's well-respected in his field.


Oh, wow... Gorecki's 3rd!

THAT'S where it's from! I've been racking my brain trying to remember if it was Copland or Britten because that texture is so familiar, but I just don't listen to Gorecki that much. Good ear!

How does anyone not say anything to him? It's like the most popular symphony of the last 50 years, and he didn't even change the key?? I sincerely hope it's just a big misunderstanding this and it's some statement on the futility of modern day film scoring or something...

Horner's gone full Berio.

I was wondering when the next Warsaw score would show up, I'm glad you can still trust the japanese :)


Horner is definetely among my top three film composers. But I loved him the most in the 80s and 90s. A score like Krull is really out of this world and among the best film scores ever written. I'm also very fond of Land before Time, the adventure cues from Pagemaster and the Rocketeer score. I'm still shaken by how effective Glory, Legends of the Fall and Braveheart touched my heart and I think if Horner does care and goes the extra mile he can really pull at your heart strings or make you marvel at the raw power of the orchestra. Let's hope he really goes the extra mile this time.

Well though there hasn't been anything interesting released as far as new scores, there still have been quite a few nice re-issues or expansions from some of the smaller labels. Kritzerland's re-mastered Rio Conchos sounds fantastic and Varese recently re-issued For Whom The Bell Tolls (re-recording, Victor Young) and Fedora/Crisis (Rozsa). That is the sort of thing that gets me excited. And for some the Intrada new On the Waterfront is very exciting.

A score like Krull is really out of this world and among the best film scores ever written.

I listened to it and I couldn't get into it at all. I would rather listen to his Star Trek music instead. Sure there are some good themes in Krull but overall I felt the score not memorable. But hey, music connects differently with others ;).

I listened to it and I couldn't get into it at all. I would rather listen to his Star Trek music instead. Sure there are some good themes in Krull but overall I felt the score not memorable. But hey, music connects differently with others ;).

Well there are so many similarities between Krull and Star Trek 2 and 3 that you can really enjoy one or the other. No need to have both. Though I do quite enjoy Krull as well.

I just found Krull to have a lot of quieter, horror like moments that although effective, didn't contain music that captivated me like the Main Theme managed to do. Star Trek 2 and 3 had a better balance of action, mystery, and gorgeous moments. I like the variety offered, but to each their own.

Nothing in Krull, in my opinion, compares to the "Battle in the Mutara Nebula".

I disagree. For me Krull is the more mature composition. I love this score. I would almost put it in Star Wars (1977) category.
Of course I love Star Trek II as well, I get major goose bumps everytime you hear Spock before the credits roll. But the heroic moments of Krull resonate with me a bit more, there is more energy, more adventure, more of the orchestrations I love. This is 80s Horner at his very best (How much of it is original is of course another debate entirely). If you ask me I hear more Horror moments in Star Trek II than Krull. Krull even has a Romantic theme that is right up there with Ilias's Theme from Star Trek. To each his own but I hope we can all agree that both are amazing scores.

Night at Tanglewood (John Williams) (2007) download please !

Oh come now Tango. For Warstar, only the very best can do.

Isn't the story behind Krull that Horner was ill and Greig McRitchie did most of the orchestrations? The guy's credits are amazing: Krull, Conan, Beastmaster, Aliens, Willow, The Land Before Time, Hook, etc. It can't be a coincidence that he just happened to work on these films.

Despite it being my favourite Horner, compositionally, I find Star Trek II a mess. It is an evolution of Battle Beyond The Stars - and yes, by that, I mean it thieves shamelessly from the earlier score.

Krull... is just more. Bigger in scope, better composed, and better orchestrated - McRitchie is definitely contributing to the texture; there is a professionalism, a platinum-plated sheen in the arrangement that simply isn't there in Trek, and I'm fairly sure it's not only attributable to the LSO upgrade. It also marks, sadly, the beginning of the end of Horner's "early period" - before the simplification and focus shift (to forthright, expansive, and very long lines of melody) the seeds of which were planted in Brainstorm, and largely in bloom by Willow. I find Krull to be the most mature work of Horner's immature style, if that makes any sense. It's speaking largely the same language as Trek II (but with a wider vocabulary) - plus a sweeping love theme that is arguably one of the finest written by anybody.

Krull is, without a doubt, my Desert Island Disc as far as Horner is concerned.

Any rare gems from the east released this year? I'm curious what I have missed from the east... I loved Gunbee.

My take:


I just found Star Trek 2 to have a lot of quieter, horror like moments that although effective, didn't contain music that captivated me like the Main Theme managed to do. Krull and Star Trek 3 had a better balance of action, mystery, and gorgeous moments.

I tend to regard Star Trek II as Battle Beyond the Stars Take 2, and I don't hold that one against him (his BBTS end titles is an old favourite of mine). But, as far as I'm concerned, "Battle in the Mutara Nebula" and "Genesis Countdown" stand out in the Horner Mimeograph Hall of Fame as two of his finest cinematic moments. In both instances the visual narrative and the audio accompaniment capture the drama pitch perfectly. Back then I was initially miffed to see that Goldsmith's name wasn't on the the poster but, by the time the lights came up, Horner had won me over (though, I can't deny, I would always cross my fingers hoping Goldsmith would score a subsequent sequel).

Faleel,

Not only are you great at editing audio, but you are excellent at editing my typed responses haha!

As for everyone else...

I don't usually request anything here, but anyone happen to have a definitive collection of the Warsaw tracks from the Hellsing OVA? Hayato Matsuo's music for it is among the best anime orchestral scores I have heard, in my opinion. Just wish a complete release of the Warsaw recordings would happen since the OVA is completed.

I'm afraid you have to wait until February. Hellsing is popular enough that the soundtrack should appear shortly after release. With luck we'll have everything, including alternate takes of Gradus Vita and previously unreleased tracks from the first OVAs. I agree that Hellsing is a fantastic orchestral score and I've waited years and years to finally hear everything but it wouldn't suprise me if some years down the line Hellsing gets a complete soundtrack release like Star Driver. As I've learned countless times again and again, in the soundtrack world, patience is a virtue.

It seems strange that they would wait that long for a release because you would think that the excitement for the show would die down enough that they would have a much more limited market if they wait to release it.

I tend to regard Star Trek II as Battle Beyond the Stars Take 2, and I don't hold that one against him (his BBTS end titles is an old favourite of mine). But, as far as I'm concerned, "Battle in the Mutara Nebula" and "Genesis Countdown" stand out in the Horner Mimeograph Hall of Fame as two of his finest cinematic moments. In both instances the visual narrative and the audio accompaniment capture the drama pitch perfectly. Back then I was initially miffed to see that Goldsmith's name wasn't on the the poster but, by the time the lights came up, Horner had won me over (though, I can't deny, I would always cross my fingers hoping Goldsmith would score a subsequent sequel).

Aye - Star Trek II's proximity to BBTS isn't a bad thing. I think Horner saw the opportunity to build on his earlier score and, at that time in his career, there was no shame in cribbing good ideas and good material from a cheap, immature effort written for a spectacularly naff movie and re-working them into Star Trek - a prestige project that made his career. (Going into Star Trek II knowing that you're only there because they couldn't afford Goldsmith, and turning in a score of that quality... Horner obviously had his eye on the bigger picture. Good on him. Cliff Eidelman presumably had the same intention when he approached Star Trek VI... it doesn't work for everybody!)


(Sirusjr) It seems strange that they would wait that long for a release because you would think that the excitement for the show would die down enough that they would have a much more limited market if they wait to release it.

Quite! If the soundtrack market is as constricted as we're led to believe, why on earth delay a release until weeks, months, years after the show has been forgotten? Why not release at the height of the show's popularity and take advantage of impulse buying? People searching for DVDs of the show they just watched on TV, seeing a soundtrack CD for sale, and thinking "Ah yeah, the music was pretty cool too - I'll buy that."

Yet another aspect of Japanese marketing techniques I will never understand.

I wonder who's going to do Ninninger?

CHRISTMAS WITH ALED JONES



London Concert Orchestra
Bach Choir
Laura Mitchell, soprano
Laurence Kilsby, treble
conducted by David Hill

1 hour, 45 minutes, 30 seconds. Video at 848x480, 25fps, CRF 21, H264. Audio true VBR AAC (Apple) at ~224kbps. MKV container. Download is 912mb.

https://mega.co.nz/#!I1hlHYAD!KxZf2J_PYbGzUFd6VtS6wIUs6NHlgZliDl4y7Vk 5rZM

Technical note: This is an analogue recording of a television broadcast from the subscription channel Sky Arts 2 HD. The channel is heavily encrypted and therefore capturing the original stream is not possible without spending God-knows how much money on equipment. Quality is, nonetheless, excellent.

Merry Christmas, ladies and gentlemen of the Final Fantasy Shrine! In celebration, here's a splendid concert from the Royal Albert Hall, mixing festive classics, carols, and other Christmassy music in a fine performance by the London Concert Orchestra. Aled Jones, thankfully, is only presenting - his atrocious jokes are somewhat cringe-inducing but are something of a Christmas tradition of their own - and best of all, no Andre Rieu!

There's music by John Williams ("Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" and Prokofiev ("Troika"), and a good selection of traditional carols (most in arrangements by Willcocks, Rutter, etc). Phillip Lane's orchestral fantasia on the poem "The Night Before Christmas" is magnificent... And a lovely performance of the piece of music without which a true Briton would simply be unable to appreciate Christmas - Walking In The Air, by Howard Blake. There's something for everybody here. As it should be around this time of year.

Have a good one, folks - thank you one and all for every single post this year - music and opinion alike... and here's to 2015. I have more to come in the next few days. In the mean time, go have some turkey and spend some time with your families - and then come back here and enjoy some great music.

Enjoy! :)
TT

Some of these pieces I am not familiar with but it is very nice in parts so very welcomed.

Merry Christmas! (https://mega.co.nz/#!WoQUlLYB!Gd12o-QYg-fidQ-ihzW19cUCKMhgByIIpWGAzaM7BFU)

John Williams & The Boston Pops feat. Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Arthur Fiedler and his Chorus and Orchestra




I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Now I'm off to my family and enjoying some delicious christmas goose. To a wonderful year 2015 with hopefully much wonderful music to experience.

Happy Christmas to everyone and thanks to klnerfan for this nice present :)

FUCK YEAH! Kousuke Yamashita confirmed for 2015's Sentai. Merry Christmas!
:D :D :D :D

PILI HEROES MUSIC COLLECTION LII 52

☆專輯簡介:霹靂英雄音樂精選52創神篇劇集原聲帶【貳】[320k]145.54mb
引用:

2014霹靂音樂最終鉅獻　創神篇劇集原聲帶【貳】　
強勢收錄燹王與啞女情境曲、赦天琴箕武曲、赮畢鉢羅、藍燈子、原無鄉武曲、素還真夢會*風采鈴，以及霹靂新 女聲「沐婷」演唱片尾曲「縱使相逢」等20首絕美樂章。首批加贈M*VDVD及2015年御天五龍大展版年 曆明信片！二○一四年十二月二十六日，壓軸登場*！
☆專輯曲目:
CD曲目:
01.血路迢迢 牧神血戰森獄大軍
02.金甌天朝
03.金甌無缺 亨王角色曲
04.重溫舊夢 燹王與啞女
05.黃泉相隨 牧神之死
06.神遊還真 失憶的素還真
07.夢迴一刻 素還真夢會風采鈴
08.紫晶宙淵
09.風旒劍影 商清逸武曲
10.縱使相逢 創神篇第二片尾曲
11.彩綠險磡
12.紅冕之王 鬼方赤命角色曲
13.四病船琴 赦天琴箕武曲
14.赮畢鉢羅 赮畢鉢羅角色曲
15.韜光智燭 藍燈子角色曲
16.四季一時 療靈師豎琴曲
17.伏羲神天響 御清絕武曲
18.蕭瑟鳴風 原無鄉武曲
19.水袖雲間 創神篇插曲
20.赦天琴箕 赦天琴箕角色曲
https://mega.co.nz/#!ppVSFIzL!P0fGqj-aK5nIwPPYmzttiLaZO3zGbrTBISKJzt2C8Ks

hey all is there a FLAC ONLY thread in this section ? cannot find one

hi folks did anyone record the patrick doyle prague concert the other night ...it was on czech radio ??

is there a FLAC ONLY thread in this section?

Are you looking for a thread of music only being offered in "lossless", or a thread of music (lossy or lossless) ripped to FLAC format?

There are 2 lossless soundtrack threads that I know of...

Thread 66456

Thread 64743

hey all is there a FLAC ONLY thread in this section ? cannot find one

Looks like a no. The old thread that used to be around here got trolled and shut down. I guess nobody has the balls to start a new one. Is there something you are looking for in particular?

was looking for a lossless thread in the "film tv etc" section, but looks like there's none

Are you looking for a thread of music only being offered in "lossless", or a thread of music (lossy or lossless) ripped to FLAC format?

There are 2 lossless soundtrack threads that I know of...

Thread 66456

Thread 64743


was looking for a lossless thread in the "film tv etc" section, but looks like there's none

no not one. there used to having, but like sirusjr saying, was closed flaming/trolling.

Thanks a lot for sharing! Magnificent work!

This is quite an interesting video that I had found in which John Powell, Danny Elfman, Trent Reznor, Hans Zimmer, and Marco Beltrami talk about insecurities, procrastination, inspiration, and recreational diversions. It is really a neat interview and discussion at least I found it to be lol.

Trent Reznor, Danny Elfman and Top Composers Reveal Insecurities, Power of Procrastination and the Real Story Behind 'Interstellar's' Controversial Sound Mix - The Hollywood Reporter (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/trent-reznor-danny-elfman-top-757396?facebook_20141228)

So Ninninger could potentially be the best soundtrack for 2015.

It certainly has that potential. I can't see this show getting short-changed and unless something utterly unexpected and horrific happens, Yamashita physically cannot disappoint.

From the January season alone, I'm looking forward to Natsumi Kameoka's Kantai Collection, Tsuneyoshi Saito's Fafner Exodus, and Hattori Takayuki's Gundam. There will undoubtedly be more good things on the way, and stuff in the pipeline that hasn't been announced yet.

Masatsugu Shinozaki's blog seems to show recent orchestra sessions for Michiru Oshima, Akira Senju, Yugo Kanno, and Kohei Tanaka... and confirms that Toshiyuki Watanabe did actually record new music for the Space Brothers music, not re-using the television score as expected. And let's not forget Oshima recorded something this year with Eminence. Sahashi and Kei Haneoka were also recently in the studio recording their collaborative score for the 2015 Kyoryuger/Toqger crossover movie.

Good stuff will come in 2015. I have a good feeling. :)

Wait, Oshima recorded something with Eminence? You're referring to this, I assume?: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152380962120380

It says Kevin Penkin and Tomoki Miyoshi were also involved which means it's maybe for Project Phoenix? Perhaps she arranged Uematsu's compositions?

---------- Post added at 09:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 PM ----------


CHIHIRO HAYASHI - HIRAKE! PONKIKKI MARCH COLLECTION
FLAC, LOG, CUE | 201.2 MB | 10 TRACKS | 00:33:44
Slovak National Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Chihiro Hayashi


Catalog Number: PCCG-00240
Release Date: Sep 17, 1993

Tracklist
01. Ole! Champ
02. Yahho! Shinkansen
03. Looking for Adventure
04. Mystery-colored Present
05. Bouquet of the Wind (http://kiwi6.com/file/rvg9wa3enh) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif
06. Ole! Champ
07. Yahho! Shinkansen
08. Looking for Adventure
09. Mystery-colored Present
10. Bouquet of the Wind

Ripped, translated, etc. by me.

Download: https://mega.co.nz/#!5UNEhbzD!DSXI3WkM8Dp_hJRKQ1O4V91tK9qu3_1WG7Rbcim gY6M

Just a small thing to end the year - an old orchestral arrangement album for a Japanese children's show that I stumbled upon a while back. The tracklist repeats itself because there's two different arrangements for each of the five compositions. The arranger/conductor Chihiro Hayashi is little known and mostly conducts classical works, though he has done a few arrangements in the past for opera performer Ken Nishikiori.

