Dear listener, it’s become a bit of a tradition on my blog that when another Halloween rolls around, I’ll post yet another dark ambient tune from one of my musical heroes, Akira Yamaoka. Second only to Yoko Shimomura in my mind for elite Japanese soundtrack composers, Akira is a very special kind of music producer, having quite literally set the bar for sound engineering in modern horror games through his work in the Silent Hill franchise. I’ve played a lot of games through the years including many horror titles, and I have yet to come across another series with such a domineering and immersive soundtrack that places you right into feelings of grief, sadness and the nagging feeling that a violent haunting is afoot. If you care to explore his discography further, you can click here for his website. That said, please do smash play on Null Moon from the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack, and Happy Halloween 23!

Another Halloween, another dark tune from AY. Check out his tunes and play his games every spooky season, and every day for that matter, because as we all recognize his tunes are just as important as a balanced breakfast. Image source: https://www.songkick.com/artists/8526574-akira-yamaoka

Ah! The prized track for an infamous dnd character within my group of friends! Twas such fun to write. https://youtu.be/mJxprd77ibU

Mesos Theme, recorded at Warm Studios in Leander, TX.

We are celebrating Owlboy's 7th anniversary, and Jonathan has graced us with this beautiful performance of the Owlboy Soundtrack.

Jonathan Geer (Composer) Piano Rachel Browne, Harp Eduardo Cassapia, Quenacho Tony Rogers, Cello Aaron Lack, Vibes

Yuka Kitamura appreciation post

Listen, nothing is wrong with Sakuraba's work in the series. Bro is a very good composer.

BUT GOD DAMN DOES YUKA COOK EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!!!!

Ruin Sentinels? Executioner's Chariot? Sir Alonne? BURNT IVORY KING? ALDIA? ABYSS WATCHERS? DS3 IN GENERAL? QUEEN SHIT.

She really hopped on the OST and cooked that shit like my grandfather at the grill! She annihilated every single track she made and the fact that people pretend O&S (which is still very good) is the pinnacle of the Dark Souls OST when SLAVE KNIGHT GAEL IS RIGHT THERE??????

I love Yuka so much. I would die for her.

Here's some of the music I made for PROMISE MASCOT AGENCY by lovely Kaizen Game Works ⛩️

This track is Kaso-Machi Nights. Some swimmy, slighty-sleazy jazz chill

The whole OST is full of dreamy Showa-era-influenced jazz fusion, traditional Japanese instruments and tons more 💖

My original retro video game music for the in-progress game “Jump Arcade” releases this Friday!

This collection includes a fresh new mastering for old tracks, an extended version for a couple other tracks... and a whole NEW track!

Pre-save it now at https://ffm.to/jumparcade or pre-order it on Bandcamp at https://sarahwallinhuff.bandcamp.com/album/jump-arcade

👾🎮🕹️🎶

This Women's History Month I'd like to shout out two of Japan's, nay, THE WORLD'S best composers of all time.

Yoko Shimomura and Michiru Yamane make music that can give the classical composers that inspired them a run for their money.

Shimomura gave us the soundtracks for Super Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts and its sequels, the Mario & Luigi RPGs, and many others.

Yamane on the other hand IS Castlevania music, from Bloodlines to Order of Ecclesia, with Symphony of the Night being a standout, not to mention she also composed many tracks for Rocket Knight Adventures and Goemon 2.

You want to listen to their work, check out the games I've mentioned, or at least listen to the soundtracks of Super Mario RPG, Castlevania Bloodlines and Symphony of the Night, and Kingdom Hearts in particular.

Have you played the Amadeus demo? It's live, and completely free to play in-browser!

I have released the soundtrack as an album on BandCamp here. As a preview, here is one of my favorite tracks: "Spellbound Mischief," a piece that plays during the longest segment of gameplay in the demo. It features a marimba performance by Jay Lee.

There are a total of 8 tracks I wrote for the demo. This one was particularly inspired by Professor Layton... can you hear the inspiration?

If you'd like to stay up-to-date on Amadeus now that the demo is out, follow this blog, and bookmark this link: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

Trying out some song ideas for the Cryohazard trailer. Dark and stormy bop!

Schmid

One interesting thing about the internet is getting to be able to interact with artists and creatives you admire. In my case, I've gotten to have nice exchanges with certain video game soundtrack composers.

Grant Kirkhope once responded to a comment of mine on a video of himself dancing to Banjo Kazooie music, saying he was glad he was able to brighten my day with his dance. ☺️

When I was posting the soundtrack for Xbox game Lucidity on my Youtube, the composer Jesse Harlin himself reached out to me and helped me get all the track titles right!

Most recently, I've had an odd one - I ordered a copy of the Quake 3 album "Arena Noize" from Sonic Mayhem's website. Some timing and postal issues have been delaying the arrival of the CD, but the bright side of this was the Sascha Dikiciyan himself (a composer for Quake 2 and3 along many other games) e-mailed me and has been helping me get the issues sorted out. Was not expecting such an honor, that was cool. 😅

A chaotic and slightly jazzy battle theme for a wild card of a drow character. https://youtu.be/uzE5iQTEw0g

Who else remembers playing wii sports resort (or any other related game) back then?

And here's the sketch:

Bonus:

Hello, I'm new to this site! Hoping to share new releases and WIPs of my compositions for people to enjoy. I mostly write video gamey stuff, but I like experimenting with other things.

Here's a few recent WIPs-- a biker themed track and a Metal Gear Rising inspired track.

Black Steel event is out in Spotify, time to blast the new banger of a boss theme 🙌