SQEX-10217~9: The 3rd Birthday Original Soundtrack

[LiquidAcid]

Hehe, this should compensate for the disc reduction on Radiant Historia OST

[Raizen1984]

Awesome! Hope this is as good as Shimomura's first PE score!

[Zanasea]

According to the Square Enix store, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Mitsuto Suzuki also worked on the music.

[Chris]

Sounds fine. I'm relieved neither Mizuta nor Ishimoto are involved.

[Xenofan 29A]

Well I'm glad that Ishimoto stayed out of it, at the least, but I'm not a huge fan of Sekito. I wonder how much new material from Shimomura will be here?

[Zanasea]

Well, here are a few details on the soundtrack for those wondering what it could be like:

For The 3rd Birthday, Shimomura says she did not receive detailed requests. Instead, she was asked, broadly, that she make battle music. She was also asked to give the music a "Shimomura-like melody" and told that, as a theme, the music should "feature the Aya Brea character." (This "feature Aya Brea" element is a general theme for the game as a whole.)

Shimomura feels the Aya charater has the image of piano. Not a mellow piano theme, though.

Shimomura also worked on the soundtrack for the original Parasite Eve. Asked if she'd be reusing themes from that game, she said that the music will not be carried over as is. However, she feels that amongst her works, Parasite Eve is a game with music of a different color, and she'd like to carry that image over.

Famitsu noted that the latest trailer has a piano and drum theme running in the background during the battle sequence. This, said Shimomura, is the style of melody we can expect for the game as a whole. She wants the sound to have a hard feel to it, with firm rhythms and pounding piano songs. (Source)

When I listened to "The Evinos" from Last Ranker, I really felt it would be a perfect fit for a Parasite Eve game. Let's hope the arrangements will be as good as they are in Last Ranker, although I highly doubt The 3rd Birthday will have as many live instruments.

[Chris]

I would say that Sekito has improved as a composer over the years. His scores for The Last Remnant and Gyromancer were a vast improvement on his earlier works in my opinion. That said, I'm not sure how good a fit he is for Parasite Eve yet. I'm sure Suzuki will do fine though.

[LiquidAcid]

Sekito did compose for 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers'. I think this was my first Turtles game on GameBoy and I just loved the music. I did a 'prehistoric' gamerip on tape back then, which should still be around somewhere on my family's attic

[Xenofan 29A]

I agree that Suzuki is a perfect match for the style Shimomura used in the first game. He did some great arranging work with Hamauzu, especially on Sigma Harmonics. As for Sekito, I haven't really disliked any of his work intensely or anything (except maybe his overuse of that one voice sample in the PSX era) but it's never really impressed me much. I listened to some of Last Remnant, and I wasn't all that intrigued. You're probably right, though.

[LiquidAcid]

CDJapan still has some first press copies available. Since cardboard cases are always nice, I just ordered a copy.

[Don]

Samples are up on the website for the first disc.

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/s.../3rd_birthday/

Here's the tracklisting for disc 1:

From the End -The 3rd Birthday-
The Babel: Genesis
Investigation of the Past
Beginning of Breeding
Joy to the World -for the 3rd Birthday-
Flashback
Dive into Myself
Wait for the Combustion
Brave New World
Contact, Freeze, Explode
Unknown Unknown
Equinox of Insanity
Insanity of the Enraged
Reaper
Moment of Humanity
Bloody Black
Frozen Time
The Boss
Arriving Home
Angel's Time
Dive into Myself -Deep Inside-
dayDreamer
Light of Time

[Jormungand]

Thanks Don. I like what I hear!

Anyone care to translate the "Composer Message" section?

[Zanasea]

Not a full translation but here are some details:

The soundtrack features composition work from Yoko Shimomura, Mitsuhito Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Sekito. The three posted brief comments at the soundtrack official site. Sekito revealed that his participation involved work on battle background music. Suzuki said that the music on the soundtrack has been reedited to include sections of the music that were cut from the game due to memory issues.

By the way, Mitsuhito Suzuki? Boo!

[Andan]

Since Sekito's works have always been based mainly on rock/metal music, I'm interested to see how this soundtrack turns out.

Although it may not live up to the standards of PE1, it'll definitely outmatch the 2nd one.

[Arcubalis]

OSV's review just went up: http://www.originalsoundversion.com/...dtrack-review/

I wish they had noted which tracks were "bonus" tracks not featured in the game. But a fantastic soundtrack.

[PsychoZeke]

Great review; it only made me more anxious for it to be released already.

Can't wait!

[Xenofan 29A]

No booklet or liner notes? I'm disappointed.

[roxas]

http://mora.jp/package/50000004/SQEX-10217/
http://morawin.jp/package/60000022/SQEX-10217

so
Mitsuto Suzuki:40 tracks
Yoko Shimomura:16 tracks
Tsuyoshi Sekito:10 tracks

hmmmm...

[RomanticScent]

I get the feeling Yoko shimomura composes every tracks and the others arranged them.
Is my feeling wrong?

[Andrew Evenstar]

This soundtrack is pretty good from what I've heard so far... The song that stands out to me as far as battle tracks goes is "Terminus Zero".