Enjoy and have a happy new year.

Ah, I hadn't seen that. My information came from reading something, somewhere, about her doing an orchestral session in Sydney. Cheers for the additional.

And thanks for this delightful album as well!

Thanks!!!!

NEIL BRAND
A Christmas Carol (after Charles Dickens)
BBC Radio 4 Saturday Drama
With Robert Powell, Sophie Thompson, Ron Cook, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Patrick Brennan, Shaun Mason, Paul Heath, Hannah Genesius, and Bettrys Jones



Orchestrations by Hugo Gonzales-Pioli and Timothy Brock
BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Singers
Conducted by Martin Andre

1. Marley's Ghost (23:22)
2. The First of the Three Spirits (15:50)
3. The Second of the Three Spirits (18:40)
4. The Last of the Spirits (10:20)
5. The End of it (7:57)

Total Time: 1 hour, 16 minutes, 9 seconds

FLAC at Level 8 - transcoded from a lossy source (BBC Radio 3's 320kbps AAC stream)

Technical stuff:

Before the chorus begins to sing "don't transcode from a lossy source, you don't gain quality" - I know - that wasn't my intention. Until the BBC start broadcasting a lossless stream, the current offering (320kbps AAC) is as good as it gets - it surpasses FM quality and it's UTTERLY EXCELLENT in every way. Editing AAC without re-encoding is possible but is somewhat messy - one cannot fade, or normalise, or perform accurate gapless splitting. I am therefore left with the choice between providing the original stream in its raw, badly presented form - or transcoding to FLAC (in doing so, preserving the original stream quality but increasing the file size) and doing a proper album presentation. I have chosen the latter. There is logic behind my madness. If you don't like it, you're welcome to bugger right off.

https://mega.co.nz/#!4hxSiZrS!4WddTcCrzvwGyqN6tMqRfwbtbcmjscfst8sbcZu pEt8

OK, deduct two points because it's not Christmas any more. Sorry. This would've been far better a week or two ago - but frankly it's so bloody fantastic that it's worth listening to, even a couple of days into January. A good story is a good story, and A Christmas Carol is a good story... My timing failure aside, let's get down to business.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that only the Japanese were bananas enough to give an orchestral score to a radio drama... but you'd be wrong! We've got them completely beaten - this one-shot Saturday Drama features a full-sized symphony orchestra and a chorus. "Afternoon Drama" is a spoken word strand on BBC Radio 4 that has been running continuously since 1967 - this unusually high budget production was co-produced with BBC Radio 3, a cultural station that broadcasts classical, jazz, and world music. This programme was recorded before an audience as a part of the BBC's free "invitation concert" series from the famous Maida Vale studios in London.

This "score" is, in reality, more akin to a symphonic fantasia. The music is just gorgeous - very English, highly filmic, grand, unashamedly romantic and sweeping, and utterly approachable. The performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers is utterly spotless, and for the speaking parts, the cast are excellent.

I have taken the liberty of splitting the story up according to Dickens' original chapter divisions.

Enjoy, and Happy New Year! :)
TT

Toshiyuki Watanabe created a YouTube channel to start the new year. His first upload is a new 15-minute recording of his Roman Empire Suite from the C�rdoba International Film Music Festival 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL_ZeBU-Hsc

Jean-Michel Damase: Piano Music
MP3 320|31 TRACKS~75:43
MP3 purchase from Google Play



It's been a while since my last upload. Here's something that may be of interest to some of you. No time for a detailed write-up, but if you are familiar with Damase's music that was posted here (Herr Salat and Tango's respective uploads), you can expect the same melodious music in the vein of Debussy. I'm not familiar with Nicholas Unwin but rest assured, his techniques and reading are both irreproachable.

No piece here is worse than good (My personal favorite is easily "Introduction et Allegro"). Damase himself was a great pianist, so the general craft level is very high. If you are looking for infectiously melodic piano music for your Sunday, this is it.

And happy new year, gang!

https://mega.co.nz/#!VJQmlDSb!Ox8PGB08uXIP3xNM8taRROU07JXiC9GHzsoGHpq EIz4

Anyone happen to catch that Christopher Lennertz is scoring the music to Marvel's Agent Carter series? I really like the sound he is making for the show from the sample he provided of the End Credits. At the 1:13 mark, I get goosebumps as I am reminded of his score in Warhawk or even his Medal of Honor stuff.

https://soundcloud.com/christopher-lennertz/agent-carter-credit-suite

Oh and he also has a really interesting composition up on Soundcloud too, but I am not sure what it is from.

https://soundcloud.com/christopher-lennertz/cjl-ultimate-union

*sigh*

Slam slam slam slam slam, electronica warbling in the background, bland arrangement, repetitive chord progressions instead of theme, slam slam slam slam, "epic" chords, naff synthesiser choir doing nothing but "aaaah", slam slam slam... pounding away at the same note, SLAMMETY SLAM!

That poor orchestra. Oh, well.

The first or the second? I thought the second piece was more energetic ;). It is still better than Zimmer and Co. lol.

Sorry to double post, but I will be hopefully releasing something very soon from my ETHEReal String Project. It will be two samples of my arrangements of "Eternity ~ Memories of Light and Waves" from FFX-2 and "And Thus Fate Becomes Cruel" from Heroes of Mana. These have some audible surprises and are probably my most intricate arrangements aside from Trisection. I will post links when the recordings get done. What does everyone think of my project so far?

Kenji Kawai's main theme for the new Taiga drama Hana Moyu: http://kiwi6.com/file/arvmjd7h5d

Btw, the complete Gunshi Kanbee soundtrack was released a couple weeks ago but it's already out of print unfortunately (super limited edition or something). It included a couple hours of unreleased music and a long version of the main theme.

I'm somewhat happy with Kawai's Taiga score so far - and I'm saying that as one of Kenji Kawai's staunchest detractors. It seems that the score is going to be more Ryomaden than Kanbee, though Kawai's approach is much more acoustic. As far as the Ryomaden theme was concerned, I hated it - until I heard it in situ - then it dawned on me what a great piece it really was. It's dynamic and it fits the gorgeous visuals like a glove. My bias is always to a proper, orchestral theme - but one can't argue with such a triumphant melding of sound and vision. That's the very essence of film music.

And so, to Kawai's theme. It's a textbook NHK drama theme. The guy has range. Structurally, like Kanbee, it violates the loose "heavily compressed symphony" form (fast, slow, fast, coda) that is usually employed in these scores, going for a slow introduction and the theme appearing fourth seconds in. The melody goes to the chorus - the instrumental accompaniment is simple but effective and unobtrusive - percussion and low brass counterpoint in the first statement, more choristers, full brass counterpoint with stabbing trumpet and high strings in unison with the chorus on the second statement. A french horns / woodwind / trumpets / strings linking section (the NHK drama sound completely distilled in a few bars) leads not to the "slow movement" but to a variation of the main theme with a slightly pared down accompaniment and a solo vocalist taking the melody line. Choir enters with the original melody, seemingly heralding a traditional triumphant conclusion, but instead we get a brief return to the swirling woodwinds of the opening bars and a brave, desolate ending in the minor key, with the vocalist and violins holding the final note accompanied by decisive percussion strikes.

As a piece of music, I think it holds together better than Kanno's Kanbee theme, which, although it had a winning melody (better than Kawai's) and overall was highly effective, didn't have a lot of variation to it - it was the melody stated lots of times in different arrangements, held together with a bizarre, unrelated fast mid-section (I think I described it as nothing more than "orchestral acrobatics") - sounds great but reveals Kanno's weakness. Kanno is a tune guy - the melody is everything; all other concerns are secondary and he seems to flounder when it comes to writing underscore - he's in his element when belting out a big tune, but less good at working those tunes as ingredients in something bigger. You can see it all over his scores, and particularly in Kanbee. Don't get me wrong - I love themes - but when your score is essentially a nicely orchestrated album of afternoon drama main themes, and there's very little intelligent construction / manipulation going on behind the scenes, I start losing interest. I think Kanbee stretched Kanno (who lives in the major key, making his minor key, poignant melody all the more astonishing) more than Moyu will stretch Kawai, who lives in the minor.

As for the score in the first episode... The first cue is a winner; a warm, slow piece with a melody that would have made a lovely "slow movement" in the main title, but we can't have everything! I think the best music will be in the reflective sections. At about 16 minutes into the episode, there's a nice, cheerful "summer's day" piece that accompanies a man running home through the village. There is some typical Kawai banging action stuff, of course... but even the "naff" bits seem very decent to me. This is an unsettling place to be as a Kawai "hater"... :D

Yeah I am not that impressed by this Agent Carter music. Though it fits right in with what we got for Agents of Shield, which is mostly pointless synth beating you over the head. I expect Tango was attacking the Agent Carter cue having listened to both. The second is pretty good and at least has some semblance of a theme and moderately interesting background parts. Too bad it switches to generic manly grunts for a while near the end. Forgot how annoying that thing is. But it does make a good sampler if someone wants to see that he can actually write something other than his recent film scores. It is also SO low bitrate that half of it is digital noise.

I do find Agents of Shield to be the better score between the two as McCreary had done more music like his score to Human Target, which I consider one of his best. I really love the cue from the episode FZZT where Simmons has this disease and Fitz is trying to help her cure it. I find that to be one of McCreary's finest cues of the entire series. I really love the main theme too ;).

I was indeed attacking that wretched conglomeration of noises and tired chord progressions that passes for Agent Carter. I skimmed over the longer piece and found essentially more of the same, tied together with some marginally more tolerable passages... all of which do nothing but remind you of better scores by competent composers.


It is also SO low bitrate that half of it is digital noise.

Heh, heh, I thought that was how it was supposed to sound. ;)

OK, I take it all back - Kancolle should be really, really brilliant having heard episode 1. There's some naff bits, but there's also stuff that could have dropped straight out of Yamashita's Garasu No Kantai. Kameoka is right on the ball. Some wonderfully old fashioned moments - like near the climax of the episode; during a battle scene the minor key main theme is quoted in a determined, driving action cue but on the last note, the key changes to a tone of tragedy and desperation. This is film music, not film music - please note the emphases.

Really, really looking forward to the rest of this. Nice orchestra - domestic but well stocked, decent recording, and a straight up serious orchestral score for 2015. Competent Kenji Kawai and Kameoka's big budget breakout already, and it's only January 8th! Excellent!

When is this new Kawai Taiga score getting a release?

According to CDJapan, February 4th. :)

Edit: Fafner is in! It's a mixture of mid-sized television orchestra and Warsaw in climactic bits.

BUT... At least one Warsaw cue is definitely from the 2004 series... I don't know the original scores well enough to comment on the rest. It gives me no pleasure to think that my prophecy from last April may well come true:


I'm not sure if I see Fafner 2 getting a Warsaw score. Saito seems to have settled down in his "small ensemble" style of late. I think we'll get something like Heaven And Earth. Which is no bad thing, really... I prefer Saito in his small orchestra style, to be honest...

Anybody familiar with the original scores care to chime in?

There's at least two reused Warsaw pieces. The other stuff is also strangely familiar apart from the beginning. So the bulk of the new score should appear some episodes down the line.

I'm currently catching up with the december releases. Most are not even orchestral but I'm enjoying the hell out of them. I'm surprised how good Rail Wars! is, I don't even mind the fake brass that much. It's a step up from Love Live and Yoshiaki Fujisawa is yet another newcomer on my watchlist. Gochuumon is pure joy, from all christmas releases I'm loving it the most. Have some nice piano version of "Together Forever" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-zBI5rBV2E). Can't wait for Kawada's next score in a few months. Amagi Brilliant Park has some really good pieces for a relaxing evening. Even Sailor Moon Crystal has two or three tracks that stay on my harddrive.

From this season I'm looking forward to Kameoka's Kantai the most. Junketsu no Maria has some decent stuff so far and there's some interesting trumpet action in the beginning of Absolute Duo. Let's see what Sato does with Assasination Classroom and if Yoru no Yatterman will be Tatsuya Kato in full orchestral mode.

Apparently Akiko Shikata is the soprano in Kawai's main theme. I couldn't even tell.

Nothing good from Sato's Assassination Classroom score from what I skimmed in ep 1. So there's already not much left for this season. I did find out, though, that Go Sakabe is doing the music for Seiken Tsukai no World Break, so maybe he'll do something decent.

CD?RELEASE????????? EXODUS (http://fafner-exodus.jp/release/cd.html)

There is an update on cd releases for Fafner: Exodus. Score cd will be coming out on February 25 (volume 1) and March 25 (volume), and it is stated that both of the releases will have both a cd and a dvd which features a clip of the recording sessions in Warsaw.

Based on this information, we can assume that the recording sessions took place in Warsaw for Fafner: Exodus.

I certainly hope that is the case...

Aha, so there's more Warsaw to come and they're just tracking in the older stuff for variety? Nice, thank God for that. :)

Yeah, Assassination Classroom (huh?!) is pretty naff so far... Maybe it'll get good, doubt it though. Oh, well.

Looking forward to Sakabe's new score. The show looks dumb but then Date-A-Live looked dumb and he managed to turn in some good stuff... so anything's possible.

It's a bit thin this season, but at the same time you can't sneeze at a big Warsaw score and a big-budget domestic score by an almost-newcomer. :)

Hasn't been much anime-wise lately that I've been too interested in lately, and the scores I do want are p much all Yuugo Kanno and Sawano. Just as well, gives me time to catch up on what is rapidly becoming more of a colossal Pile of Shame than a backlog at this point. Soooooo much music.

I will note that Yuri Bear Storm has some phenomenal tunes already, and G-Reco has consistently impressed with its quality, if not so much on quantity.

I must preface this post with a genuine and heartfelt apology to Herr Salat. He asked me to get hold of this score as a favour - and since he's done about 500 favours for me and never asked for a single thing in return, I readily agreed. I bought the DVD, I ripped it, and then I completely forgot to post it. Herr Salat is far too kind and far too patient, and so he never reminded me... and I only remembered this afternoon when I was emptying out a box of DVDs for filing - I saw this one and my heart sank.

So, Herr Salat - sorry, old friend. I hope this has been worth the wait... :)


PAUL HINDEMITH
IM KAMPF MIT DEM BERGE (Orchestral Version)
hr-Sinfonieorchester (formerly Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt)
Frank Stroebel (conductor)



FLAC (derived from lossy AC3 audio - see below) - https://mega.co.nz/#!Y8QGWIaQ!VWf5YyyRUKDsKuA9UG-_9zCkSptzQbdao-58iWbyv5k
Raw AC3 audio (stereo) - https://mega.co.nz/#!phJF3bYA!CW3SLilLzp4tPWmkssUt-dbd0Y6aBeg4K5aZgTBKDso
Raw AC3 audio (5.1 channel surround) - https://mega.co.nz/#!skgCAbIZ!tnkPUl1j8UlpqJZXum_Lcj6BDfjdnar3tikZBJn 0SFI

Interview with conductor Frank Stroebel (in German; no subtitles) - https://mega.co.nz/#!JgBEDDiJ!kkCmKz9p999u9ZctPhkqw4JKWUyjtJ_kGZ0xqM8 3OKA
Interview with members of the hr-Sinfonieorchester (in German; no subtitles) - https://mega.co.nz/#!50BSFLqZ!AnwFuodNT6KxWF4jd3T-vOVLGDXO0O5AAgiS6yxgBNM

Hindemith is well-known as a prolific classical composer. You can count the number of film scores he wrote on the fingers of one hand - and still have fingers left. This score, for the 1921 silent film "Im Kampf Mit Dem Berge" was originally written for a smaller "salon" ensemble - Frank Stroebel reconstructed and orchestrated it for this recording. It's a splendid example of Hindemith's craft and frankly, it's one of those film scores that really isn't a film score at all... It's a living, breathing symphony - 71 minutes of intelligent, approachable, tonal orchestral music written by a genuine master. The small ensemble arrangement was released on CD by Koch, and can be found here Thread 175190 - but the orchestral version exists only as the soundtrack to the 2013 restoration of the film on DVD. Sadly, no lossless track was offered - but the AC3 audio at 224kbps is excellent nonetheless and will suffice until some enterprising record company get around to releasing it properly.

