TRNK-0001: SPIRIT OF STONE

[DragoonEnRegalia]

This album really makes one think about the context of each of these tracks, because a good deal of them share similar themes. Toshiharu went with two hard-rock tracks, as well as two funky themes—both sets are quite cohesive and provide variations on what the composer was capable of. And, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if these tracks were featured in his resume, because they feel like demo tracks. I could say the same for Hyakutaro's looping material and the unused material contributed by Umemoto and Takami. For that matter, the two Tomomi tracks on the album are really precious jewels in FM music history.

[jalvarez82]

I've been waiting a long time to hear it. And now that I finally have. it has exceeded my expectations...GREATLY. God, I love Hyakutaro Tsukumo's compositions.

[Blitz Lunar]

Back in November, I uploaded a video on Youtube of a MIDI sequence callled WATSUKI.MID. The only other piece of information that I had was the file's Modified date. Thankfully one of my contacts recognised it as being Ryu Umemoto's song from this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4B9clXhAA

I downloaded WATSUKI.MID in 2002; long before SPIRIT OF STONE was released. I don't remember where I downloaded it, but the metadata contains this information (the file may actually be much older than 2002):

<COPYRIGHT> :        composer : 
<TRACK_NAME_00> : = Homepage Sample 1

Does anyone recognise this song from any of Ryu Umemoto's earlier projects? Could he have used it on an early website of his perhaps?

Otherwise, I thought this discovery could be interesting to Umemoto fans here I like the song a lot.

[Despatche]

This is a pretty important album. "run to the future" is an FM arrange of the new staff roll theme for the final (fourth) Broken Thunder game release, rather than the arrange of "Last Letter" that's on the older (second) album. "HELLHOUND" sounds like a stage 1 theme for a game that never materialized, but it might have just been Tsukumo having fun, like Yamanishi with the game-like tracks on the Wanderings albums.

There's also something about Ootani composing a number of tracks after leaving Technosoft. Does anyone have any of this material? He had a serious medical condition around the time Broken Thunder was underway, so this stuff was likely on one of his earlier websites... I can't find anything on his current website. I wonder if "Knight of legend II" is another version of "Knights of tradition", "Reality that disappears started" is related to that "Final Lap 1999" track, etc.

Judging by the Umemoto track mentioned above, the long history of Project Thunder Force VI, and the Ootani situation, a lot of this material is probably old. I get the feeling "run to the future" was a newer song composed to replace "Last Letter" for the game, though.