Halo Reach (Game Soundtrack) by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori - Review

Reach Exceeds its Grasp
Review by Marius Masalar


Grandiose choirs, slightly processed percussion, piano interludes, familiar theme? Yup, it’s a HALO score, folks. HALO REACH to be precise. I must make a heretical confession: I’ve never understood the hype about the HALO scores or the games. While it’s certainly commendable that Bungie has taken such a well-worn formula and honed it to the fine point of the series’ acclaimed multiplayer gaming, the franchise’s near-deification remains something of a mystery to me.

That being said, credit must be given where due, and HALO REACH is a solid score, and despite my coming complaints it remains true that the game would be weaker without it. The acclaimed duo of MARTIN O’DONNELL and MICHAEL SALVATORI return to deliver another entry in the series, and as long as you’re not expecting anything new or innovative or particularly moving outside the context of the game, you’ll be well pleased by the results.

Read the full review

THQ selects Sumthing Else Music Works to release Soundtracks

THQ SELECTS SUMTHING ELSE MUSIC WORKS

TO RELEASE VIDEO GAME SOUNDTRACKS

Award-winning Label to Distribute Soundtrack Albums including Darksiders™, Red Faction® and Homefront franchises 

New York - September 29th, 2010 - Sumthing Else Music Works, the premier label dedicated to licensing and distributing video game soundtracks, today announced that it has entered into a multiple-title licensing agreement with THQ Inc., a leading interactive entertainment developer and publisher, to release the original soundtrack albums for best-selling franchises including Darksiders™, Red Faction, Company of Heroes® and MX vs. ATV, and upcoming titles including Homefront™. Under the terms of the agreement, Sumthing Else Music Works will license THQ's catalog for distribution as digital and/or CD format. Physical releases will be distributed by Sumthing Distribution and digital releases will be available on Sumthing Digital www.sumthingdigital.com, Amazon MP3, iTunes®, and other digital music sites.

"We are very excited to partner with THQ in bringing their video game soundtracks to the marketplace," said Andy Uterano, President of Sumthing Else Music Works. "Our mission as a label is to support and enhance the lifestyle experience of the gamer by offering the latest and greatest soundtracks so they can enjoy and revisit their favorite gaming moments through the music."

"Great music, quite simply, elevates the gameplay experience," said Germaine Gioia, Senior Vice President of Licensing and Merchandising. "This partnership underscores our commitment to core gamers as we continue to offer new and exciting ways to engage with our brands, be it merchandise, original programming, and, now, music."

Building on its reputation as the industry leader for licensing and distributing video game soundtracks, the deal with THQ further expands Sumthing's growing list of partnerships with the world's top video game developers and publishers and continues its tradition as a distributor of high quality entertainment products for the gaming consumer. The deal announced today with THQ includes the following titles:

Homefront™

Red Faction: Armageddon™

Red Faction: Guerrilla™

Darksiders™

Company of Heroes®

Conan®

MX vs. ATV™ Reflex™

Frontlines: Fuel of War™

The Outfit™

Deadly Creatures™

For more information on Sumthing Else Music Works and its complete catalog of video game soundtracks, please visit www.sumthing.com and www.sumthingdigital.com.http://www.sumthing.com

SoundCast Interview: Ramin Djawadi (Medal of Honor)

Interview:  Ramin Djawadi
Recorded September 27, 2010
Published September 28, 2010


RAMIN DJAWADI shares about his first foray into the genre of video game music.  He talks about the unique challenges of penning the score for the modern-era-reboot of the famed MEDAL OF HONOR video game franchise.

Episode Highlights

00:30 - Introduction
01:59 - How did you come on to this project?
03:30 - Living up to the Medal of Honor lineage
05:00 - Modern Warfare 2 and Hans Zimmer
06:10 - How is working in video game music different?
08:30 - Twitter Question #1 - Music related to Clash/ Titans?
09:55 - Using vocals in Medal of Honor
14:49 - Twitter Question #2 - Samples VS Live Orchestra?
16:08 - Twitter Question #3 - Adapting to Game scoring
17:17 - Biggest creative challenge?
18:10 - Dealing with franchise pressures
19:09 - Looking forward to more game projects?


Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

00:00 - "WFO" (Medal of Honor) by Ramin Djawadi
07:30 - "Hunter Killer"  (Medal of Honor) by Ramin Djawadi
08:32 - "There is a God in You" (Clash of the Titans) by R. Djawadi
10:05 - "Falling Away" (Medal of Honor) by Ramin Djawadi
13:22 - "Heroes Aboard" (Medal of Honor) by Ramin Djawadi
21:27 - "Thirty Seconds Out" (Medal of Honor) by Ramin Djawadi

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Ramin Djawadi Composes Original Music for Next Medal of Honor (Video Game)

At long last, an official announcement has been made regarding the original score for the next MEDAL OF HONOR video game.  This bit of info has been kept fairly well under-wraps for quite some time (I should know...I've been begging for this for many months...to no avail.)

With the lock-down on this one would think that John Williams was writing the score.  Well, not quite, but after Djawadi's work for IRON MAN and CLASH OF THE TITANS, I have to say that it could prove to be a good choice.  In fact, if you want to get a glimpse of what is to come, Amazon already has clips available.  Listen to them here!



Official Press Release

ELECTRONIC ARTS RECRUITS AWARD WINNING COMPOSER RAMIN DJAWADI TO SCORE MEDAL OF HONOR


Composer Behind Iron Man, Flash Forward and Clash of the Titans
Creates Modern Tier-1 Auditory Experience for Franchise Reboot


Soundtrack available Tuesday September 28th, 2010


REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – September 23, 2010 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) has recruited award-winning composer Ramin Djawadi to create a deep and meaningful audio experience for the modern combat first-person shooter, Medal of Honor™. Known for his recent work on the Iron Man movie, the “Prison Break” television series and the remake of Clash of the Titans, Ramin Djawadi creates a score to match the intense soldier’s story and Tier 1 experience told throughout Medal of Honor, which takes place in the current war in Afghanistan. Medal of Honor score album will be available on iTunes Tuesday, September 28, 2010.


 "The new version of a landmark game always requires a next-level soundtrack," said Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing. "But this 'reinvention' of Medal Of Honor demanded a composer who could create an epic score that brings the game into a whole new era. The intuition and skill that makes Ramin Djawadi one of Hollywood's top young talents in film scoring is exemplified in MoH. This is an incredibly intense score, and we're tremendously proud to have him in the EA family."


For the first time in its 11-year history, Medal of Honor leaves the World War II theatre and enters the modern day setting of war-torn Afghanistan told through the lens of a small band of fictional characters. Medal of Honor introduces players to the Tier 1 Operator, an elite warrior and relatively unknown instrument of the U.S. Military that operates under the National Command Authority, taking on missions no one else can handle. Composer Ramin Djawadi explains “The fact that it is modern day with various locations asked for a completely different approach both stylistically and thematically. The score is very wide spread from emotional orchestral to edgy modern action. Western and ethnic instruments are used to represent the different cultures.”


“Designing a score that defines both the scalpel-like quiet professionals that are the Tier 1 Operators and the bold execution of the sledge hammer big military, has been truly unlike any project I’ve had the opportunity to work on,” said Djawadi. “Between the fast paced action and the precise battle sequences, players will be kept on the edge of their seats the entire game.”


 “Ramin Djawadi has brought an incredible amount of creativity and emotion to his score for Medal of Honor,” said Paul Lackey, audio director for Medal of Honor. “His take on traditional middle eastern music with the incorporation of modern twists including sequences of heavy electric guitar and bass have helped create a unique and engaging composition that will help set the tone for the reboot of Medal of Honor.”


Medal of Honor launches on October 12, 2010 in North America and October 15 in Europe for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PC. Follow the game on twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/medalofhonor or become a fan on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/medalofhonor.


About Electronic Arts


Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EATM, EA SPORTSTM, EA Mobile TM and POGOTM. In fiscal 2009, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $4.2 billion and had 31 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.