Now, to some technical concerns.

I have included the original, raw AC3 audio (48000hz at 224kbps) as ripped from the DVD, for anybody who wants it. It's just as it comes - split according to the DVD chapter breaks, featuring painfully long silences at the beginning and the end, and most disappointingly of all, suffering from PAL speedup. The end result is that the raw audio plays about a semitone sharp. Bearing these annoyances in mind...

I have also produced a 44100hz FLAC edition, and split the tracks using the Koch CD's cue titles (and rough split points) as a guideline. This FLAC edition has been re-pitched and consequently plays at the correct speed. Yes, it's a re-encode from lossy - and no, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Sorry!

Also, please enjoy the "bonus material" from the DVD - two short documentaries about the recording of the score. They are both interviews; the first with conductor and orchestrator Frank Stroebel, and the second with a few members of the orchestra. It's (unsurprisingly) in German, and I don't speak German... And although some people reading this will, most of us won't... So, even if you don't understand what they're talking about it's still worth a watch - if only to afford a glimpse at maybe the most delicious flautist who ever lived, Clara Andrada de la Calle... ;)

Enjoy :)
TT

Now that almost eveything has aired I can say that I'm very pleased with winter. Yatterman is really good stuff so far. Tatsuya Kato is really maturing and slowly moving out of the drumloop comfort zone. There's some genuine film music moments under it and it shows lots of promise. World Break shows potential as well for a good score in the same territory as Date A Live I. So we have three potential firecrackers (Kantai, Fafner & Gundam), some candidates for good scores (Maria, Yatterman, World Break & Absolute Duo) and I'm sure Takaki's Princess Precure will not disappoint. Not a bad start at all for 2015!

But the stuff I'm actually interested in watching is very limited. I guess I'll be following Death Parade (really like the OP), Gundam: The Origin, Maria & Yatterman to see if they go someplace. Rest is kind of meh. But I noticed that the animation quality, especially body movements has really improved for TV series in general in the past years. Granted sometimes it's just for fanservice but regardless it's almost movie quality in some cases now. I really wish they would also build better recording facilities but you can't have everything.

I also have this premonition that next spring is going to be amazing. Arslan is a prime candidate for another Warsaw/Moscow score, there's no way that Lupin III, Digimon Tri, Saint Seiya and Kiniro Mosaic will disappoint, and I have this feeling that Euphonium, Gunslinger Stratos, Nanoha and many more will get good (even great) scores. I just hope that Keiji Inai's Dungeon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9Oa7dZZRA8) will not be entirely synth and the PV was just a mock-up. Music aside there's also dozens of shows that could turn out good so here's hoping for a great season.


EDIT: Tenkai Knights gets a 2CD release in march and I'll soon have Gingaman in FLAC, not going to help me stay rational Tango :D

Did anyone here know that Michiru Oshima has a new studio album out?

M. �shima ? For the East - Way� Records Shop (http://www.shop.wayorecords.net/en/jmusic/30-fortheeast.html)

It is recorded with the Ravel Quartet and is called For the East. It looks interesting!

It's actually from 2004 - maybe just licensed. Our man Herr Salat (who else?) imported the CD and posted it two years ago in this very thread: http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/454.html#post2268492

As usual, klnerfan is infinitely more optimistic than I am... ;)

It's actually from 2004 - maybe just licensed. Our man Herr Salat (who else?) imported the CD and posted it two years ago in this very thread: http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/454.html#post2268492

It seems I am late to the party lol. Thank you Akashi San :).

I hope a new Nanoha means Misa Chujo composing. It's only a slight hope as she doesn't seem active at all...

[CENTER]CHIHIRO HAYASHI - HIRAKE! PONKIKKI MARCH COLLECTION
FLAC, LOG, CUE | 201.2 MB | 10 TRACKS | 00:33:44
Slovak National Opera House Orchestra, conducted by Chihiro Hayashi





Many thanks for this one

Wow, this just isn't that good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8tVwPHJjHY

Wow, this just isn't that good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8tVwPHJjHY

http://youtu.be/CrH3XiMR3KA

Wow, Les Dawson has risen from the grave and taken up a job as a conductor!

man you can get dave roylance and bob galvins tall ships suite and battle for the atlantic suite for almost nothing used on amazon.co.uk.and dont hestite to buy them.gigantic filmscorelike fullorchestral masterpieces with choir.think the best part of gordons moby dick plus 90s sportsfilmmusic and the later one this plus massive military music and an absolutly incredible final piece for orchestra, choir and a female solist.tears of joy.

Wow, this just isn't that good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8tVwPHJjHY

The orchestration of Rose of May is probably the best on the album aside from Hamaguchi's arrangements. Wish they would bring him back... Roth and his arrangement team aren't that great. He's a great conductor, but arranging isn't his strength. And why on earth did they include yet another Chocobo Medley and Blinded By Light? They have been on the last three cds!

I could swear that the orchestration of "You're Not Alone" is channelling some Goldsmith western score, especially when that tambourine and trumpets come in near the end.

The piece Streich posted sounds a lot to me like a Sachiko Miyano arrangement... and I actually rather like it, even if it does follow the "Japanese Arrangers' Guide To Orchestral Arrangements of Game Music" textbook to the absolute letter. The orchestra is such a terrific letdown, though - utterly terrible, under-rehearsed, often drifting apart and frequently cracking notes. Arnie Roth is a thoroughly mediocre (occasionally veering into "competent") conductor who, at almost 62 years of age, doesn't have a single prestigious project to his name - aside from conducting endless naff Final Fantasy concerts and speaking hilariously bad Japanese, his career has been mainly as a jobbing conductor for flat "orchestral" backing tracks on pop records and a sextet of hilariously bad scores for no-budget Barbie movies.

Hamaguchi... is a top-rate arranger (and a stupidly talented composer who is utterly wasted on shitty cheap slice-of-life anime broken up with the occasional symphonic bone thrown by Kohei Tanaka) and I think his style was well-suited to Uematsu, whose greatest strength as a composer is as a melodist. Hamaguchi's warm, ornamental romantic orchestral technique shows Uematsu's simple but beguiling tunes in their finest clothes, but at the same time stays out of the way and allows the emotions woven into the music to shine through naturally. Pretty much every single piece that Uematsu ever wrote with any value has already received a Hamaguchi arrangement - and fifty different recordings in the concert hall and in the studio - and you just KNOW that they'll keep turning out these compilations with the same old orchestrations of the same old pieces because people are bloody well buying them. (Additonally, Uematsu hasn't written a decent Final Fantasy score for over a decade and has only written ONE solo in that time - the less said about XIV the better, I think - and none of his successors have turned in any decent music on their respective scores. Vintage Uematsu remains the musical gold standard of Final Fantasy.)

That said, I don't think he's a good match for Hamauzu. Hamauzu needs a distinctive, interventionist "arranger" like Yoshihisa Hirano in order for his music to appear in any way credible.

As for the others, well... Personally, I think the only genunely valuable way for Final Fantasy arrangements to continue (if they must) is with genuinely creative expansions like Valtonen's symphony and Wanamo's concerto. These types of projects take Uematsu's music in new and interesting directions. Anything else will just be fractionally different arrangements of things we've heard twenty thousand times already and so, honestly, have no real purpose. (But we all know that won't matter one iota, and before you know it they'll hire another shitty Eastern European orchestra and record YET ANOTHER atrocious performance of that same old 1997 "One Winged Angel" arrangement... Because you can never have too much One Winged Angel...)

Faaaaawk, G-Reco's score won't hit till April. It'll be a healthy three discs, apparently, but still.


and none of his successors have turned in any decent music on their respective scores. Vintage Uematsu remains the musical gold standard of Final Fantasy.)

hahahaha

Composer Spotlight
The heart of Taku Iwasaki (2001-2014)



Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!HkBymYgB!LtmeLn_w8GgEsrHOEBt9Uu4Wryg4As_StEpklta oexg)
MP3 / 320kbps / 24 Tracks / 80min

This is a project I originally planned as part of my upcoming blog/website. This is an overview over composers I consider to be the best media composers working today. They are a huge inspiration for me and I hope many upcoming composers. Yeah I know, many are from Japan but I also intend to cover the Hollywood sound in detail, from John Williams to Bruce Broughton as well as the sound of the Golden Age. Of course I will also go all the way back to the old masters (Prokofiev/ Tchaikovsky / Mahler / Beethoven). I hope I can still make it happen in 2015.

Let's begin with a fascinating candidate: Taku Iwasaki. His scores are usually a surprise bag full of very different musical ideas and styles. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of his action work which is more in early Zimmer territory but it is still enjoyable. But he is perhaps the greatest experimentalist of them all, creating new interesting textures and combining very different musical styles and instruments. Don't expect anything conventional from a Iwasaki score. I guess you could argue against his approach of not delivering a coherent score with common tone but his little pieces of musical ideas form a very refreshing and fascinating mix. In a sense he even stays conventional by the way his different pieces are constructed: A string piece from his earliest works is not much different from his most recent. His orchestral style stays consistent wether it is performed by a small studio ensemble or a huge symphony orchestra. He does not venture much in great classcial territory but he is very much capable of delievering in that style. His recent operatic piece "Il mare eterno nella mia anima" is a reminder of his great talent. He really brings a unique voice to the world of anime scoring which would never be allowed in a more controlled industry (Hollywood). This album is a closer look at the more conventional, introspective and heartwarming side of Iwasaki, a composer who can make you dream, who can make you smile and who can make you cry. If you never heared of Iwasaki before it would also function well as a singular film score. I hope I can spread his music to more and more people and make it a worthwhile experience for long-time admirers of his work.

Enjoy

presented by klnerfan (aka Vinphonic)

Cool! I'm looking forward to listen to this and hopefully upcoming collections too if you continue.

Vintage Uematsu remains the musical gold standard of Final Fantasy.)

And Goldenthal takes silver! I'm okay with that.

Composer Spotlight
The heart of Taku Iwasaki (2001-2014)



Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!HkBymYgB!LtmeLn_w8GgEsrHOEBt9Uu4Wryg4As_StEpklta oexg)
MP3 / 320kbps / 24 Tracks / 80min

This is a project I originally planned as part of my upcoming blog/website. This is an overview over composers I consider to be the best media composers working today. They are a huge inspiration for me and I hope many upcoming composers. Yeah I know, many are from Japan but I also intend to cover the Hollywood sound in detail, from John Williams to Bruce Broughton as well as the sound of the Golden Age. Of course I will also go all the way back to the old masters (Prokofiev/ Tchaikovsky / Mahler / Beethoven). I hope I can still make it happen in 2015.

Let's begin with a fascinating candidate: Taku Iwasaki. His scores are usually a surprise bag full of very different musical ideas and styles. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of his action work which is more in early Zimmer territory but it is still enjoyable. But he is perhaps the greatest experimentalist of them all, creating new interesting textures and combining very different musical styles and instruments. Don't expect anything conventional from a Iwasaki score. I guess you could argue against his approach of not delivering a coherent score with common tone but his little pieces of musical ideas form a very refreshing and fascinating mix. In a sense he even stays conventional by the way his different pieces are constructed: A string piece from his earliest works is not much different from his most recent. His orchestral style stays consistent wether it is performed by a small studio ensemble or a huge symphony orchestra. He does not venture much in great classcial territory but he is very much capable of delievering in that style. His recent operatic piece "Il mare eterno nella mia anima" is a reminder of his great talent. He really brings a unique voice to the world of anime scoring which would never be allowed in a more controlled industry (Hollywood). This album is a closer look at the more conventional, introspective and heartwarming side of Iwasaki, a composer who can make you dream, who can make you smile and who can make you cry. If you never heared of Iwasaki before it would also function well as a singular film score. I hope I can spread his music to more and more people and make it a worthwhile experience for long-time admirers of his work.

Enjoy

presented by klnerfan (aka Vinphonic)

Neat! Tracklist?

Bout two years ago, I went back and listened thru the vast majority of Iwasaki's work(the dvd packin's of Black Cat and Mahouka had not yet been posted.) I feel like he got a lil more tropey around the early-midpoint of his career, started to branch out more around the mid-00's and eventually matured into the sound he has now, for better or worse. Trope-y isn't an insult, tho. He always brings his own flair and sensibility even when plumbing old scoring conventions or straying into wild new territory; his lush, layered, lullabic strings are still some of my favorite writing for the ensemble in all of anime scoring; sharp, off-kilter, cooly-hued electronica; staccato, insistent Zimmer-style cues; bold, melodic, moody jazz. Even the parts of his style that should feel old hat or worn out by now still impress in his latest scores(well, maybe not Mahouka) He sure never gives himself a break lately, but it's a testament to his talent that I still look forward to his work to this day.

Nice compilation, klnerfan!

(currently trying to do a similar discography tour for Yuki Kajiura. It's...not going quite as smoothly, but with a style as consistent and a body of work as vast as hers, breaks for sanity are a lil more required. Started with her strongest works first;Noir, .hack; and working my way through the rest. Won't post a ton of my impressions right now, but I can say I'm coming around to her.)

Anyone hear the new music for Guild Wars 2 after Soule left the series to score EverQuest? I haven't heard of these composers but they used a live orchestra to perform the music for Season 2 of the Living World content for the game. AreaNet has a profile on Soundcloud and some of the pieces are arrangements of Soule's music, but many of them are completely original works. There are a few noteworthy compositions...

https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/the-silverwastes

https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/drytop

https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/guild-wars-2-lions-arch-lament-live

Music for all three are composed by Maclaine Deimer, with the exception of the third which is composed by Maclaine Deimer with themes written by Jeremy Soule.

And Goldenthal takes silver! I'm okay with that.

Haha, you know, I completely forget about Goldenthal! I love the score but I like to pretend it's not in that awful, awful movie. ;)

Guild Wars 2: Synth.

Iwasaki: Genius, but not getting to flex his muscles anywhere near his level of skill at the moment.

Kajiura: Far more talented than her scores would lead you to believe. I think.

Hello Naotam, haven't seen you around these parts for ages. Happy New Year and all that jazz. :)

Actually, Guild Wars 2: Season 2 (that's a mouthful) was recorded by a Germanic orchestra.

Guild Wars 2 - The Living Soundtrack on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/99557330)

Shocking!

Yeah the score was done in Berlin I think. This is why it sticks out when I play the game online. I really like some of the pieces, but the action music falls waaaaay short of the mark. However, the more subdued offerings suffice. Too bad Soule didn't use this same orchestra as it probably would have made the music ten times better. He writes better when it is a live ensemble rather than in synth. I am still waiting on his soundtrack to Azurik to get released as I still think that is his best score to date next to Total Annihilation.

Iwasaki is good but seriously the last time he really shone was Now and then, Here and There. No I will NEVER stop going on about that score, HAHAHA!

Kancolle is turning into the best Japanese sci-fi action score since Yamashita's Garasu No Kantai. WAY TO GO, Natsume Kameoka! It's straight-up serious and so full of notes - that infectious exuberance that you used to get all the time from young composers excited at being let loose on their first big budget project. Kameoka's skill as an orchestrator is obviously massively on display... but it's not just nicely arranged fluff - there's some meat on those bones, it's interesting, and well-written... and the "cute girls go to war" theme draws obvious comparisons with Hamaguchi's "Girls Und Panzer" - except that it does it better, and with a good (television)-sized orchestra...

Great, great, great!

Anyone here at all impressed by Jupiter Ascending? It very clearly sounds like a Giacchino score with the dark orchestral music in line with his Star Trek scores although there is a good amount of solid choral work. I still can't help but feel like in the hands of someone else we would have gotten more complex textures. Though it could be the darker material pushing me away.

I'm pretty crushed by it. It doesn't quite plumb the depths that his two Trek scores did... but at the same time, it's a load of noise. It's the same impression I get from all of Giacchino's scores. Take a guy who loves old film scores but has no skills, put him in an environment where themes and imaginative harmonies are outright banned, compositional individuality frowned upon, imaginative harmonies restricted, and competent treatment of the symphony orchestra derided as "old fashioned"... and hear him trying to combine these utterly incompatible requirements with his own personal film music affections.