The OST as a whole sounds like Parasite Eve game to me, it has that sci-fi feel to it

[Andan]

The title for track #2.18 made me chuckle.

[Jormungand]

Added Disc 3 Track 5 to the "Composed by Yoko Shimomura" section in the info. Even though the original Escape from UB is just that piano motive, it's still her work. It's interesting that both Suzuki and Sekito arranged this track... wonder if that's accurate.

[dissident93]

Originally Posted by Jormungand

Added Disc 3 Track 5 to the "Composed by Yoko Shimomura" section in the info. Even though the original Escape from UB is just that piano motive, it's still her work. It's interesting that both Suzuki and Sekito arranged this track... wonder if that's accurate.

It's mainly a remake of the UB boss battle theme, with the Escape from UB piano intro.

[Fearin]

Disc 1 Track 5 (Joy to the World), who would that be under? I noticed that in the recording section it mentions Tsuyoshi Sekito, but does anyone know who is the composer?

[Zanasea]

You probably want to read this.

[Fearin]

I know the original and many iterations of joy to the world, the one from 3rd birthday seems to be their own interpretation.

Disc 3 track 10 "Wachet auf, ruft uns der Zeitpunkt Null ※""Based on a cantata BWV140 by J.S. Bach""

If there is a mention of Bach, should not isaac watts be added to the composer list?

[Jormungand]

Originally Posted by Fearin

I know the original and many iterations of joy to the world, the one from 3rd birthday seems to be their own interpretation.

Disc 3 track 10 "Wachet auf, ruft uns der Zeitpunkt Null ※""Based on a cantata BWV140 by J.S. Bach""

If there is a mention of Bach, should not isaac watts be added to the composer list?

No. Bach's cantata was based on a chorale by Philipp Nicolai.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/BWV140.htm

In the case of Shimomura's arrangement, it is only attributable to Bach and no on else. She faithfully quotes the "Chorale" section (mvt. IV) from BMV140, which can be seen here:
BMV140

Nicolai's chorale, on the other hand, is mostly used as a basis for the melody, which isn't featured in the T3B track.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Wachet_auf.jpg

If Shimomura had chosen to make her track longer and included the melody, then perhaps a nod to Nicolai would be appropriate. But in this case, only Bach requires credit.

In any event, I think that the inclusion of either Nicolai or Watts as composers anywhere on this site is getting excessively technical. A scholarly article or analysis of classical music would identify such sources, but for our purposes I don't think it's necessary.

Out of curiosity, Fearin, why do you immediately associate anything written by Bach with Watts?

[Dag]

^^ Holy Moly :O . I take he's talking about creditting Isaac Watts for "Joy to the World".

From Google it seems George Friederic Handel most likely did the source melody, while Lowell Mason arranged and adapted it using Isaac Watts's lyrics. So... dunno?

(this interview indicates the arrangement was by all the soung guys, performance credits included in the album).


EDIT: random trivia, though listed at the end 3.14 is actually used in the game's intro, so it goes first. 1.01 is the title music.

[Jormungand]

Originally Posted by Dag

^^ Holy Moly :O . I take he's talking about creditting Isaac Watts for "Joy to the World".

Well, he included the Bach track in his post, so that's what I responded to.

From Google it seems George Friederic Handel most likely did the source melody, while Lowell Mason arranged and adapted it using Isaac Watts's lyrics. So... dunno?

The first part of the "Joy to the World" melody used to be thought of as an adaptation of a bar from Handel's Messiah, but this isn't really the case:

Joy to the World was not composed by Handel. The tune first appeared in the early 1830's in English tune-books. William Holford revised the tune and published it (which he called Comfort) in the mid-1830's and attributed it to Handel because of the tunes' resemblance to the opening phrases of the choruses Lift Up Your Heads and Glory to God from Messiah. The American composer Lowell Mason (1792-1872) in 1839 retained the attribution to Handel, changed the tune-name to Antioch, and united it with Isaac Watt's hymn [i.e., text] for the first time. Thus, Joy to the World was born.

http://gfhandel.org/faqs.htm

So, the composer attributed should actually be William Holford. Watts still has no business being credited as composer though. As for Handel, he was long dead and buried by the time Joy to the World came about.

If anyone's interested, have a listen to what Handel actually composed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WkyTwXa4Tw

As you can hear, it's just the first four notes that are the same as Joy.

To give you an idea of how ridiculous this attribution could be, the truly complete accreditation would be: "Arranged by Mitsuto Suzuki & Tsuyoshi Sekito et al., based on an adaptation by Lowell Mason of a composition by William Holford expanded from an English folk-tune which may or may not have been inspired by measure 1 of "Lift Up Your Heads" from Handel's Messiah."

Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

[Fearin]

Ha ha, I see what you mean Jormungand.

Dag was correct in his interpretation of what I said. My basic premise was that one "old timey composer" was credited, it was in the track itself, but then if one is credited should not another?

You are right on that it would be William Holford, even though the naming only became Joy to the World after the lyrics by watts.