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Product ReviewsAll Reviews by : JeriaskaAverage Customer Ratings :  Total Reviews : 2 Alphabet Planet by Hiroki Kikuta Original Album 2 of 2 people found this review helpful :  Jeriaska review for Alphabet Planet, 2007-12-04To this day Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack for the Super Nintendo action adventure title Secret of Mana scores on more than just nostaligia, but it has been a bumpy road for the composer. The epic sequel to Secret of Mana was famously denied an English-language localization, as was the composer’s first project for the Playstation. His massively multiplayer online project for Enix called Chou Bukyo Taisen geared toward the East Asian market, was canceled by the international co-developers during beta-testing. Following these setbacks, Kikuta has become increasingly tenacious in his desire to maintain creative control over the music he creates. The result is a fledgling publishing company - Norstrilia - named after the only novel published by science fiction writer Paul Linebarger under the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith. In what appears to be an understated homage to the digitized keyboard culture of today, Kikuta’s latest album published under the label is entitled Alphabet Planet. Not everyone will warm up to the sometimes saccharine sensibilities of Alphabet Planet. The cover art displays candy-colored donuts, while in the album’s liner notes, the composer likens the selection of songs to a musical box of assorted chocolates. Like a variety of scrumptious morsels, each with their own detectible style, the album is constructed bearing in mind that all us have our own intrinsic listening sensibilities. The 36 tracks are styled after the 26 letters of the alphabet, the nine digits, and zero: a veritable keypad of musical notes. Added to the simplicity of the approach is an unambitious palette of synthesized sounds and guitar samples, most of which could be emulated on technologically modest game consoles like today’s candy box-sized Nintendo DS. These ingredients all add up to a collection of simple and vibrant strokes from one of the most unique voices in game music. The limited edition collection is an underdog approach for once executed by necessity instead of design. Unattached to an official corporate sponsor, the album is a modest package for some of this year's most memorable sounds in game music. Alphabet Planet has all the makings of a strong videogame score. The rocking introductory track, “Vivid,” could carry any action adventure game with its wailing trumpet and electronic beats rising out of the silence like light emerging from the void. One gets the sense that looking back in time, had the song been attached to a popular Super Nintendo title, it may well have become legendary. The low key set by “6 Pence and a Moon” recalls character select and menu screens, while “4 degrees” evokes the trembling icicles and frosty gusts of a sidescrolling ice stage. “2nd Variety,” with its resonant horn track rising from the silence like the sun after a lunar eclipse, calls to mind a title screen from the heyday of 2D Squaresoft role-playing games. And as for the emotionally ambiguous, fast paced action themes that made the Mana series a lastingly memorable experience, “Rossum’s Universal Robots” presents a mechanical cold shell to hide its emotionally robust core. For those whose longing to revisit the aural experience that breathed life into Flammie the Dragon and the hopping and biting rabites, a brief shot at the tempestuous “Zeal” may well bring back memories, and even foster a few more. When videogames wrestle with the most bloated of Hollywood budgets, the surface features of an album created in the image of yesteryear’s chiptunes may appear an exercise in archaicism. Those looking for a return to Soukaigi's bravura orchestration or Koudelka’s choral selections might feel off-put to find themselves returning back to the basics. But if even an algorithm can make a fifty piece orchestra sound impressive, turning so-called bleeps and bloops into a listening experience might serve as a sort of litmus test for vgm. Few artists can take the ABC’s of game music and make them sound enigmatically both alien and familiar. An elementary approach to the genre, the palette of Alphabet Planet is simple enough to be summed up in a single word. Sweet. Was this review helpful to you?   Armodyne by Yasunori Mitsuda  Jeriaska review for Armodyne, 2007-12-04Yasunori Mitsuda’s scores to Squaresoft titles Chrono Trigger, Xenogears and Chrono Cross have become a fixture of orchestral videogame music concerts around the world. Performed by Play! Live and the Eminence Symphony Orchestra, his enigmatic blend of interstellar futurism and Celtic folk songs has captivated audiences, even as many of the composer’s recent game titles have been denied foreign-language localizations. Exploring new ways of cross-pollinating the metallic drumbeats of cultural mechanization with the pastoral wind instruments that evoke the rolling meadows of Ireland, Armodyne Original Soundtrack is the latest of the artist’s involving experiments. As has been the case before, the sensitivity of his craftsmanship exceeds the narrow scope of the game title to which it is attached. An unabashed Front Mission clone, the game Soukou Kihei Armodyne is narrated in English, though it will never receive a North American release. The soundtrack, published by Mitsuda’s company, betrays a lightness of spirit contrary to such angsty track titles as “Blitzkreig,” “World of Chaos,” and “Black Wraith.” Setting aside the war-torn landscapes of the source material, the high octaves charted by brass wind instrument samples on tracks like “Dark Conspiracy” might suitably complement the feeling of waking up on a calm spring day. The mellowness of pulsing rhythms clash with “Command and Control,” while gypsy jazz flavors military training in moments that verge on the absurd. It therefore seems like a reasonable prerequisite that to enjoy the album, one might disregard the artwork’s frame. Disclaimers aside, Armodyne offers numerous examples of expert videogame music, implementing acoustic musical textures in electronic forms. The main theme sung by improvisational vocalist Kyoko Kishikawa is a standout track worthy of mention as an album-defining performance. A much more powerful accomplishment of the title’s transcontinental theme than the English-language soundbites that pepper the game, the vocalist’s scat form of singing, reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald, carries the same richness of emotion regardless of the listener’s accustomed language. The drumbeats of the martial landscape are a strange if interesting shell for the album’s whimsical instrumental refrains, the disarming introduction of rustling sleigh bells and fluttering flute lines. Just what to make of these engimatic pieces is hard to say, though many invite repeated listenings. Though Mitsuda's elegies and lyrical odes are his strong points, he noticeably gets some mileage from honing the conventions of military dramas. The methodical drumbeats, sounds of steam and whirring gyres mirror the concept art of the game’s bipedal tank battles, utilitarian and indelicate as a Howitzer. “Man on a Mission” exemplifies the album’s capacity for blending the martial themes of modern military warfare with the Celtic folk style. The number of compelling songs found on the two-disc set by the distinguished composer is owed to the coherence of composition and polish of recording techniques. Was this review helpful to you? |
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