People are, predictably, trumpeting it as the greatest score ever written. To me, it's just another in a long line of disappointments - and worse still, it doesn't compare favourably to recent Giacchino scores, like John Carter or even Super 8.

I'm glad that there is still occasionally room for scores that aim a little higher than your typical contemporary action score - this is definitely trying... but it makes me all the more disappointed that a) somebody competent didn't get the job and b) Hollywood would finally re-discover the magic that happens when you let composers write music instead of sound design and underscore.

Don Davis, who was the Wachowskis' former "go-to composer", wrote some genuinely fine music for The Matrix trilogy - and those scores were mainly themeless through design. Hear the clean, transparent, and skilled orchestration, the complex polytonal harmonies, the thrilling rhythmic chaos in the action cues, the blend of styles - almost traditional Hollywood grandeur, contemporary classical minimalism, serialism, and plainsong, the instantly-recognisable motifs... they do not compare well to Giacchino's sledgehammer approach of repetitious theme-less cells of music, pounding drums, unison brass, and stabbing textbook minor key chords held together with dense and claustrophobic ("play everything all at once") orchestrations, filled up with empty gestures and moments where you're just waiting for the theme to arrive... but it never does.

Also... TOO MUCH MUSIC! Too much! There are cues in this score of six, seven, eight, nine minutes - and they do not develop ONE IOTA throughout their running time. The beginning sounds like the middle sounds like the end; they are completely structureless, and amazingly boring to listen to. There's only so much epic slamming you can take before you start wishing for things like melodies, thematic development, tension, creative orchestrations, etc.

Oh, well... Who's surprised? I ain't. ;)

Streich: Do you have any thoughts on this score?

In recent years I've grown to dislike all of Giacchino on principle (and I've been proven right time and time again). The only inspiring thing he has done is "Secret Weapons Over Normandy" ... ok, maybe "Medal of Honor: Frontline", but apart from that he was always a shadow of John Williams. He only got the fame because orchestral scores in video games were still a novelty at the time and Medal of Honor was a successful franchise. But he really lacks the talent or craft of the Hollywood Masters. His work is shallow and without personal identity, full of desperate attempts to make it appear like it's Williams, Goldsmith or Horner but always lacking their spark that makes movie magic happen. I really wanted to like his music but it's always a league below the original. He is the perfect composer for those million remakes and reboots of today, always missing what made the original great and timeless and making the new one instantly forgettable.

Bless you, sir. :)

You know, I think I realize why I don't come here anymore. It's not because I am playing games more and more. It's not because I am cramming for certifiction exams.

It's because I am sick of this absurd pessimism. Giacchino is one of the most unique composers working in Hollywood. His music is iconic and instantly recognizable. You give me a million cues, and the moment I hear anything from Giacchino I would recognize it in an instant. His music, is as recognizable as Horner, Goldsmith and Willaims. He is the one of only four composers that share that rare talent for writing music that is uniquely theirs, that can be recognized without the need of a cover or mp3 info tags. That is a rare gift, to be able to do that within the confines of a film. But Giacchino has done that.

And sure, he was in the shadow of Williams early on. Anyone that was an orchestral composer would be! But he grew into his own man. He has become a great composer in his own right.

And yes, I did use the word great. Because that is exactly what he is a - a composer that can create worlds with just an hour of music. Most of the other compeers, like Djwadi or Jablonsky, they only make scenes. But Giacchino spurs the imagination. I listen to Jupiter Ascending and John Carter, and I can just visualize grand landscapes being accompanied with these cues.

We need to stop looking to the past, and we certainly need to stop brushing such broad strokes. Saying things like Giacchino has no skills, or that he has no personality - both of which are objectively false. Anyone who manages to become a composer for a major film has skill and talent! There is no way you can climb that ladder without having talent. Midway up someone would see you as someone not worth your time and you'd fall all the way down.

This line of thinking is just ridicules. There are people in classical forums that are less critical than this thread.

I wouldn't suggest that Giacchino has no talent but I do think that his themes are still largely lacking and development even more so. The more I listen to earlier scores that feature actual development the more I realize how much it is lacking. I was listening to one of the more lengthy cues from Jupiter Ascending last night and then I realized like Tango said, it was the exact same combination of two barely developed motifs made to appear like development repeated over and over by different instruments and parts of the orchestra. No change at all other than who is playing what.

I think texturally this is one of his more interesting darker scores that at times is really quite disturbing but on a thematic level it still lacks the quality I have come to expect. Like Tango said it is a step up from his Trek scores but it mostly succeeds in the way of presenting various feelings, either epic adventure or dark brooding without really going much beyond the typical shorter motifs that Giacchino likes to write.

OK now you are just being silly Doublehex. You can very easily climb the ladder without any talent for writing quality thematic orchestral music. That doesn't mean the person is talentless but compared to Jerry Goldsmith, Bruce Broughton, and even David Shire the talent just isn't there. Yes absolutely they have talent in the way that Hollywood wants, the ability to write something that satisfies the directors and/or producers, bu that isn't the same thing as writing a score that is musically interesting. But thankfully this reminded me about a score I will post later that needs to be re-posted from a composer who I think only has three scores released but is quite talented and wrote a gorgeous score for a British TV movie with two names.

Re: Jupiter Ascending.

After the first 20 minutes of Giacchino's latest under-cooked offering, Graeme Revell's cruder, more dramatically robust "Chronicles of Riddick" popped into my head, so I switched to listening to that instead.

I think that many mistake talent for a person with extensive knowledge of music theory. Talent to me is innate skill, a craft is something developed. I think to reach success one must use a nice balance of both. I know PLENTY of people who really have the theory down to a tee, but when it comes to writing something from the heart, they over-analyze making the music, as what Tango had said, claustrophobic.

Maybe Giacchino has a lot of knowledge about theory? He seems like he has great ideas but the execution is where it is lacking.

At any rate, I kind of like Jupiter Ascending. It isn't a Don Davis score (which would have been amazing by the way ;)) but it is still listenable.

I had seen someone mention James Horner and I found this article that was interesting. Any thoughts?

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/horner/news/lord-of-the-rings/88eqxK7CEQigy5Zs.99

I've never understood what's supposed to be so bad about him. No strong opinion either way, really, I just find all the shade kinda weird.

Thanks for the welcome, Tango! Gradually getting out of depression and writer's block and various other sundry bullshit, but life is turning around! Just generally trying to be more chill, more positive. Getting married to the love of my life this past October helps! ;)

Always good to see the thread still going strong, even if I don't have a lot to say on the subject of music lately.

Edit: Naotam: CONGRATULATIONS! :D

Ah, this old thread feels like it's back to its old self again. :)

I don't really have much to add to Doublehex's "ridicules" rant - it's been said already, and with the greatest respect, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. One cannot respond to illogic with logic, and to respond with illogic is illogical; so I will simply make no direct response.

Except that I stand by my assertion that this score is a turd, and I stand by my assertion that Michael Giacchino - regardless of how famous he is, or how recognisable he is (Hitler is recognisable; recognisable is not synonymous with good) - doesn't a) doesn't know what he's doing, and b) the present "climate" in film scoring is NOT giving him any opportunity to learn. It's not easy being a composer like Giacchino these days. Inside his head, "film music" means Williams, Goldsmith, Poledouris, Korngold. It means melody, honesty, forthright emotions, and it means writing in the foreground, NOT in the background. Unfortunately, doing that kind of thing is a) NOT easy, and b) not "in" at the moment. I think that if the "climate" had been different, if his director relationships had been different, he could've been great. But he's having to take his sensibilities and juggle them with the needs of today's crappy film-making techniques, musically illiterate directors, ignorant audiences, and Hollywood's desire to make money not art... Add to that a lack of skill and a lack of opportunities to seriously develop that skill... and you end up with Jupiter Ascending - an orchestra twice the size of Mahler's or Scriabin's playing badly written, and amazingly bland music. Three quarters of Ascending is padding. It's music for the sake of making a noise. It doesn't do anything except play - loudly, and often.

By sheer coincidence, after I'd written my previous comment, I went downstairs to make a cup of tea and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial was on television. I sat down and watched it to the end. The final twenty minutes of that film is uninterrupted score - and not once, not for one bar, does the music become boring, repetitive, or redundant. Every note is there doing what it should be doing. The score up until the final act has been preparing you for the big themes, and then, there they are - in a symphonic poem, a fantasia of melodies and moods. The sequence incorporates tension, panic, threat, friendship, pain, love, and joy. It moves from the family home to a sinister government research facility, to a chase through the streets of Burbank, then into the sky, and then finally into to the forest. A plan is formulated, which leads to a tense escape from authority - which becomes a furious chase, an action sequence, a brief "beauty shot" pass, and then a shift into the major key - and the big theme gets a proper airing. All major themes from the score thus far are whipped up in the counterpoint, with Williams deftly tying up ALL the loose threads of his thematic material without missing a beat. The mood shifts and for the final eight minutes, there is barely a word of dialogue spoken - there doesn't need to be, because Williams carries THE ENTIRE CLIMAX of the film upon his own shoulders. Tragedy and sadness gives way to dignity and optimism, gives way to a final maestoso restatement of the big theme - a big fanfare leads to a ravishing major key close against the simplest of simple images; a crying boy looking up at the stars. That's TWENTY MINUTES OF MUSIC folks, half a dozen different themes - proper themes, structured melodies, development, variation, counterpoint, shifts in orchestration, shifts in tempo, shifts in volume, shifts in tension. It passes by in a flash. Williams hits every part of the action, and not once does this compromise the musical integrity of the score. Not once does he fill in time. Not once does he resort to themeless ostinato. Not once does he create tension by increasing the volume. Not once does he stab away repeatedly at one chord. The orchestra - which he treats as an orchestra and not a giant synthesiser - features in a showpiece of virtuosity.

By comparison, imagine those poor people sitting in Abbey Road, for God-knows how many days, playing trash like "Flying Dinosaur Fight"?

Words truly fail me.

I am going to have to revisit this Williams score right now :).

(http://imgur.com/16XeVKQ)

That... is glorious. Where on earth did you find that? :D

Jojo Creator Draws Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Composer Giorno-Style for CD Cover - Interest - Anime News Network (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-01-29/jojo-creator-draws-fullmetal-alchemist-brotherhood-composer-giorno-style-for-cd-cover/.83857)

the link tells the story, really. God, I love JoJo so much.

Album's a best-of. It hits Feb. 25th fyi.

Mike Batt - A Merry War (AKA Keep the Aspidistra Flying) (1997)
Orchestral, Romantic, Sweeping, Thematic
MP3 VBR V-0 Converted from FLAC

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1J8MPSVH/A_Merry_War.rar_links)

This score was posted a while ago by one of our members if I recall correctly though under the Aspidistra name with a completely different cover that was purple and looked much more brooding. The images make it hard to believe that they are from the same score but the track list is exactly the same. The main update here from that, aside from highlighting this score again, is that the mp3s are now converted from FLAC. You will notice that the first five or so tracks are a symphonic poem or suite of sorts that is quite lovely and then it is followed by the main score. For some reason I downloaded this years ago when it was first posted and maybe listened to it a few times and was never particularly impressed. Though lately I was interested in revisiting Mike Batt's music and happened to listen to this completely and was blown away by the theme and the overall gorgeous nature of the score. If you can stand cheesy British ballads, the song at the end is very nice as well, though I don't understand what a "tiger burning bright" is supposed to be. I have been listening to this for the last few weeks quite frequently and can't get enough of it so I hope you will delve into it as deeply and find the rich gorgeous themes that have been sending me to all sorts of places lately.

Wow, it's been a while since I heard this one! Thank you very much! :D

Mike Batt doesn't get nearly as much love as he deserves - he's still a household name (or at least, his music is) thanks to his work on The Wombles, scoring the original series in the early 1970s and the 1996 revival. Wombling aside, he's still very busy here conducting at various events, and doing orchestrations (and writing original songs) for pop acts, most frequently with his protege Katie Melua. He turns up in the film music world every five or ten years as well.

"Tiger burning bright" is a corruption of William Blake's poem "The Tiger" which begins with the lines "Tiger, tiger burning bright / In the forests of the night". It makes no damn sense in the Blake, either. ;)

PS - The film is called "Keep The Aspidistra Flying" - it was retitled for foreign release for roughly the same reason the US release of Pixar's "Ratatouille" has a patronising pronunciation guide ("rat a too ee") embedded in its logo. ;)

Ding, ding ding. Ahhh, Mike Batt, composer of "Caravans" from 1979; an impeccably orchestrated score ([to add] anyone familiar with the soundtrack ever gotten a "Fernando"* vibe from the Caravans theme?).

* yes, as in, ᗅᗺᗷᗅ.

Yuki Kajiura Hanako to Anne OST 3

Hanako to Anne Original Soundtrack 3 by Yuki Kajiura - HikarinoAkari OST (http://hikarinoakariost.info/hanako-anne-original-soundtrack-3-yuki-kajiura/)

Credits go to Hikari no Akari!

Let me know what you guys think :)

=Mike Batt is such an underrated composer... Thanks Sirusjr!

Ah, Princess Precure! :happycroc:

I admit that I'm a sucker for this daft girly shows... but Precure never ceases to amaze me, particularly for music Hiroshi Takaki is getting away with. Broadly speaking, the new series is more of the same... but every series, Takaki gets a little more symphonic and the themes get a little more complex. In the very first episode, before two minutes is even up, we get a lovely romantic theme with a heart-melting violin solo... they didn't have to do this. Nobody would've cared if they hadn't. Kids would've still watched this show. But... somebody cares about the craft. It shows.

And the ending song... OK, it's about to begin, not expecting much... But we get a fully orchestral waltz introduction before shifting into 4/4 time for the traditional light and bouncy song - but the song has a orchestral backing track (real people and everything) and at the close of the song the pop percussion subsides completely, we move back into waltz time, and the orchestra picks up the song's countermelody and carries its very own shamelessly manipulative big finish. I'm not pretending this is Mozart-level composition... but it's so bloody nice to hear such musical integrity on a show like this. All that said, I would dearly love Takaki to get another big sci-fi series... how on earth can you get the Kanagawa Philharmonic on Tytania, and then five years later you're doing Pretty Cure and daft comedies? What goes on?

Truely lovely, it's most likely the best Precure score so far. When you take Takaki's last movie score into consideration, then Tchaikovsky (the King of ballet) has to appear somehow. I admit that I shamelessly love the cheesy retro-vocals with the orchestra, it seems like only Japanese anime still has room for such good fun (Koufuku Graffiti is wonderful in that regard). I admit that I don't fully understand how the music industry works over there and who gets to score what and why but I bet the composer's preferences have to play a little part, who knows, perhaps he just likes precure. The series has certain restrictions but if you love and write classical music you don't turn down an offer about Princesses & Princes, ballets and magic.

On Kantai: Wow, this is Grade A Hollywood music (Symphony album with the LSO when?) but I guess you can't have a modern japanese orchestral score without a beat anymore ;) Regardless, I'm very happy that Kameoka's name is attached to such a big commercial hit. It can only help your career and this is probably not the last project about Kantai with her name. There's actually a little bit of insight into the industry with the recent Shirobako. Basically they are talking about Kantai: Director wants happy-go-lucky music for the "base" and serious orchestral stuff for the battles. I'm actually wondering who the composer was (didn't look like Shiro Hamaguchi).

Arslan: Ouch, it's Taro Iwashiro of all people (please don't suck).


@Sirusjr: Thank you! I listen to his Watership Down every christmas. Great composer.

Hanako to Anne: Kajiura's best effort so far, I even hear a bit of Horner in the score.

There's no beat (other than natural rhythmic movement) in 90% of the orchestral cues in Kantai so far...

