LC1957: Akumajo Dracula Tribute Vol.1

[Don]

I found out about these during my trip to Japan recently. I am absolutely stoked for both of these albums.

[Blitz Lunar]

me too, particularly the second volume! the composer roster is great once again. Oka+Imura+Kikuta+Hamauzu <3 and Yasui on the first one too, plus lots of other great guys all-round.

[Kewing]

Count me in for the hyped queue as well. That's a very impressive song selection and artist line up; always excited to see more SNES/GB Castlevania music arranged. And nice to see Geondan artists trying out different things outside Cave, was starting to get a little worn out for me.
I'm really curious about what will Technouchi do. I love his ambient trance arrangements.

( and, ohh yeah, Harmony of Despair)

An already busy start of the next year.

[LiquidAcid]

MANYO and Hirota? Count me in!

[Don]

Originally Posted by Kewing

Count me in for the hyped queue as well. That's a very impressive song selection and artist line up; always excited to see more SNES/GB Castlevania music arranged. And nice to see Geondan artists trying out different things outside Cave, was starting to get a little worn out for me.
I'm really curious about what will Technouchi do. I love his ambient trance arrangements.

( and, ohh yeah, Harmony of Despair)

An already busy start of the next year.

From my conversation with him in Tokyo, he seemed to suggest that it is "very different." As to what that means exactly, I'm not sure. It could be very different from his usual style or it could be very different in terms of source material arrangement.

[Kaleb.G]

They're releasing these on my 27th birthday. Awesome work!

EDIT: Yousuke Yasui arranging Divine Bloodlines? I just got tingles.

[Don]

http://www.konamistyle.jp/item/70290
http://www.konamistyle.jp/item/70291

There are samples on the album pages now.

[PsychoZeke]

Mm, tasty.

Not hyped (I rarely get hyped about things), but I'm genuinely piqued.

[Jormungand]

I wonder if these will make it to retailers outside of konamistyle?

Anyway, the names alone have me interested in vol.2 (Saori Kobayashi, Yoshino Aoki, Hiroki Kikuta, Masashi Hamauzu, Soyo Oka). If only more developers could get these kinds of groups together to score their games!

[Don]

Updated track times based on this:

http://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/id410506676

(Samples as well)

[Mac_Tear]

After a short listen I'm somewhat dissapointed with this album after all the hype. Most of the arrangements sound amateurish and somewhat unoriginal; not even stars like Motoi Sakuraba or Manabu Namiki show their full potential here. The style ranges from straight forward old school arrangements over to experimental electronic fusions. Track 1 for example brings back some bad memories from "Perfect Selection Dracula". I'm also greatly dissapointed with TECHNOuchi's lenghty "Bloody Tears" remix, I expected so much more.

Good tracks in my opinion are for example "Clock Work" with its unique style, the extremely haunting "Voyager", the groovy "Simon Belmont's Theme" and "The Wolf Revealed", where Hirota shines with his experimental and loud techno style paired with some dissonant piano notes.

[LiquidAcid]

On first listen only the arrangements by TECHNOuchi and MANYO picked my interest, everything else feels kinda plain to me...

[knighTeen87]

I don't know you but after waiting so much for this album, it was really disappointing. I listened thru whole album and the only track i liked was New Messiah. So much techno&dance themes, i wasn't expecting this. What do you think?

[strugglepoo]

"Plain" is an accurate description. Even Kaneda disappointed me. Hata & Namiki's arrangements are decent. Yasui delivers another great chiptune style track to feed my nostalgia. That's probably the only track I'll go back to. Sato's track is arranged well, just not my cup of tea.

[Chris]

Yes, I'm inclined to agree. The album has its moments of genius, but seems generally very inconsistent in style and synth, plus very incohesive as a whole. The second volume is better, but the project seems pretty misguided to me overall. A shame given the amount of talent involved.

[Don]

I'm going to throw in my vote for the camp that really enjoyed this album. I don't care if an arrange album follows a specific theme in terms of styles/arrangements (Vol. 2 clearly does this so I can see why most people would enjoy it) and I don't care if they aren't the most creative in terms of arrangements. As long as I enjoy the music, that's all that really matters to me and there isn't a track on this volume that I would skip.

