Empire: Total War Soundtrack Available For Pre-Order

Through their licensing relationship with SEGA leading game soundtrack distributor Sumthing Else are about to release the score to the PC RTS game Empire: Total War.

The Empire: Total War Soundtrack features an epic orchestral score composed primarily by lead composer Richard Beddow (Viking: Battle For Asgard), orchestrated and conducted by Nic Raine (Viking: Battle For Asgard) and performed by The Slovak National Symphony Orchestra at the Slovak Radio Concert Hall in Bratislava.

“Undertaking the challenge of the music production for Empire: Total War was no simple task,” said composer Richard Beddow. “The game needed music to convey its size and breadth, covering the various countries at war, delicately accompanying campaign gameplay and underpinning the various cinematics and events in the game.”

You can get a feel for the cinematic feel he is referring to in the following main theme: Read more

Halo Trilogy – The Complete Original Soundtracks is Here!

Here is the official press release. 5 Discs of gaming music awesomeness!:

New York – Dec. 1st, 2008 – Sumthing Else Music Works, Inc., through its licensing relationship with Microsoft Game Studios, proudly presents Halo® Trilogy – The Complete Original Soundtracks featuring the award-winning original music scores by Bungie Audio Director Martin O’Donnell and Co-Composer Michael Salvatori plus four preview tracks from the forthcoming real-time strategy game Halo Wars™, composed by Ensemble Studios Audio Director Stephen Rippy. Halo Trilogy – The Complete Original Soundtracks is released tomorrow, Dec. 2, 2008, to retail outlets through Nile Rodgers’ Sumthing Else Music Works record label www.sumthing.com, and for digital download at www.sumthingdigital.com.

Halo Trilogy – The Complete Original Soundtracks contents:

Disc 1 – Halo: Combat Evolved Original Soundtrack.

Disc 2 – Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume Two.

Disc 3 – Halo Wars Bonus DVD;

Four preview tracks from the upcoming soundtrack presented in 5.1.

A behind-the-scenes look at the recording sessions set to the Halo Wars main theme music.

“Five Long Years” Opening cinematic of the Halo Wars campaign.

Disc 4 – Halo 3 Original Soundtrack.

Disc 5 – Halo 3 Original Soundtrack (cont’d). Read more

1st Anime Album In 11 Years To Rank In Japan’s Top 3

The original soundtrack for the Macross Frontier science-fiction anime series has reached #3 on Oricon’s next weekly chart of all albums sold in Japan. The 72,000 sold copies make Macross Frontier Original Soundtrack I: Nyan Fro the first anime soundtrack to reach the chart’s top 3 rankings in nearly 11 years. The last anime album to reach #3 or higher was The End of Evangelion soundtrack , which was first released on September 26, 1997. More sales of the Macross Frontier soundtrack are expected as many music stores across Japan had sold out and had to reorder more copies.

Popular composer Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Macross Plus) worked on all 24 tracks on the Macross Frontier album. The album also features the “Triangler” opening theme from Maaya Sakamoto (Escaflowne, Cardcaptor Sakura) and the “Diamond Crevasse” ending theme from May’n (May Nakabayashi). Both songs reached #3 on Oricon’s weekly charts of all singles sold in Japan. At one point in May, both singles ranked in the top 10 in the same week. At least two more singles are scheduled for release with May’n and one of Macross Frontier‘s main voice actresses, newcomer Megumi Nakajima.

Macross Frontier is the latest sequel to the Macross space opera series. Like the first Macross series, it features a space war, love triangles, three-mode transformable fighters, and pop music. The first Macross series spawned a film, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?, and Mari Iijima‘s movie theme “Do You Remember Love?” became a top-ten single for six straight weeks as well as a top-40 song for all of 1984. At least six Macross albums (including the Macross: Do You Remember Love? soundtrack album) have placed on Oricon’s weekly charts for all albums sold in Japan. (Evangelion has also placed six albums on the Oricon weekly album charts.)

Thanks to Anime News Network

Source: Mainichi Shimbun’s Mantan Web