Ah, it's nothing dramatic of course, far from it. It's just in a little cue at the end of episode 2 and it's barely noticable. I ment it more like an innuendo on Tatsuya Katou's ridiculous overuse on perfectly fine orchestral cues ;)

GNXA-110406 | HELLSING OVA VI~X Blu-ray BOX Soundtrack CD - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/48265)

It seems that there will be a release for more Hayato Matsuo Hellsing orchestral goodness on the 13th :). I am really hoping that this will have a good amount of music!

Actually, it appears to be delayed once again. It was supposed to be released in December and then it was pushed to February and now it's been pushed to April.

I'm all for a delay as long as the content and the amount of content therein is worth justifying such a delay ;). Definitely not worried about the quality of the music. I just hope this will be 100% Warsaw.

A friend of mine just alerted me to a gorgeous new album written by a young violinist and pianist for piano and orchestra. Samples on his site are lovely and they were orchestrated by the composer himself and conducted by Wataru Hokoyama :)
Paul Henning | Composer & Performer (http://www.paulhenning.com/#!breaking-through/c24gb)
Looks like I will be buying this album when it is released.

A new Aria anime is to be announced, I believe. (!!!!!)

Apparently "The Avvenire" is a new TV series and not just an OVA in celebration of Aria's 10th anniversary. It's out in september, together with a Blu-Ray BOX. Now that I even have the rare ARIA Music Box my wallet will cry again when it's out :D

But this is not the only thing coming from Kozue Amano this year. Many more projects are in the works if the leaks are to be believed, which would be a dream come true. For "The Avvenire" I'm not sure if I want more of the same this time, if Senoo is the composer again I hope he goes a little more classical, Venice could need some grandeur for a final farewell and I hope we see the inside of the Doge's Palace this time as well as many more interiors of famous buildings. In Venice I was sometimes awestruck by the beauty and power of this once great empire.

In general this year is like a dream come true if you like Slice of Life. Now with a second season of Gochuumon arriving this year as well I'm sure we'll get many lovely scores. Can't wait (�,,・ω・,,｀)






EDIT: Everyone, check out the new Shirobako episode for perhaps the first animated studio recording session in history (with Hamaguchi cameo) :D

paul henning BREAKING THROUGH download please ?

EDIT: Everyone, check out the new Shirobako episode for perhaps the first animated studio recording session in history (with Hamaguchi cameo) :D

Hahaha, fucking hell... bloody Sound Inn A Studio! A few thoughts: a) Why did they only bother drawing the string section? b) Why is there nobody in the isolation booths? c) Where is the conductor? d) The score sheets have parts for flute, clarinet, three trumpets, three trombones, and strings only - where are the harp and percussion parts? e) They're going after Kancolle, aren't they? f) Am I overthinking? :D

And... another question is raised by that scene and the subsequent unveiling of the PV towards the end of the episode... Unless I'm very mistaken, there hasn't been any orchestral score in Shirobako so far... furthermore that delicious one minute orchestral cue is definitely by Hamaguchi, and I've never heard it before... so... is Japan REALLY mad enough to do what I think they did for that scene?!


paul henning BREAKING THROUGH download please ?

Anybody want to join me in forming the KANTAI NO SHI WARSTAR? This could be a great anime in the making...

Tango ... the joke is that the PV is real :D that's a preview of the score for the OVA and it's on OST 2, May 27th.

a) + b) + c) + d) = Blu-Ray/Money

What? So we're going to get a decent budget orchestral Hamaguchi score in 2015? For an OVA spin-off of a cheap piss-take parody show?

Ah, Japan, never change. :D

https://soundcloud.com/josh-barron/honor-sacrifice-glory-variations-on-themes-from-halo-2

Here is my latest string arrangement! I encourage you all to check it out as my musicians put forth an excellent performance :). My interpretation is unique as I combine themes and layer them on top of one another. It isn't the most complex piece, but it very expressive. I hope you all enjoy!

Well, fucking Parcel Force have held up my latest order from CDJapan YET AGAIN, and will hold my parcel hostage until I pay �50 customs charges. God almighty.

Still, hopefully you'll like it when it arrives...

Edit: And now it's been "lost" in the customs processing centre. Ruuuuuule Britannia, Britannia fucks it up... Britons never never never get their mail... :(

Damn, sorry to hear that.

I've never had CDs going through customs when buying from Yesasia or Amazon JP. Is this sorta gamble or just a UK thing?

That sucks. I live in the US and I've never had any problems with customs so far but I know of people who have. I think it's all a matter of luck.

It's a gamble, but a gamble I seem to be losing more and more often lately. Maybe we're just starting to be REALLY REALLY bureaucratic. I never had any trouble at ALL until about 2012 and now bloody EVERYTHING is getting caught up in customs...

It's a gamble, but a gamble I seem to be losing more and more often lately. Maybe we're just starting to be REALLY REALLY bureaucratic. I never had any trouble at ALL until about 2012 and now bloody EVERYTHING is getting caught up in customs...

Most likely, you're on a blacklist after so many imports. They probably don't even bother with checking the origins/contents of your parcel anymore. As soon as they see your name on it, they keep it...

I'm damn lucky, I only had to pay six euro custom charges today. Two packages arrived, one from Japan, the other from the US. From the US: The limited edition of Last Starfighter (childhood favorite, killer theme) and King Solomon's Mines (who doesn't love bold adventurous Jerry). From Japan: The Sailor Moon Symphonic Poem and ...



Toshihiko Sahashi
Sentai Music Collection



Gekiso Sentai Car Ranger Ongaku Shu (1/3)



Download (FLAC) (https://mega.co.nz/#!2oAyWRqA!K9qxGqHfSWb2Ws5Lusagoheo6jeFZibHiluzcYP S9wA)



Seiju Sentai Gingaman Music Collection (1/3)



Download (FLAC) (https://mega.co.nz/#!m8YkyIpI!hWfKIknpvubAUZcYzeYF9kAedDHFENCnLL16Bh6 9xzE)


I wish they would hurry up and reissue the rest. They're dirt cheap for japanese standards and it can't hurt to buy them. Now when will they get with the times and release all the old out-of-print stuff online. Oh well, at least I have Gingaman in FLAC ... and I'm still alive :D


Enjoy

What impeccable timing!

Speaking of Sentai... look what the cat dragged in - a little sneak preview of what FINALLY turned up this afternoon... 2014's ASTOUNDING effort by the completely green Kei Haneoka. I don't believe this music. I think it's so close to Yamashita's in terms of quality I can barely comprehend that it was written by a guy who has basically NEVER written a symphonic score in his life. It's full of themes, a BRILLIANT "bad guys" motif, structured action cues (compare to Megumi Ohashi's undercooked rubbish in Gobusters, or Sahashi's shamefully lazy Kyoryuger) and it's even a little ground-breaking sometimes! Yes, it stays pretty close to the house style... but at the same time, aw hell, just listen to it! I think this... is really, REALLY good stuff.

Look at what happens to poor old Hiroshi Takaki's EXCELLENT Shinkenger... pushed into fourth place in the Tangotreats Best Sentai Score Scoreboard:
1. Yamashita - Gokaiger (2011)
2. Yamashita - Magiranger (2005)
3. Haneoka - Toqger (2014)
4. Takaki - Shinkenger (2009)
5. Nakagawa - Boukenger (yes, really!)

And with Yamashita's third Sentai Ninninger starting this week... Well, life is good!

In the mean time, here's a little seven minute suite from Haneoka's splendid Toqger: Zippyshare.com - sentai.flac (http://www31.zippyshare.com/v/hTMxnpoM/file.html)

Nininger starts next week, in fact.

No, it starts this Sunday...

Here are proofs to my earlier post:
Orends: Range: ToQGer's 46th Episode Delayed Today Due to Real World Events (http://www.orendsrange.com/2015/02/toqgers-46th-episode-delayed-today-due.html)
Orends: Range: Shuriken Sentai Ninninger's Premiere Date Moved to February 22 (http://www.orendsrange.com/2015/02/shuriken-sentai-ninningers-premiere.html)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi2qyoM6Hzc

Ohh, bugger! My apologies, I hadn't picked up on that! That's disappointing... :(

Patience, my friend, patience...

Regarding Sahashi's Gekiso Sentai Car Ranger Ongaku Shu and Seiju Sentai Gingaman Music Collection: is this all pop-synth music?
Thanks!
Yepsa

Some is, interspersed with traditional Sahashi orchestral cues. :)

Some is, interspersed with traditional Sahashi orchestral cues. :)

Thanks! I will give it a try!

Bloodborne might be an interesting game score featuring a grim and gothic orchestral score. It isn't enough to tell whether or not this will be a solid score but it sounds menacing so far. I haven't heard of the composer... this Michael Wandmacher? I am kind of surprised they didn't get Motoi Sakuraba to do this, but with the drab nonsense of his score to Dark Souls 2, I can see why they looked elsewhere.

Game Music Online Bloodborne - Recording Session Video - Game Music Online (http://www.vgmonline.net/bloodborne-gets-soundtrack-recording-session/)

It says that multiple composers, including Michael Wandmacher, are contributing music but the piece in that video was composed by Tsukasa Saitoh from From Software's sound team.

I didn't know the British postal system was so draconian in nature still. Amazon seems alright though. I've gotten lucky with Ebay too but they mark their parcels as gifts. I bought the cheaper Korean edition of the Attack on Titan soundtrack last summer from a seller in Korea through Amazon and had no issues.

Everything by Jerry Goldsmith and Michael Kamen.

I saw that Benny Oschmann's The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 score will be released later this week. He posted a nice little symphonic suite on YouTube back in December: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoVmajFwBlw

Hard to believe the guy only just turned 27 years old.

I didn't know the British postal system was so draconian in nature still. Amazon seems alright though. I've gotten lucky with Ebay too but they mark their parcels as gifts. I bought the cheaper Korean edition of the Attack on Titan soundtrack last summer from a seller in Korea through Amazon and had no issues.

It's annoying... but honestly, they're only doing what they're entitled to do.

I don't ask for packages to be marked as a gift for a number of reasons: a) If I'm bound by law to pay duty, I'll pay it - I won't like it but I'm not going to defraud the system... b) If your package is marked as a low-value gift and disappears in the post, you will have a hard time getting your money back because the seller will only be recompensed to the value declared... and c) If your "gift" package is OPENED by customs and they discover it's not a gift, you are responsible as the importer, and they'll fine the bollocks off you if they feel that way inclined...

Bloodborne: I'm sure nobody's surprised, but I'm utterly not convinced. It's loud, repetitive, themeless, completely devoid of development, and badly orchestrated. It's a waste of a really good orchestra in one of the world's finest orchestral recording rooms.

Oschmann: Haha, this is such an orchestrator's score. Don't get me wrong... It's a GLORIOUS thing to hear a young composer going after this style, truly glorious and admirable. However... this is all style and no substance to me. The guy obviously has more talent in his little finger than pretty much everybody currently working in Hollywood put together... but this is really a medley strung together from massively simplified pages of The Big Book Of John Williams' Orchestral Cliches. Leave the Williams to Williams. Oschmann needs to be his own man and find his own style.

Listen to that main theme. Sounds AMAZING, right? Makes you weep for the good old days of film music? But listen closely... I know you all don't want to hear this, but it's nothing. It's chords, gestures, string runs, woodwind flourishes, all leading to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL. Right from the beginning; all texture, with an Alan Silvestri brass fanfare, some string runs, a modulation, and MORE string runs! Wow, he really had nothing better to do with those violins than to get them to rapidly arpeggiate through the scale? Then, here comes the main theme itself - heard on trumpets... and you can almost guess the whole thing from the first three notes. Then, at 0:49 a key change (which I also saw coming from the final note of the trumpet theme) and a sub-theme picked up on violins, with a little touch of the Williams "flying theme" style - melody on high strings, with a whimsical pizzicato double bass accompaniment and woodwind runs... then modulate, repeat, modulate, pass to French horns, fanfare, modulate back to main theme but in slightly beefier arrangement with melody on French horns instead of trumpets accompanied by more painfully pointless arpeggiating violins... and then that's it. Where's the counterpoint? Where's the interest? To me, at least, that eight minutes may ultimately constitute some of the most boring music I've ever heard in my life. It's a 100% textbook, paint by numbers SAFE orchestral adventure theme - it has form (opening flourish, fanfare, main theme, theme variation, romantic mid-section, modulation back to main theme, fanfare, and big finish) and it should be applauded for the EFFORT, but it's all just going through the motions. It makes all the right sounds but it never earns them.

Oh, well... May Oschmann get many more projects that call for orchestral music and may he learn more, take risks, and develop his style. If he does, he could be GREAT.

Should I be worried that some Ebay sellers mark packages carrying CDs as gifts even without my prompting then? Maybe I just got lucky here in the US. Heh, they're probably worried more about bombs than imported CDs. The Amazon sellers must have a special arrangement too since that's as easy as ordering anything else on there, just takes a little longer to travel. And the shipping is the same.

Bloodborne: To me this is a perfect example of a piece that was written for samples first and not live players in mind. If they would have hired Matsuo or Hirano, you know people who are really trained to write for live orchestra we could have had a real gothic score. Imagine Death Note with that orchestra. Instead we get essentially trailer music: strings on endless repetition (and the players look really bored too), almost no divisi writing & overblown monster choir. But let's see if the other contributors make better music.

Oschmann: I think it's a pretty good effort if you're just starting your career and it deserves some praise if you establish right from the getgo you want to write like this and not like Zimmerdrones (Silvestri and Horner learned the hard way). Looking forwad to see how he develops.
BUT that said you should start getting worried when a production music company does it better (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5eWLX65ryg).

Kantai: Some of the best heroic orchestral bombast I've heared in recent years, this is the big Superhero climax, the battle for the world ... and it's used for a silly curry cooking contest with lesbian antics ... you just can't make this up.

Sinbad: Sora Tobu Hime to Himitsu no Shima (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwJCE2AHQ6Y) (I wonder if Naoki Sato gets to score this)

That Book of Unwritten Tales 2 music seems highly influenced by Koichi Sugiyama's Dragon Quest music. I get the exact same feeling listening to it as I do DQ.

That Book of Unwritten Tales 2 music seems highly influenced by Koichi Sugiyama's Dragon Quest music. I get the exact same feeling listening to it as I do DQ.

I get that vibe a little bit. Wouldn't it be nice if the only problem we had was a bunch of complex symphonic music that happened to have similarities to other scores? Just think, if all scores were this well written we could actually start dissecting them based on the little things that make them better or worse.

Anyone listen to the recently released score for Outlander? I really like the Scottish sound that McCreary creates, but I am a sucker for anything Celtic. I have always thought string writing was McCreary's strong suit as opposed to full orchestra. One of the reasons why Battlestar was so great was because of his ability to make the string ensemble work with the various percussion and exotic instruments. This score pulls at the heart and I find it one of his finest scores beating Da Vinci and even Battlestar, imo.

Benny Oschmann was interviewed by VGMOnline a while back. His music is very intriguing and I hope he gets more projects to grow.

Also on another side note... the studio album of Final Symphony will be released digitally this month on the 23rd which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road :). I am so looking forward to buying this one!

What do you guys think about Toshiyuki Watanabe's Gogo V?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEmmNL8M7U&feature=youtu.be

Trailer up for Final Symphony! This is going to be glorious!

A japanese composer in london ... nothing else gets me more excited these days.



Continuing with part two of my composer spotlight, another genius that creates music like no other media composer today. A great virtuoso, a king of dissonance, a walking textbook of orchestral extravaganza...




Sound of a Death Note

Music composed and arranged by Yoshihisa Hirano
(2001-2014)




Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!nlwFjKQA!SqUrmA-9dUzmYzh7fnGTEWopWvBdH6VeuW3CaVU-txM)
MP3 / 320kbps / 41 Tracks / 106 min


Where to begin... Hirano is a highly trained classical composer who knows how to create interesting and fresh orchestral textures like no one else, he generally writes music for small ensembles that put even 90 piece Hollywood "Epic" music to shame. He pulls from a giant repertoire of musical knowledge: Barock, Classic, Romantic, Modern, Avant-garde and he masters them all with ease, plays with their conventions and combines it to a truely outwordly spectacle. Whether he plays it straight and showcases the beauty and grandeur of each musical epoch with "Ouran Highschool Host Club" or goes completly of the walls with "Broken Blade" and "Death Note", full of Italian Opera kitch, Schoenbergian chaos and even Hollywood bombast, he all does it so effortlessly and never with pastiche, he actually lives all the different periods of orchestral music like he's been there and studied with the greats. There's just so much going on in just one minute of his music, orchestral techniques long forgotten by most, complex dissonance that never feels snobish or out of place, counterpoint upon counterpoint upon counterpoint ... I wish I had just a fraction of his mind.
The only thing that limits his greatness is the recording environment in japan and budget concerns.
If he was a regular at Warsaw we could have had hundreds of Nascent Requiems, just let that sink in for a moment...