[LiquidAcid]

Haha, somehow I knew that Don was going to say that

[Don]

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

Haha, somehow I knew that Don was going to say that

I enjoy it, but I can understand where some of the complaints seem to be stemming and I knew since October that the Bloody Tears remix was going to be controversial, to say the least, to the majority of people.

The remixes that I think are the best on Vol. 1 though, are TECHNOuchi, Aki Hata, Yousuke Yasui, Yoshitaka Hirota, MANYO, and Tenpei Sato. The weakest, in my opinion, is definitely Masuko. Yay for cheesy Dracula voice over.

[Zanasea]

Although I usually don't, I have to agree with Don here. I was extremely impressed by TECHNOuchi's take on "Bloody Tears" and I don't care if the melody is hard to detect. I'm in love with the dramatic mood of the remix.

The first volume is pretty good as a whole thanks to the contributions of TECHNOuchi, Aki Hata, MANYO and Tenpei Sato. And I even like Sakuraba's arrangement, even if I tend to dislike most of his recent works. I was a bit disappointed with Hirota, though.

Indeed, compared to the first, the second volume is serious business.

[Don]

Originally Posted by Zanasea

I have to agree with Don here.

Have the planets aligned in some special formation to allow this to occur?

[Blitz Lunar]

Yasui does not disappoint!

[LiquidAcid]

Originally Posted by Zanasea

the second volume is serious business.

So true!

To quote Don:

Originally Posted by Don

there isn't a track on this volume that I would skip.

Vol. 2 is more the style of music I tend to listen to and it least from my perspective it's more 'cohesive' then Vol. 1. Especially Kouda and Kiyota surprised me!

[Don]

There is no doubt that Vol. 2 is more stylistically cohesive.

[Zanasea]

Originally Posted by Don

Have the planets aligned in some special formation to allow this to occur?

Well you can't always be wrong, now can you?

[LiquidAcid]

Originally Posted by Don

There is no doubt that Vol. 2 is more stylistically cohesive.

Don't take my statement as a judgement about Vol. 1 -- I just don't like the style of the arrangement, so I can't really evaluate the album quality.

I'm probably also very biased by the constellation of arrangers on both volumes. More like half of the arranger names on Vol. 1 don't ring any bell for me at all. That's different for Vol. 2 (only Eriko Imura is a mystery to me).

[Boco]

Still waiting to pick up copies for myself (hurray for moving and being broke!), but all the samples I've heard thus far are amazing! I was stoked when this set was first announced and I'm even more stoked now. Can't wait to order these!

[Blitz Lunar]

only Eriko Imura is a mystery to me

yeah, i imagine she is for most people, due to having composed for four games (Klonoa 1+2 on PS1, and J-League Soccer Prime Goal 3 + Wagyan Paradise on SNES) though all of them come from me with biiiiig recommendations. she's easily one of my favourite game musicians just for these alone.

i love her arrangement on vol.2. that style of light jazzy cuteness is very typical of her songs.

[Chris]

More like half of the arranger names on Vol. 1 don't ring any bell for me at all.

They're all well known names, each with dozens of credits to their name. Some are probably only known within specific fanbases, e.g. Takuya Hanaoka with SRT or MANYO with visual novels, but are still respected and significant composers. I have to admit I've not heard much I've liked from Tsukasa Masuko, but he's still pretty significant through his successive works at Tecmo, Atlus, and Brownie Brown.

[LiquidAcid]

Originally Posted by Chris

They're all well known names, each with dozens of credits to their name.

I'm aware of that, what's why I specifically said:

don't ring any bell for me

I didn't say thay they're unknown or (like Wikipedia would say) 'not notable'. That's also pretty clear just by accessing the VGMdb artist page and looking at the respective discography.

It's just that for me these names mean nothing.

[marko1986]

Why is this CD not yet available on Playasia? Do you know of any online store that sells it and ships to Europe? I would love to buy this one, the vol.2 and Harmony of despair CD, preferably as a collection. I have seen it on Konamistyle as a collection. Want. Need.