Eminent Off-Topic List
Originally I was going to write a list, but I got too TL;DR with the first item so the rest will not come, at least for now. It’s hard enough for me to work myself to talk about off-topic things as is…
I just got the Echo of War Legendary edition in the mail the other day. Finally got through listening to it right now and a prompt response seems somewhat useful.
Again, let me recite again (with emotion!) who Eminence Symphony Orchestra is–they are these Australian youngins, lead by Akiba-kei-type Hiroaki Yura, that plays anime and game music relevant to them. Being inherently non-Japanese, they actually have a taste for western games like what (Activision-)Blizzard puts out. In fact, Yura himself raids. This goes along with the reason why I like them; it’s not just because the orchestra’s main members have anime and gamer creds, but also they are a group formed from the ground up to do this kind of music specifically. To that end they are behind the likes of Valkyria Chronicles (maybe also for the anime?) and Tower of Druaga (imagine that) and Romeo x Juliet. That’s not to mention what songs they’ve played at their shows (Can I has Beyond the Clouds?) and some of the CDs they’ve released.
Anyways, with blessing from Blizzard, Eminence produced two CD’s worth of orchestral arrangements–some old and popular, some never-heard-of, and some spanking new music. They worked with the music talents both within and outside of Blizzard for these rearrangements. The result is Echoes of War. It comes in two versions, one normal and the other, heh, Legendary. The Legendary edition, a 2-CD + 1-DVD box set with some bonus items, comes with a thick booklet full of notes that I haven’t even gotten a chance to closely comb over. Come to think of it, someone has to have written something about the one main theme to Starcraft: Ghost that is now a part of a publicly-released work.
That’s right. Starcraft: Ghost. And that was a nice track too…
Disc 1 contains the music mostly from the Warcraft world, bulk of them lifted from the three World of Warcraft releases. I personally enjoyed the Burning Crusade tracks the most as I spent the most amount of time playing that… It’s the shorter disc of the two, with just 6 tracks and clocking just over 35 minutes.
Disc 2 is where the fun starts, clocking in at around 55 minutes. Track one hit me really hard because, well, back in the days I played Terran a lot. [The first 3 tracks of disc 2 are Terran, Protoss and Zerg rearranged from the classic Starcraft game.] I’m not sure why, but probably because I was the best micro player with the group of folks I picked up the game with back in ‘98. Has it really been only 10-11 years? It felt longer. Anyways, that song cracked me up because of the memories that came back rushing.
However, my favorites were the Zerg and Protoss tracks, as well as the main tracks to Ghost and Starcraft II. Yep, it’s all there. And the Diablo II and Diablo III stuff. They sounded better than I imagined.
I’m already ranting for longer than I’d like, so I defer to quoting a better review…
[I]f you like game music at all, this is a necessary addition to your collection; even if it’s your very first album, it’s worth it. I’ve heard other songs from Eminence[], and this is easily the best thing they’ve ever recorded. The guest arrangers also make this album a unique merging of East and West, something we rarely see in the realm of game music. It’s my firm belief that Eminence deserves our support, if only because they could probably repeat this success with any game developer/publisher that cares to cooperate… and I’d love to see more of this stuff for other franchises.
Who are the guest arrangers? Ko Otani, Hironori Osone, Natsumi Kameoka and Go Shiina. Actually Otani even wrote an image song for the Diablo series. Must be a Japanese thing…? I’ll take originality when and where it comes :-)
I guess, if anything, let me just end with one comment. American and western animation generally have budgets multitudes larger than we see in TV and direct-to-video anime. But why do I care about anime soundtracks and not so much with American cartoon soundtracks? I mean, there’s the caveat that American animated movies often do have great sounds, as with Japanese animated movies. But why the disjoint off the movie screen? Am I just not listening, or do people just don’t take it seriously in the US so they don’t put any money in it? I know in video games, this is a gap that is being narrowed, but certainly not for animation. Regardless, this is a very cool East-meets-West. We can use more of this, for reals, and in all sorts of other things about this weeaboo-but-kinda-mainstream culture. And imagine that, it’s thanks to a bunch of Australians!
Hey, fancy that, us Aussies are good for something more than taking your unwanted convicts :p
Hmm… that makes me wonder if they are in any way related to the Eminence guild, which I think was on Blackrock, since you said at least one of them raided. Going to have to take a look at this, I’d love to hear some remixed video game/anime songs.
As for the difference between West and East, that’s a very interesting point. I’ve never really even realized it, but it’s very true. Although, I do find some video game tracks to be enjoyable, but there’s definitely a rather large gap there.
Aussies ftw? kek.
Nazarielle: thanks for the tip. Eminence is kind of a generic guild name though, but worth checking out.
I’m no game music nerd, but my impression of the American game music scene is that outside of some select works (Blizzard’s WoW games, actually, are quite good musically; probably partly why the Echoes of War project went ahead.), people just play up their favorite themes from really popular games. There’s little to no following for the general game music scene otherwise. Certainly the set lists at different game music orchestra shows around the States lately would suggest this. At least once we remove music from everyone’s favorite Square-Enix games >_>
I preordered Echoes of War Legendary the instant it came out. Worth every dollar. My only criticism is that there is a point on one of the tracks where the strings cut out on one speaker and then cut back in a few seconds later. Probably a recording artifact. I’m also really not a fan of Ko Otani’s Diablo thing, but the rest of the album is fantastic. Which is saying something since Blizzard’s original recordings are usually extremely good to begin with.
Now if only Eminence would put on another show. It’s been ages. :(
I didn’t notice the audio cut-out…but if you can pin it down where, you should go post on their forums or email them.
The Koprulu Symphony part 4 - Victorious But Not Unscarred. The brass that comes in at 1:48 starts out mono, clips slightly, and suddenly goes stereo, then at 1:59 it goes back to mono again. I can’t describe it exactly but it’s like the sound goes from the center to the right and then the center again. So I think it cuts out on the left side.
It might be my rip. I should listen to the CD directly.
Eminence Symphony Orchestra has nothing to do with the Eminence Guild on Blackrock. Hiro plays on Bloodscalp *cough* http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bloodscalp&n=Yupa *cough*