This album is a perfect overview for this truely marvelous composer, showcasing his style in many different genres and it's also a good selection of his very best.
My favorites are Ouran, Broken Blade, Driland and (yes srsly) HunterXHunter. I also really love the use of human voices in Broken Blade, this is no Lisa Gerrard kitch :D
While he is not my favorite composer he certainly is the most talented and gifted among the many media composers working today, at least when it comes to orchestral music and I have heard none better yet.




Enjoy

So not only is there a NEW AQUARION coming; yes, another one; but BONES has a new series coming that reunites Michiru Oshima with Masahiro Ando. The duo previously teamed up on, yup, Zetsuen no Tempest.
Snow White with the Red Hair, it'll be called.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????! (http://yaraon.blog109.fc2.com/blog-entry-30269.html)

Sigh. Life is good.

I should just stop reading any news for now, so many good stuff coming this year it's unreal. Also, Shingeki no Bahamut has a full 3CD + Bluray (Sessions) release in april. I think I will be broke by the end of the year if this continues.

Check out Elements Garden new Project Dance with Devils (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6B30gzTXxU), proper english choir and the same gothic writing as in Symphogear (I'm serious, put this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdVvu6CkG7Y) and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juGK1xYbYOg) in front of the LSO and it blows the hell out of Bloodborne).

EDIT: This year :D ... Hitoshi Sakimoto scores Chaos Dragon, a fantasy war story which should have a generous budget, this summer. Possibly another Romeo X Juliet but I will not be euphoric until I hear a real orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEmmNL8M7U&feature=youtu.be

Trailer up for Final Symphony! This is going to be glorious!

This is awesome. But it better be available as a lossless download not just iTunes because that would be a real shame if that was all we got. It sounds fantastic from the video there.

EDIT: As to the above, my problem with Death Note has always been the ridiculous clipping on the choral parts. It is so bad it ruins my ability to enjoy the music.

Are they new arrangements? I can't wait to play "spot the classical reference." They do a good job on those, especially in that Lost Odyssey arrangement.

Anyone happen to have Kenji Kawai's Hana Moyu score? It was released February 4th I believe.

The only place I know where it's uploaded is Xiami: ?????(xiami.com) - ????? ?? ?? (http://www.xiami.com/album/21034101)

nextday,

Unfortunately, it says I can't get it due to the service not being available in my country :(.

for those who are interested~

http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/@0_mall/book/cabinet/8254/4988021818254.jpg

AAC@256k (145mb)
https://www.sendspace.com/file/60mv1n

re: findings on net, credit goes to the original uploader~ :D

Well, Ninninger is in.

Kousuke Yamashita has written a crappy score for EWQL brass, two violins, sixty taiko drums, and Lisa Gerrard on vocals...

...Bullshit! As usual, the first episode is a bad place to get a genuine feel for the score as a whole, but so far all signs are pointing to something fantastic - we will have to wait and see if it surpasses Gokaiger but it certainly has the potential. Yamashita is burning with enthusiasm - even after a decade in Sentai and this being his third entry in the series there is a sense of newness and joy in the music - and it's jam-packed with those wonderful "added value" moments that are inevitable when you've got a composer of his calibre on board.

The integration of the title theme into the score goes much further than the usual token Sahashi orchestral arrangement of the song - we're talking about harmonies, melodies, and fragments of melodies turning up as leitmotifs. As befitting the Ninja theme and slightly more grown-up tone of the show, Yamashita plays with the "house style" by sneaking in black-note heavy oriental scales and traditional instrumentation. What we're going to get is quite clear; a musically serious, completely straight Japanese-infused symphonic score. No condescending, no time wasting, no short-cuts... just Yamashita going hell-for-leather.

No concerns over ensemble size (BIG) or cost-cutting (NONE) either - this is going to be good.

THANK YOU Sentai producers for keeping this up - and for hiring such a diverse mixture of composers - the new guy (Haneoka), the veteran (Sahashi), and the young genius at the height of his powers (Yamashita)... and for not cheaping out on music at a time where budgets are probably under threat... and where there are undoubtedly endless questions being asked about the economic wisdom of recording HOURS of orchestral music with a 60 piece ensemble for a kids show about plastic toys fighting in matchbox cities.

Anyone listened to Taku Iwasaki's Akame ga Kill soundtrack? It was just released a few days ago. He wrote around three hours of music for this show and had a nice big budget for it.

There's a little bit of everything. The usual experimental stuff, a few orchestral tracks (lots of percussion/guitars/choral chanting though), a few heartwarming strings pieces, and a bit of jazz. Not really a return to form or anything but it's different.

Disc 2 - Track 1 - Incursio: Incursio - Listen and download mp3 - Kiwi6 Mp3 Upload (http://kiwi6.com/file/6ciid2n77e)
Disc 2 - Track 19 - I've got to go home: I've got to go home - Listen and download mp3 - Kiwi6 Mp3 Upload (http://kiwi6.com/file/62fso0vvps)

There is supposed to be another CD on the way as well. Really wish Taku's older scores got the treatment his recent ones are getting. Release 1 or 2 OSTs and put the unreleased stuff in enclosures. Not a bad deal honestly. Kekkashi and Soul Eater got shafted pretty hard =/. Does this sort of thing have to do with the publisher or something else?

Anyways the score really is awesome. Kinpaku for some reason hits the spot for me. That guitar and menacing orchestra mesh so well together. Perfect for any "Stand off" situations.
03. kinpaku - Listen and download mp3 - Kiwi6 Mp3 Upload (http://kiwi6.com/file/ge9yksh4ux)

Can't recommend the show itself. It was horrible experience and the only reason I continued to watch it was because of Taku.

Bored on a Sunday, here's some thoughts for Le Dernier Loup (Wolf Totem.)

Track 02 - 1:50
Horner does Lost! Awesome!

Track 03 - 2:23
More Lost!

Track 03 - 4:25
Some Braveheart in here.

Track 03 - 4:50
Sounds similar to Dragonheart theme now. Not Brave, but Dragon.

Track 03 - 5:55
This theme reminds me of Poledouris's Cherry 2000.

Track 04 - 1:50
Some Deep Impact in here...

Track 04 - 2:35
Some Aliens in here, but overall, decent action track.

Track 05
Love the string work in this one, very Goldenthal-ish.
Some Vaughan Williams Antarctica stuff in there too.

Track 05 - 1:55
Great statements of themes over action rhythm.

Track 05 - 3:35
There's that four-note danger motif!

Track 06 - 1:15
Wow, this is like 80s Horner here. Nice!

Track 07
I'm starting to notice this theme is a variation of Horner's Spider-man theme.

Track 08 - 2:05
This soundtrack is really bi-polar. One moment dramatic, next moment cartoonish.

Track 11
Nice use of strings!

Track 11 - 2:20
Sorta sounding like Spider-man here.

Track 11 - 4:25
Woah... amazing call and response writing here in the strings!

Track 13 - 2:20
This is the circle of fifths at work for those music theory types out there.

Track 13 - 3:05
What is this? Krull??

Track 13 - 4:50
I wish this was the music in Interstellar.

Overall: 3/5
Nothing stands out as being exceptional. There are many moments that drone on, and many that seem too brief. The best aspect is there is a lot of new stuff in here, almost like Horner is experimenting with orchestral textures, especially those involving strings. My guess is Horner wrote this for strings, and the other orchestral parts were an after-thought, maybe by the orchestrator(s)?

Thank you for Hana Moyu, Microbear!

It is almost like Christmas for me today as I just bought Final Symphony and it is the best Final Fantasy orchestra album ever made, imo. The clarity of the recording is just perfect and there are a few extras on the album that I didn't expect. Anyone else buy this yet? It is literally a steal for $9.99.

Thank you for Hana Moyu, Microbear!

It is almost like Christmas for me today as I just bought Final Symphony and it is the best Final Fantasy orchestra album ever made, imo. The clarity of the recording is just perfect and there are a few extras on the album that I didn't expect. Anyone else buy this yet? It is literally a steal for $9.99.

I will be buying it as soon as it is released somewhere other than iTunes in a format that is proper CD quality. I don't really want to order a CD but if that is the only way to pay for CD quality I will do that. This is the problem with iTunes becoming the go-to store for these things. There is still no decent mainstream site for CD quality downloads. It doesn't seem to be on HDTracks.

I am boycotting Final Symphony because an iTunes-only release in 2015 is an utter disgrace. Particularly when you've done your homework, hired one of the world's finest orchestras, and recorded them in arguably the best possible space... This is no cheap crappy compilation album made for obnoxious wannabe 12-year-old hipster kids, a-la Tallarico's atrocious Video Games Live. This is a genuinely brave attempt at serious music. Why do you have every single aspect of your project scream out prestige and quality, then you cripple your release with a poor quality lossy release - a regression of over thirty-five years in terms of sound quality, and in a mix explicitly made badly so it sounds good on cheap earbud earphones?

Seriously. What a step backwards. "Mastered for iTunes" is nothing more than "badly mastered for easy listening in noisy environments" which is a development of the shameless manipulation that went on in the 1960s where engineers mixed their records to sound decent on plastic Dansette turntables. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If anybody with influence is listening: For Christ's sake, a CD-quality release of Final Symphony; an absolute necessity.

No longer sharing. Sorry.

If you think Final Symphony is badly mastered, that's still nothing compared to Go Shiina's recent God Eater 2. There's some great larger than life moments in that score but it's completely ruined by overprocessing (a monstrosity of compression and an unrealistic mix). Do engineers don't know (or care) anymore how a real orchestra sounds and more importantly does no one around Shiina know how to mix synth, band, vocals and effects with an orchestra properly so that it sounds natural and not painful to the ears (you know the thing I'm supposed to hire an engineer for). Thankfully it's not everywhere and I couldn't care less if RC does it but it's especially painful when it's good music purposely fucked up. It's infuriating.

The mastering is actually pretty good on the whole - good (not great) dynamic range and the orchestra actually has real presence in a real acoustic space - listen to that swirling growling brass in the overture, or the strings/woodwind interplay at 1:55. You close your eyes and you can almost map out the layout of the orchestra in your head. That's a sensation completely absent from most modern recordings. This recording sounds like the LSO in Abbey Road 1. It doesn't sound like anybody else, anywhere else. It captures the room. It's a modern-sounding mix but it's not all bad.

What I object to is a) lossy, and b) mastered for iTunes. This is where they take a good mastering and fiddle with it so it sounds better on Apple earbuds in noisy environments. This needs a proper studio-quality release like no other game music album IN HISTORY BAR NONE.

Additionally, it's a shocking injustice to slap the names of Uematsu and Hamauzu on this thing as composers. Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo wrote this thing. They used raw material written by others. They deserve a composer credit.

But then "Jonne Valtonen - Symphony No. 1, incorporating melodies by Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu" doesn't sell as many downloads as "NOBUO UEMATSU ACCLAIMED SUPERHUMAN GENIUS FINAL SYMPHONY OMFG ROFL AWESOMESAUCE!!!!!!!!!!" now does it...

As for Shiina... I haven't heard God Eater, but he needs to shoot his engineers whoever they are. As a rule he works with decent orchestrators (Wataru Hokoyama, Hironore Osone, Natsumi Kameoka, Sachiko Miyano - no slouches) and his orchestral scores are blessed with above-average ensemble sizes... and they all - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM except Legendia - sound like complete and utter shit.

It takes a special kind of incompetence in the control room to make a 70 piece orchestra sound like half the Yu Sugino Group with one flute, one trumpet, and a bunch of synthesizers filling in the gaps.

Should I post FLAC release of Final Symphony? I downloaded it from what.cd and checked, it's real.

Yeah, I don't understand why HD Tracks or Qobuz wouldn't have been at least as economical for a CD quality release. But since high-bitrate lossy is transparent for me anyway and I don't plan on doing any editing with it, I can make do with this for now. It sounds much better than the audience recordings we've had up to this point and it was only $10 versus importing from Europe or Japan for $40.

I also agree that Valtonen and Wanamo deserve equal composer credit. But considering the YouTube videos are littered with comments praising Uematsu's mastery of the orchestra... Spaghetti monster, people are dumb sometimes.


Should I post FLAC release of Final Symphony? I downloaded it from what.cd and checked, it's real.

Where could that have come from? It's the same as the official release?

Should I post FLAC release of Final Symphony? I downloaded it from what.cd and checked, it's real.

yes please :D

@Tango

I just can't comprehend it, the music in God Eater 2 could be fucking amazing, heroic orchestral bombast of the highest caliber with a 7:40 minute orchestral-ballad that would definetly move me to tears... but fuck no, we can't have nice things. It sounds straight out of a garage and is ruined by damage (the software), dubstep and other things so upfront in the mix that I wonder why even hire so many people and talent just to burry them so far behind. It's really disrespectful to musicians in my eyes. Not to mention that it's pretty inefficent if you spent a generous amount of money on the music and the focus is on an ensemble of synthezisers and software programs I can afford for a few hundred dollars. For the budget involved I bet I could fly to Budapest and book a few hours with a 60 piece orchestra and still have plenty of money left.

Regarding composer credit: It's in general an unjust world when it comes to that. For example, the orchestral score for the recent Ace Combat games as well as Kid Icarus Uprising are really good because of Natsumi Kameoka, so she should have had her name on the cover instead of Shiina and Sakuraba. Hopefully Kantai sets things right and she gets the recognition she deserves.

@TazerMonkey
I don't have much detail, just "Original Release / Merregnon Studios / WEB"

Final Symphony - FLAC
Final Symphony LSO.rar - Solidfiles (http://www.solidfiles.com/d/fd4ee83130/Final_Symphony_LSO.rar)

^I don't believe it, and yet it is real! Thanks man. I wonder if someone with the production leaked this because I can't find a reference to a lossless release anywhere. I'm withdrawing my share in favor of this lossless version.

@Tango

I just can't comprehend it, the music in God Eater 2 could be fucking amazing, heroic orchestral bombast of the highest caliber with a 7:40 minute orchestral-ballad that would definetly move me to tears... but fuck no, we can't have nice things. It sounds straight out of a garage and is ruined by damage (the software), dubstep and other things so upfront in the mix that I wonder why even hire so many people and talent just to burry them so far behind. It's really disrespectful to musicians in my eyes. Not to mention that it's pretty inefficent if you spent a generous amount of money on the music and the focus is on an ensemble of synthezisers and software programs I can afford for a few hundred dollars. For the budget involved I bet I could fly to Budapest and book a few hours with a 60 piece orchestra and still have plenty of money left.

Regarding composer credit: It's in general an unjust world when it comes to that. For example, the orchestral score for the recent Ace Combat games as well as Kid Icarus Uprising are really good because of Natsumi Kameoka, so she should have had her name on the cover instead of Shiina and Sakuraba. Hopefully Kantai sets things right and she gets the recognition she deserves.

I had the same problem with many other recent big orchestral scores. Castlevania Lord of Shadows 2 for one and Dragon's Dogma another. People tell me I'm crazy because it sounds epic and they love it. Those same people love the way Hans Zimmer made Man of Steel and Interstellar sound. Sorry but no. Neither sounds proper in the slightest. I might buy a copy of Final Symphony at some point but only if they get their act together and release a lossless download. If I was able to do a lossless download of Distant Worlds 2 5 years ago through Bandcamp I think they could do the same here. It isn't that hard folks.

Uhhh duders, just to clarify, Hamauzu DID compose on Final Symphony. The FFX piano concerto is all him.