EA, EA SPORTS, EA Mobile, POGO and Medal of Honor are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Resonant Residence! Interview with Composer Tom Hajdu (Tomandandy)

Resonant Residence!

Interview with Composer Tom Hajdu (Tomandandy)

Tom Hajdu, part of the seasoned scoring duo Tomandandy, joins us to discuss their involvement in scoring RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE. Tom explains how the writing process was different from other projects, how the score stands apart from other work that they've done and that others have done, and what his speculations are for the future of film and its music.

Read the full interview here:

The Expendables (Soundtrack) by Brian Tyler - Review

"Expendable?"
Review by Steve Townsley

For what seemed an inevitable (if somewhat late-coming) mash-up of action movie awesomeness, BRAIN TYLER’s score for THE EXPENDABLES is somewhat...formulaic? I hesitate to describe it as such, because I’m still waiting for it to “hit” me. For a project of this calibre, I want overblown, over-the-top music. Instead, a fairly standard action-movie score, with pulsing beats and drawn out winds and strings is delivered. This doesn’t make the score bad by any means, not for someone who likes the odd action score.

However, for the composer who made such a big first impression with powerhouse works like CHILDREN OF DUNE, and cues like “Summon the Worms” (a piece that is sure to secure Tyler’s immortality amongst epic-movie trailers editors), the merely serviceable score for THE EXPENDABLES feels like a step to the side. Do I expect too much from a still-“junior” film composer? Perhaps. If that is the case, though, at whom do I shake my fist? To be fair, I’m still waiting to catch the accompanying film, but I am still of a sort that likes to listen to scores before I see the movie. Based on the casting roster, (Stallone, Statham, Willis, Li, et. al.) I want to hear the the skies rock! I want the faux-Bruckheimer score that Harry Gregson-Williams provided for TEAM AMERICA and the action-genre pastiche that Theodore Shapiro gave TROPIC THUNDER. Granted, those films were comedies that treated their subjects with an almost straight-laced mock-epic quality...but really, should I take any movie that delivers--in one celluloid package--Rambo, The Transporter, John McClane, Wong Fei-hung, Ivan Drago, The Terminator, a smattering of WWF standards, and...ah...Mickey Rourke....seriously? Besides, the album art features an estimated eleventy-one billion automatic firearms and John-Rambo trademark-bad-guy-stabbers all garnishing a Big Freaking Skull. Your other soundtrack CDs will cower in fear from the total awesomeness of this CD on your library shelf.

Read the full review here

Buy - The Expendables: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

SoundCast Interview with Doug Adams (The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films)

Interview:  Doug Adams
Recorded September 1, 2010
Published September 1, 2010

DOUG ADAMS, author of the upcoming book THE MUSIC OF THE LORD OF THE RINGS FILMS, talks about this unique and comprehensive project which put him shoulder-to-shoulder with one of his composer-idols, HOWARD SHORE. He shares about the joys and challenges of working on a project of this scale, his research process, and just who will want to get their hands on this book and compact disc! (Don't miss our little ploy to get some information on THE HOBBIT at the very end!)

Episode Highlights

00:26 - Introduction
02:30 - How did you come on to this project?
09:45 - The evolution of the project
13:00 - Who is this book intended for?
15:30 - What was the most difficult part of this project?
19:30 - How did you select the music for the Rarities CD?
25:30 - How are you feeling as this book is finally about to release?
29:04 - What's happening with Howard Shore and THE HOBBIT?


Music Clips (Select music clips contained in this podcast)

00:00 - "The Road Goes Ever On Part 2" (LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring - Complete) by Howard Shore
08:53 - "The Three Hunters" (LOTR: The Two Towers - Complete) by Howard Shore
17:30 - "The Last March of the Ents" (LOTR: The Two Towers - Complete) by Howard Shore
24:34 - "The Plains of Rohan" (LOTR: The Two Towers - Complete) by Howard Shore
30:15 - "Return of the King" (LOTR: The Return of the King) by Howard Shore

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