Music Category

  • Indie Game Music Bundle 2 is here including the Cat Astro Phi soundtrack

    The Indie Game Music Bundle 2 is here. You can pay what you want for 5 indie game soundtracks including Aquaria, Sword and Sworcery, To the Moon, Jamestown and Machinarium.

    But if you pay $10 or more you’ll also get the complete soundtracks for another 9 games (so far!) one of which is the superb 8-bit soundtrack from our Gameboy tribute action adventure Cat Astro Phi, composed by the masterful Disasterpeace 🙂

    Full details at http://www.gamemusicbundle.com/

     

  • Pre-order MindCandy 3 and Immortal 4

    MindCandy 3 is (apparently!) nearly ready for release. Which is awesome news as I have been waiting for this for ages now The MindCandy range are a series of DVDs that showcase the best of scene demos. Volume 1 featured 230+ minutes worth of PC demos, both new and the classics.  Volume 2 was another massive set, this time focusing on the Amiga.

    What makes these DVDs different are the love and attention put into the production of them. For a start this isn’t a standard “video grab” compilation. They are carefully mastered:

    “Using a high-end video converter, all demos were captured scene by scene on different machines and hardware variations to get the best possible timing for any single part. In the next step all parts were edited, stitched and re-synced with the (also remastered) sound. The Result: Some demos never ran as perfect in all of their parts as they do on MindCandy :)”

    Volume 3 is now available for pre-order, and will feature PC demos from 2003 to 2010 this time on DVD and Blu-ray. There is a 30 minute sample DVD to download from the web site. The final DVD should release Q4-2010. Fingers crossed!

    Immortal 4

    Also announced for pre-order is Jan Zottmanns Immortal 4. This is another double-CD set featuring stunning Amiga music remastered in ways you’ve never heard it before. I’ve got all of the Immortal CDs and from the samples on the web site this one hit my pre-order list right away. The following is the blurb from the web site:

    “The full-to-the-brim Double-CD set Immortal 4 features no less than 35 newly arranged songs (about 150 minutes) of Commodore Amiga videogame music. Most of them have been created by their original authors – trademark and good tradition of the Immortal series. We couldn’t even stop them to play live-instruments, you’ll become earwitness when Al Lowe himself (Leisure Suit Larry) is playing the saxophone, Jon Hare (Cannon Fodder) being back at the microphone and Dave Govett (Wing Commander) hitting the drums.

    Numerous classics have been rearranged, such as Lemmings (Tim Wright), Turrican 2 (Chris Hülsbeck), Flashback (Jean Baudlot), Gauntlet 3 (Tim Follin), F17 Challenge (Nicola Tomljanovich) and many more. Exklusive new versions were contributed by legendary demoscene musicians, such as Romeo Knight (at the guitar too) and Jogeir Liljedahl.

    The catchy melodies once played by a handful of 8 bit samples on the Amiga now experience their rebirth in a colorful mixture ranging from a complete rock band to the fully-fletched synthesizer-setup.”

    Awesome 🙂

  • Decades album by 4mat is out now

    Matt Simmonds is something of a legend in the Amiga/demoscene world. Under the pseudonym “4mat”  he composed hundreds of famous music tracks for cracktros, demos and games. You can find over 500 of them on the Amiga Music Preservation site. MobyGames also keeps a relatively accurate list of his commercial and freeware audio work.

    Today he released his album “Decades”. All of the 14 tracks on the album were created using the same tools he had available “back in the day”, namely ProTracker and FastTracker 2. I just bought the album from Amazon after having a listen on-line, and I’m really pleased at the mix of styles and raw chip sound that shines through. Some tracks carry better than others, but my personal favourite has to be “Virginia”. You can listen to the tracks below:

    Read more about its production on Matt’s blog: I Hear the Sound of Waves. There is also a great interview with him on IndieGames.com. And if like me, you really enjoy what you hear, then Amazon MP3 has the goods.

    Fellow Photon Stormer Ilija was saying just the other day that Matt has been in contact with him quite a bit recently. Perhaps a graphic/audio collab is on the cards? We’ll keep you posted … and Matt, if you’re up for it, we certainly have a couple of games we’d love to have your audio input on 🙂

  • Gravity Crash Anthems Soundtrack Available

    I’ve got nothing much more to say other than – it’s out! The Gravity Crash soundtrack by CoLD SToRAGE is available to buy online for immediate download. It costs £10 (which is probably £3 more than it ought to) but you get 16 tracks for your money, including some awesome remixes – most notable of which is a C64 SID rendition of the title track Scarface.

    Track previews, downloadable PDF booklet, exclusive mixes and direct support of the composer are included in the price. Have just thrown it on my mp3 player ready for the drive into work tomorrow. Even if you’ve never played the game, still check this out – as the man himself says, it’s a “buffet of 80s electro” 🙂

  • Video Games Live: Volume One

    My lovely wife bought me the Video Games Live: Volume One CD around a year ago from Amazon, and they only just received stock of it and shipped it! But it arrived today and was waiting for me when I got home from work.

    All I can say is WOW! It is incredible. I’ve never been to a Video Games Live concert, and there is one coming up soon in London at the end of October which I sadly can’t make, but I’ll be sure to get tickets to the next one as soon as they return! The CD is stunning. Think lots of game music as performed by a full-on orchestra, with wonderful vocals.

    The CD opens with the Kingdom Hearts music, which blends nicely into the Warcraft Suite, and it doesn’t let-up from there. The Civilization IV Medley by Christopher Tin is nothing short of beautiful, with an incredible African theme. The operatic God of War montage sends chills down your spine, and I’ve not even mentioned the music from Advent Rising, Tron, Halo or Castlevania.

    If you treat yourself to one CD this Christmas, consider this one! It’s truly stunning. Game music like you’ve never heard before (unless you’re lucky enough to have been to a VGL concert of course, in which case I’m extremely jealous of you 🙂 )

    There are over 2000 videos from VGL on Youtube here. Just watch this and tell me that’s not a great concert to be at? 🙂