Also I'm sure the London Philharmonic is excited to be recording the score for Avengers Age of Ultron at Abbey Road with Brian Tyler conducting. /sarcasm/ I don't hold out much hope for any decent quality orchestrations in this score any more than he gave us in his previous Marvel efforts. I marvel that someone with such an opportunity wouldn't add in any decent orchestrations.

I really don't want to come across like a cock... but regarding the lossless version of Final Symphony floating around... can I ask what kind of "checking" has been going on, and how you are apparently certain this is real? I ask because a) it obviously isn't, because b) there IS NO LOSSLESS RELEASE, and c) nobody on the production would be foolish enough to voluntarily make available a better quality free version of the thing they just spent a hundred grand recording in the first place.

Attention, folks! Danger, Will Robinson! Transcode! Fake!

My poor tin ears really can't discern all that easily, but I can say the recording sounds crystal clear, there's no audience noise of any kind, and the Piano Concerto includes the extra reference to The Sending they added during the London recording. Need to listen to the rest, and I'm planning on buying anyway, but this sounds legit near as I can tell.

As legit as MP3 320. Sounds good, but there's no point to convert it to FLAC and quadruple the file size.

I am boycotting Final Symphony because an iTunes-only release in 2015 is an utter disgrace. Particularly when you've done your homework, hired one of the world's finest orchestras, and recorded them in arguably the best possible space... This is no cheap crappy compilation album made for obnoxious wannabe 12-year-old hipster kids, a-la Tallarico's atrocious Video Games Live. This is a genuinely brave attempt at serious music. Why do you have every single aspect of your project scream out prestige and quality, then you cripple your release with a poor quality lossy release - a regression of over thirty-five years in terms of sound quality, and in a mix explicitly made badly so it sounds good on cheap earbud earphones?

Seriously. What a step backwards. "Mastered for iTunes" is nothing more than "badly mastered for easy listening in noisy environments" which is a development of the shameless manipulation that went on in the 1960s where engineers mixed their records to sound decent on plastic Dansette turntables. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If anybody with influence is listening: For Christ's sake, a CD-quality release of Final Symphony; an absolute necessity.

Thomas actually had stated on my wall that there will most certainly be a physical cd release later this year. For now they are focused on just digital release for the moment.

I mean for $9.99 it isn't that much to drop. It is better than any of the bootlegs out there and iTunes could honestly learn from the sound quality that Merregnon Studios have achieved. And this certainly will tide me over until the physical cd is released. I am sure the quality of that will exceed what we currently have ;).

Now... is everyone happy? :).

It's a studio recording! :)

That said, the audience were nice and quiet on the night - they could've got away with releasing that and nobody would've complained... but I'm still delighted that they managed to do a full album recording.

*hugs NaotaM*

*hugs everybody*

:D

How does everyone like the music? I have to be honest that Symphonic Fantasies didn't warrant multiple listens for me. I don't know but, these game music "symphonies" sound more like a hodgepodge of melodies inoffensively woven together. While orchestration is convincing, the music itself sounds soulless.

The FF X Piano Concerto sounds enticing, though. Has to be said that I'm still glad it received a release.

I really don't want to come across like a cock... but regarding the lossless version of Final Symphony floating around... can I ask what kind of "checking" has been going on, and how you are apparently certain this is real? I ask because a) it obviously isn't, because b) there IS NO LOSSLESS RELEASE, and c) nobody on the production would be foolish enough to voluntarily make available a better quality free version of the thing they just spent a hundred grand recording in the first place.

Attention, folks! Danger, Will Robinson! Transcode! Fake!
(http://imgur.com/oZCOXUe)

Seems legit to me, 'though I am in no way an expert at judging from spectrals (and have not bothered to check each and every track).

A spectral scan means absolutely nothing. This is still a transcode from iTunes.

Thomas actually had stated on my wall that there will most certainly be a physical cd release later this year. For now they are focused on just digital release for the moment.

I mean for $9.99 it isn't that much to drop. It is better than any of the bootlegs out there and iTunes could honestly learn from the sound quality that Merregnon Studios have achieved. And this certainly will tide me over until the physical cd is released. I am sure the quality of that will exceed what we currently have ;).

Now... is everyone happy? :).

Nobody is demanding a CD but they are demanding digital release to be more than iTunes. The fact that they couldn't really figure out why I was disappointed in it only being on iTunes shows they don't really understand the quality loss or don't care. It has nothing to do with cost but even then I would say iTunes is NOT a bargain at $9.99 considering what you get, despite everyone making it seem like it is. $9.99 should be the price of a lossless download but somehow they picked that amount and stuck with it. I'm tired of people suggesting that releasing something in an inferior format made for portable listening is good enough and we should accept it. No, just no.

But quality aside, I am a bit disappointed in how they made this much darker than previous arrangements in some of the more understandably dark themes. The added dissonance is quite unsettling and not what I like to hear. Specifically One Winged Angel stuff is really sinister now.

A spectral scan means absolutely nothing
Well it can be hard to tell between very good encodes and lossless source using spectrals, but it does not mean nothing, it should at least show you this is not sourced from MP3 320CBR.
If someone made the iTunes AAC available, we could compare them with the FLAC that same way and would (most probably) see it is legit.

Additionally, it's a shocking injustice to slap the names of Uematsu and Hamauzu on this thing as composers. Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo wrote this thing. They used raw material written by others. They deserve a composer credit.
On the plus side it might open the door for more ghostwriting of pure-orchestral musics. Hopefully the response is good to stuff like this.

If someone made the iTunes AAC available

...we would get exactly the same quality as this FLAC, but the files would be about 4 times smaller.

I feel I need to say goodbye.

I could just leave without saying a word. This is the internet; I have that liberty. But I don’t think that would be really fair to this group. This communication, the discussions, and the music that was shared here really fundamentally solidified what I enjoy listening to. And when something establishes what you listen to, I think you owe whatever that is an explanation for why you are leaving it behind.

So guys, I am leaving because I am sick and tired of being the optimist. As the years have gone by, media music has become more and more what I thought we would be looking for. We are stepping away from the Remote Control style of music, with no themes whatsoever and reliance on repetitive notes. We’re seeing large scale orchestra make one hell of a return to movies and games – and instead of celebrating that, you guys seem to be damning them even more.

And I don’t even understand that even more. The criticism is becoming even more critical, and the language that is being expressed has long since reached the limits of absurdity. Assessing that every composer in the west is talentless, that composers of worth have only one, if any words of merit…I can’t comprehend it anymore. I take a look at some of the opinions, and I feel like I am reminded of the “old guard of tabletop”, who are so stuck in the past and can only insist that games can only be made in one way.
It’s tiring to be the one guy that says, “Guys, it is not even close to being as bad as you insist it is”. So I need to leave. I will probably still post my rips – which most of you probably won’t even like anyway. But don’t expect me to say anything because I don’t find any joy in debating with this hivemind anymore.

And that breaks my heart to say it, because for several years I really loved talking to you guys. Every time Tango got into one of his rants was a joy to read, to see someone communicate so eloquently and with such love for an art that he would rip his arm off for. I loved the talks that would really get into the heart of orchestral music, that would expose the artistres that I had no concept of.

Tango, if I have the pleasure to come to London, I’ll take you out for a pint anytime.

And Steichorchestra, if I ever get into the position of being in charge of a project that needs music, I will do everything I can to give you that job of composing for it. It is criminal that you don’t have that responsibility already, fantastic OCRemixes aside.

And Klnerfan, I hope you come to realize that just because it is from a modern Western composer that it isn’t shit, or from someone who is not talentless. The west has mode some wonderful contributions to music in the past 5 or so years.

Goodbye guys.

Oh boy... hard to tell you this but west vs east doesn't matter, I couldn't care less where the music I love is being made but right now it's an island on the other side of the world. As someone who listens to much classical music from Baroque to Opera and is in love with the music of the golden and silver age of Hollywood I say there's plenty of that sound quality in Japan today and barely anything in the west (at least I don't hear it) so there you have my focus. Just for the record, my first music was german classic, I grew up on american film and jazz music and my favorite composer to this day is still russian.

There's plenty of modern western composers I like/love: John Debney, Lennie Moore, Grant Kirkhope, Tilman Silenscu, Garry Schyman, Paul Arnold & Andrew Barnabas, Ben Foster, Joel McNeely, Christopher L. Stone, James Seymour Brett, Bruce Broughton, James Horner, Mike Verta, Jeremy Soule (yes really), Laura Karpman, James Hannigan, Steve Burke, Kai Rosenkranz, Joris De Man, Chris Huelsbeck, Yury Poteyenko, Thomas & David Newman, Eckart Seeber and many many more. Not to mention the millions of composers already past away.

What matters is the music, not the nationality. The "Japanese" stuff makes just about 30% of my collection. I don't believe that you could have missed my countless uploads featuring western composers (I even nominated Outcast as the finest game score ever written) and just a few months ago I was singing praises for Mike Batt and recently Benny Oshmann. So I think you either don't read this thread at all or you're just fooling yourself. And for the millionth time, till my grave: Jupiter Ascending is boring and Giacchino shows no skill. Get over it.





That said I wish you the best. To leave is your decision and your liberty.

Goodbye

Doublehex; I've considered you a friend for almost eight years but I don't even know your name. I ribbed you the last time you made a post like this - I regret that. I think you're being ludicrous, illogical, and hypocritical - but God help me, the thought of you clearing off honestly brings a tear to my eyes... and I've got no qualms at all about saying:

My friend, please don't go.

If you think we're wrong... for Christ's sake come and tell us. That's how this place works. You see us (me? klner? others?) as overly-critical and pessimistic... but we see only realism. Things have got better - 1% better. When the cancer's reduced by 1% you don't stop the chemotherapy. Winston Churchill said "If you're going through hell, keep going" - a step in the right direction isn't the end of the journey and if you pretend that it is because you're thrilled that the scenery finally changed a little... that's the first and LAST step you'll take. There are things to enjoy, but the road is LONG and the moment people stop caring and overstating the distance covered... my friend, that's when you lose ALL the momentum you spent so much energy to build. Getting "The Amazing Spiderman" doesn't mean we should lose sight of the goal which is another "Star Trek II". Because Henry Jackman manages to sneak an actual melody into a superhero movie score, it doesn't mean we should forget about Superman.

We are here because of GREAT THINGS and today, right now, there are NO GREAT THINGS. You can tell me all about some recent score that didn't TOTALLY SUCK and I might even enjoy listening to that score a couple of times, take it upon its own merits... but I cannot pretend that Ben Hur, Superman, Star Wars, Capricorn One, Star Trek II, Citizen Kane, Masada, and The Blue Max never happened and aren't each one of them individually superior to Hollywood's ENTIRE OUTPUT over the last two decades. We can listen to some recent score that didn't TOTALLY SUCK, but I cannot pretend that musically, a shit Japanese cartoon created to sell plastic toys and made with a budget of �10 doesn't wipe the floor with it. We cannot pretend that Henry Jackman is John Williams, or Brian Tyler is Jerry Goldsmith. That's not pessimism, that's not wrong - it's sad, and it's the truth. We plan for the journey. We take the baby steps.

There is so much positivity in this thread - YOU NEVER SEE IT BECAUSE YOU'RE NEVER BLOODY HERE! You turn up every fifty pages or so - usually conveniently right in the middle of a particularly grumpy exchange - and you bemoan us for being grumpy and then you disappear again. Come back! Join in. Read the damn thread. Feel it again.

I almost left completely a little while back because I wasn't feeling it any more. But it comes back.

If this thread really has got to the point where it alienates its own... I feel like I wouldn't be interested in continuing either.

Doublehex; please reconsider. That's a heartfelt and genuine plea; from the guy who would sit and drink with you all day long if you came to London. Just think about it?

:)

we should star in a sitcom about a group of very different film music enthusiast living under one roof.

also the LSO performance of the final symphony is outstanding.even in itunes form a killer recording.

We're just in a weird type of dark ages for music.

The most popular film composer right now is Zimmer. The most popular game composer is Soule. The most popular classical/concert composer is Eric Whitacre. And even these folk are past their prime.

The music industry is about image, and the movie industry is about box office. Popularity is being driven by money, so that's where the artistry has been hi-jacked, to no one's surprise.

Tango uses Star Trek II as an example. This was a movie that was not made to smash the box office, cater to all audiences, sell millions of soundtrack CDs, etc. It was a niche movie. Even Star Wars was never expected to be the culture-changer it was (Lucas bet Spielberg that Close Encounters would be the bigger success.) Horner was a former classical guy, learned in the ways of Prokofiev and Mahler, hired to be the next Jerry Goldsmith. Of course he'd knock it out of the park. Now they don't really hire classical guys anymore, which sucks, because I think Thomas Ades would be a great film composer. Just listen to Tevot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_vVN7ONPnc This would be an insane sci-fi soundtrack!

When something new is released and we bash it, it's not just because we find problems with it, but because we understand the root of the problem still exists. Just because Final Symphony is extremely well orchestrated/produced doesn't mean there isn't an undercurrent of fan-service that permeates through the music. When compared to the gold standard of Shiro Hamaguchi it falls short. When compared to Total Annihilation, Soule's Skyrim falls short. When compared to the Lion King, everything Zimmer has done since falls short. As for Whitacre, well, he's just giving audiences what they want.

I have to respectfully disagree that there is a return of large scale orchestral music, at least on the same level of artistry as before, and not fueled by commercialism. You'll have to excuse those of us who have become pessimistic this millenium.

I really wish I didn't have to be negative all the time. My husband knows I like to bitch like any queer out there but I do so because there is so much better we could see in many varied respects. As many of you know, the past few years with the very occasional decent score released I have moved further into exploring the earlier works of artistry out there from before I started collecting. The occasional score has been released lately that wasn't available when I started collecting but was written before I was born and usually those are glorious (Obsession Complete by Music Box is a JOY!).

After it is much easier for us to identify things that we don't like than things we do. It is just the nature of the beast. Sure I will occasionally enjoy some newer score but often times it is not up to the standards of the greats that I am learning to appreciate more and more. Is it bad to hold new releases to the standards of old? Some would say yes and that the styles and tastes are different and the musical demands of new films are different but that doesn't stop me from hoping that one day a new score will be released that is up to the quality of For Whom the Bell Tolls (1958) or even Warriors of Virtue (1997). Music is about bringing joy to life and something either grabs you or it doesn't.

I don't for a second wish I hadn't gushed about The Mortal Instruments City of Bones by a composer I had previously never in a million years expected I would have enjoyed a score from. I connected to it in ways that others didn't. That doesn't mean that the underlying composition or orchestration was any good, but I liked the themes so I enjoyed it. Some of the best fun can be had when we convince others to like something that they didn't appreciate initially. If not we can enjoy the discussion and what comes from it.

If everything goes as planned I will be meeting Tango for a few pints later this year and I hope that others in this thread feel free to reach out to me if they ever make it out to San Diego and want to share a few pints.

btw i do agree about bloodborne sounding rather soulless compared to its predeccessors.(pun intended) doesn�t need to be true for the whole thing, but its off to a bad start.i know that dark souls 1 and 2 are mostly if not completely orchestral, but how is demon souls? i played it yet completely forgot about the music.

I am boycotting Final Symphony because an iTunes-only release in 2015 is an utter disgrace. Particularly when you've done your homework, hired one of the world's finest orchestras, and recorded them in arguably the best possible space... This is no cheap crappy compilation album made for obnoxious wannabe 12-year-old hipster kids, a-la Tallarico's atrocious Video Games Live. This is a genuinely brave attempt at serious music. Why do you have every single aspect of your project scream out prestige and quality, then you cripple your release with a poor quality lossy release - a regression of over thirty-five years in terms of sound quality, and in a mix explicitly made badly so it sounds good on cheap earbud earphones?

Seriously. What a step backwards. "Mastered for iTunes" is nothing more than "badly mastered for easy listening in noisy environments" which is a development of the shameless manipulation that went on in the 1960s where engineers mixed their records to sound decent on plastic Dansette turntables. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

If anybody with influence is listening: For Christ's sake, a CD-quality release of Final Symphony; an absolute necessity.
Could you please elaborate some specifics on what was manipulated? Genuinely curious. Sound production interests me, but I know not enough of it to write it in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR2WoEnpri0

Moved beyond words... This new composition by Bear McCreary fuses together styles by Gershwin, Debussy, and Ravel. The vocals are just angelic and the lyrics haunting resonating in the deepest facets of my soul. He needs to write music like this more often! He is very capable!

EDIT: beating a dead horse

I checked the FLAC version of Final Symphony by Adobe Auditon, Lossless Audio Checker. Are they accurate enough?

Additionally, it's a shocking injustice to slap the names of Uematsu and Hamauzu on this thing as composers. Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo wrote this thing. They used raw material written by others. They deserve a composer credit.

I agree with your opinion that the 'composed by' section is misleading to many who know next to nothing about music, but you're wrong regarding Hamauzu as both he and Wanamo share arranger credits on the FFX piano concerto. So, as opposed to Uematsu who merely supervised the whole thing (aka do nothing but utilize his star status to draw a crowd), Hamauzu actively worked on the piano concerto.

I checked the FLAC version of Final Symphony by Adobe Auditon, Lossless Audio Checker. Are they accurate enough?
About that, I think the subject would better be dropped, because previous posts show discussion is clearly not going to get any more constructive.
What I can tell you, however, is that Lossless Audio Checker is likely to give a lot of false-positives and false-negatives: a look at spectrograms is better a bet than a "true/false" guess from that program :)

FWIW, I put the MP3 of my version of track 1 with the FLAC from tri's upload into Audacity. The MP3 is on top and the FLAC is on bottom:



The frequency cut-off is apparent on the 320k but not on the FLAC; I'd say it appears legitimate, but to my ears that lossy bitrate is transparent anyway, so it's simply a matter of having the higher quality for archival purposes for me. If they do a physical release, I'll be first in line so this is all academic. At least it sounds pretty good at any rate.

About that, I think the subject would better be dropped, because previous posts show discussion is clearly not going to get any more constructive.
What I can tell you, however, is that Lossless Audio Checker is likely to give a lot of false-positives and false-negatives: a look at spectrograms is better a bet than a "true/false" guess from that program :)

Nothing will be gained by discouraging discussion. This thread is heading towards its eighth birthday for exactly that reason.

That said... looking at spectograms to determine whether a source is genuinely lossless works - SOMETIMES. MP3 is usually easy to spot because default encoding parameters resulty in visually conspicuous spectrograms; the staged lowpass filter (the exact nature of which varies with encoder, version, and parameters but usually follows the pattern of quieter sounds filtered at 16khz, mid-range sounds filtered at 18khz, and high-range sounds filtered at 20khz), for example.

One circumstance under which it most emphatically DOESN'T work is high-bitrate lossy AAC files, as offered by iTunes.

The best and optimum quality version of Final Symphony is the original AAC download from iTunes at ~256kbps VBR.

Again, the FLAC is a transcode! If somebody has the original AAC download, I'll happily prove it.

KANCOLLE

Why is nobody talking about this score? It's glorious! Natsumi Kameoka has done what so many shit-hot orchestrators fail to do; make the leap from arranging other people's work to writing their own, making it utterly convincing and even exhibiting a strong individual style. Episode 8 has a GREAT cue. It's turns up in one of those immensely cliched "Tender Friendship Moment Gives Misunderstood Loner The Confidence To Do Something Amazing" scenes. Kameoka responds with a gorgeous, contemplative and melancholy woodwind (remember those???) / strings passage that modulates into a gorgeous "moonlight heroism" moment. It's insanely well orchestrated, but it's great music and it sounds like Kameoka. Klnerfan and I both called it at the start of the series... but this is turning out to be really, really wonderful.

I think you're right, Tango. Thinking on it, if I remember correctly, the iTunes Plus files I used in my later Lair edit appeared to have a full spectrum, or close to it. I haven't used iTunes in years though and thought comparing to my MP3 was good enough. I've already proven to myself that I can't hear a difference between -v0 and higher MP3 and FLAC. Oh well.

In other news, I'll no longer be sharing openly on the forums or probably participating at all outside of this thread. And since I barely contribute in here anymore, maybe I should just leave entirely.

So, what's the source of your MP3? Google Play or Google search?

I can send the original uploader of the FLAC a message and see what he says. The What.CD community is pretty good at finding things so it wouldn't surprise me if the FLAC is legit.

I think you're right, Tango. Thinking on it, if I remember correctly, the iTunes Plus files I used in my later Lair edit appeared to have a full spectrum, or close to it. I haven't used iTunes in years though and thought comparing to my MP3 was good enough. I've already proven to myself that I can't hear a difference between -v0 and higher MP3 and FLAC. Oh well.

In other news, I'll no longer be sharing openly on the forums or probably participating at all outside of this thread. And since I barely contribute in here anymore, maybe I should just leave entirely.

No, no, no! Why is everybody wanting to leave? :( :( :( :(

So, what's the source of your MP3? Google Play or Google search?

Google Play.

Case in point, the orchestral score of Kancolle is written like it's 1977 again and it's written like any great war score of that time would (1941, Midway, Tora Tora Tora), just fantastic stuff so far. Gundam the Origin is marvelous as well. So retro but that's how the japanese roll. There's a heart attack in congress and it's like I'm in the year 1960 and Hitchcock just told Bernard Herrmann how to score the shower scene. Words can't describe how thankful I am that this country exists. There's a major motion picture this year in japan about an orchestra's struggle to perform Beethoven's 5th for christs sake. And don't forget the anime and live action of Nodame Cantabile. They really treasure and hold dear classical music and pay great respect to it. They don't belittle it as the "stuff only old farts listen to". There's at least one or two soundtracks every month with a classical piece on them, no matter how much of the other stuff is cutesy J-Pop. Bravo!



Speaking of Beethoven's 5th, Akira Miyagawa had a little fun with it :D (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEdXagVh-Rs)

REIJIRO KOROKU - UNDER AURORA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
FLAC, LOG, CUE | 227.9 MB | 16 TRACKS | 00:51:08
Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Mark Ermler


Catalog Number: TYCY-5138
Release Date: Jul 11, 1990

Tracklist
01. The Land of Siberia
02. Damuka's Death
03. Arseniy and Genzo
04. Bran's Birth
05. Revenge (http://kiwi6.com/file/pso3s4qd4b) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif
06. The Frozen Forest
07. Anna's Feelings
08. Damuka: The Story of the Forest
09. Bran's Growth
10. Under Aurora
11. Separation
12. A Journey of Ice and Snow
13. Bran: Reunion
14. Rocky Road
15. The End of the Journey
16. Wanderer (Russian Folk Song)

Ripped, translated, etc. by me.

Download: https://mega.co.nz/#!sFtFSQTb!UtP8X9sIDttXqzLP1ukwkXOoX5WRzsT690B4RD8 TyvE

In 1990, Reijiro Koroku traveled to the historic Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow to record music for a relatively unknown Russian-Japanese co-production called Under Aurora. The result is a rich and symphonic work that is easily stands out one of his best scores to date. The highlights of this soundtrack are the main theme "The Land of Siberia" and the "Revenge" theme which both appear in numerous tracks. All in all it's a very robust, emotional score from a composer that would later go on to score two Taiga dramas and multiple films. Koroku isn't too active these days unfortunately. He currently teaches at the Tokyo College of Music where he has been a professor to newcomers such as Tatsuya Kato.

I contacted the origial uploader of Final Symphony FLAC at what.cd. He said lossless version is real and approved by what.cd staff, he is not allowed to disscuss about sources.

BRA?BRA FINAL FANTASY / BRASS de BRAVO | SQUARE ENIX (http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/page/brabraff/bdeb/)

This seems quite promising to me... I enjoy wind albums like this. Hopefully they give Final Fantasy the attention that Dragon Quest gets with arranged albums ;). I am really liking how Never Look Back ~ Dead End from FFVIII sounds. This certainly beats the A New World album by the Distant Worlds team.

What is what.cd?

What is what.cd?
A private music torrent tracker.

A private tracker for music. 2.1 million torrents currently.

Here's two of my favorite symphonic works. Both by Dave Roylance and Bob Galvin. Tango posted Tall Ships a long long time ago but since the link is down and hater reminded me to listen to those gems again, have my CD-rips.




The Tall Ships Suite
Ocean Fantasia
Voyager



composed and orchestrated by Dave Roylance and Bob Galvin

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Bill Connor
Piano: Alan Hicks

Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!T05CzYpT!F-1P5llyNRBR90KkPvlGk0GafHcmDAmJFedfMeQu62s)
FLAC


Just listening to the Opening fanfare of the first movement takes you out on a grand adventure across the ocean. Superb stuff that could indeed be mistaken for film music. For more information, here's Tango.


This is probably one of British classical music's best kept secrets. Long out of print, Dave Roylance's Tall Ships Suite is a massive, fully symphonic tone poem that evokes the majesty and sportsmanship of the grand "Tall Ships Races". It's a glorious piece, and one which you will absolutely adore if you have any affinity for larger-than-life, lush, sea-faring joy.

From the album sleeve notes...


The Tall Ships
Each year, as ambassadors for their respective countries, the International Fleet of Tall Ships visit selected ports throughout the world during the various stages of the Tall Ships Race. For each port of call, the arrival of this great flotilla offers an unparalleled spectacle and a rare opportunity to reach out and touch the living heritage of an ocean racing tradition that began in the age of the tea clippers. Whatever the size - barques or barquentines, sloops or schooners, there is no denying their enormous emotive appeal to the crowds - now in their millions - who flock to see them.
It was the advent of one of the most ambitious Tall Ships Races ever staged - the Grand Regatta Columbus '92 - that inspired Dave Roylance and Bob Galvin to compose the evocative music so magnificently recorded here by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra. Here, embodied in music, is all the excitement and nostalgia generated by a Grand Parade of Sail.
Beginning in April 1992, the Tall Ships sailed from Genoa and Lisbon via Cadiz and the Canaries to Puerto Rico, passing near the Bahamas to arrive in New York for Independence Day. Thence to Boston in July, for `Sail Boston 1992'. Then the race across the Atlantic, climaxing in the Port of Liverpool. There, in August, over one hundred Tall Ships, some with masts towering up to 250 feet above the waterline, will pass by some two million spectators in a Grand Parade of Sail as the Tall Ships leave to set out for their home ports.
Amidst this, the most memorable experience to be seen in any great port in our lifetimes, we should remember the admirable aims of sail training which bring together young people of many nations to face together the challenge of the sea and so contribute to international understanding.
Nigel Green, Chairman,UK Tall Ships Commitee
Composers Dave Roylance and Robert Galvin first met at a Liverpool recording session in 1980 and have since frequently worked together composing, recording and producing music embracing an enormous range of styles and disciplines.
When commissioned to write `The Tall Ships Suite' including 'Grand Parade of Sail', Roylance and Galvin drew heavily upon their experience in writing music for the screen, producing music of a highly descriptive nature. But background music this is not! Rich orchestration, strident themes and an abundant wealth of melodic invention make this music exciting and extremely entertaining - qualities inherent in the best tradition of classical Suites for orchestra.
The Tall Ships Suite, in three movements, symbolises in turn the spectacular start of the race, the journey (with storm) and the finish culminating in The Grand Parade of Sail.



Battle of the Atlantic Suite

composed and orchestrated by Dave Roylance and Bob Galvin



Hall� Orchestra and Hall� Choir conducted by Bill Connor
Fanfare Trumpeters of the Band of H.M. Royal Marines
Soprano: Lesley Garrett

Download (https://mega.co.nz/#!bl5FUI5T!W_6dDP3DpQVq4GtyBHvTIteq5YTKSi2RtWJI5jB 4TZ8)
FLAC


"The suite, in six contrasting movements, follows the journey of a World War II Allied convoy from it's departure port in the British Isles to Murmansk on the shores of Russia. The Crew faces many dangers and hardships from U-boats to floating ice making it psychologically disturbing and physically perilous. Against such adversity there's inner resolve and courage, the heart of the suite."

Quite different to the lush, vibrant and joyful Tall Ships. It's a serious and dramatic war score that fits the genre of "film music" even more than it's predecessor. The first piece "1943" is my favorite. The rythm reminds me much of Holst and the music paints the image of a gigantic battlefield. It would make one hell of an entrance to any battle scene, be it movie, game or series. Fantastic score.



You can still purchase some copies from amazon so if you don't have it in your collection there's still time.

By the way I thought I would share that if anyone here has not seriously listened to the score to Obsession by Bernard Herrmann that I really suggest you check out the new release by Music Box Records. It is quite lovely in presentation and has a nice full complete score in sound quality that is as pristine as it gets (minus a little minor hiss).

thank you many!

A quick question for anyone who might be able to help.

I've been trying to come up with a combination playlist for two composers that have a somewhat similar style to each other.
Here are the pairings I've made so far. Some of them were kind of made on whim though so feel free to correct me if you disagree and think someone else is more suitable.

Akira Senju + Toshiyuki Watanabe

Go Shiina + ?

Hikaru Nanase + ?


Taro Iwashiro + ?

Hiroshi Takaki + Koichiro Kameyama

Kotaro Nakagawa + Hitomi Kuroishi

Kaoru Wada + ?

Kenji Kawai + ?

Kousuke Yamashita + ?

Michiru Oshima + ?

Yukari Hashimoto + Ruka Kawada

Yasnori Mitsuda + Fukasawa Hideyuki

Yugo Kanno + Takayuki Hattori

Kaoru Wada + Akira Ifukube

Michiru Oshima + Yoko Kanno

I think Kohei Tanaka is more similar to Oshima than Kanno is. I'd probably put Kanno with Kousuke Yamashita.

And then I'd put Kenji Kawai with Yuki Kajiura.

In terms of orchestral music I think Hamaguchi is close to Tanaka.

I would also put Takaki and Yamashita together.

Takayuki Hattori is close to Kei Wakakusa.

Akira Senju sometimes reminds me of John Barry.

Toshiyuki Watanabe reminds me of Lee Holdridge.

Sahashi shares the same soundworld with Tatsumi Yano, Shihio Terada, Megumi Ohashi, Go Sakabe & many more. It's a very prominet style in japanese media.

Masamichi Amano borrows from so much Hollywood material but I think the most prominent is Alan Silvestri.

Naoki Sato is very close to Zimmer if Shirley Walker would still be alive and he became a serious orchestral composer. Perhaps late Horner could also work.

Yoko Kanno and Oshima have a very different style but sometimes share the same sources "Prokofiev". I would put Oshima close to Mikl�s R�zsa & Max Steiner and Kanno close to early Horner and John Williams.



In other news I'm very pleased how Princess Precure is shaping up. So much lyricism in the music. All points to Princess beng the best thing to come out of Precure so far. I also hope that a new Doraemon sound box is coming out soon because Kan Sawada provides more glorious SciFi music. Have a listen. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTI2uIJ0Zzc)

I would put Wada and Hisaishi together.

Kanno and Horner? Well, she did use Ransom in Brain Powerd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZMlRUGgYag&t=115s which was a weird find for me.

tango, on orc.prophpbb.com you wrote:



I'm going to try to get my new blog set up in the next week or so, as I've got some good posts coming up ...


Do you still intend to start your own blog? If so, do you plan to tell us its web address here in this thread?

I thought I would share the exciting news here. La La Land just announced the release of The Dogs of War by Geoffery Burgeon. That's one composer I didn't think I'd ever see them release. Seems like it should be a great release. Though I am not familiar with the score itself so who knows.

I remember hearing about Mamoru Samuragochi here, and I thought you guys would be interested in how the scandal happened and why it was revealed.

Japan's Deaf Composer Wasn't What He Seemed | The New Republic (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121185/japans-deaf-composer-wasnt-what-he-seemed)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkzeOmkOUHM

I am impressed by this new score by someone (who to my knowledge is a newcomer). It is called Ori and the Blind Forest. I really enjoy the atmosphere that this music creates. It can be sweeping, innocent, subdued, powerful, aggressive, tender, and soaring. I love it!