http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?CatNumber=SQEX-10098

YES PLEASE!

Shiny! I want!

Where's Zane? I figured he be all over this!

Wow, interesting.
Can't wait to see the tracklist for this.

I am here, and I am pretty damn excited. Hopefully Hamauzu will do some arrangements of his more abstract stuff from those albums... only time will tell (or a tracklist from PV/Harry).

The big question, of course, is if this album will contain works in the vein of Good Hamauzu (SF2, US Disc 2, MSL) or Evil Hamauzu (US Disc 1, FF7 DOC).

*high five*

You = rule.

Flip those. Electronica Hamauzu irritates me whereas orchestral Hamauzu thrills me.

Considering Hamauzu implies this album puts emphasis on piano and strings quartet, electronica pieces will sound different if they are included.

I'm curious about what else SE is going to publish as SE composer's best album series. I wish for Tanioka <3

I'm surprised you put FF7 DOC under Evil Hamauzu. ;-)
Did you check "DIRGE of CERBERUS: Final Fantasy VII MULTIPLAYER MODE Original Sound Collections" ? Some tracks in there are truly wonderful..
Later,

Alcahest

I'm talking specifically about released OSTs.  If that stuff's not on the OST, then I haven't heard it.

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=SQEX-10098

Pre-orders up at cdjapan.

The description sounds like it's just a compilation :-(

-Joshua

Don't trust CDJ's descriptions. They said Luminous Arc was a Mitsuda album, and that the FFXI box was being released with the acclaimed FFIX Piano Collections.

Some one updated the info on it a GMR:

"Solo feature album from Square Enix composer Masashi Hamauzu. Features entirely new compositions and new arrangements from previous works including Final Fantasy X, SaGa Frontier 2 and UNLIMITED: SaGa. All themes selected and produced by Hamauzu."

"New arrangements" is good...especially if it's on piano.

-Joshua

PV updated GMR with a link to the CD's official site:

http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/ … index.html

I can't say I'm that excited anymore.

What a waste of perfectly good album art...

...droooooolllllll....

I agree that his SF2 stuff was legendary, but US Disc 1 has some merit in it.  IE "Theme of Laura" and "Solitude" being one my favourite pieces by him.

Hmm, I just heard elsewhere that Vielen Dank is going to be a mixture of both material from original soundtracks, along with arranged material, about half of the album for each. Truth?

Hey, you know, there are some samples up, and I think, they're pretty damn good at least.  Check them out, eh?

Yep. Right here: http://www.square-enix.co.jp/music/sem/ … k/top.html

I think it's "original" material, NOT from games, but stuff Hamauzu's written for the sake of writing it. And then, alongside it, are NEW arrangements from his work w/ Square-Enix.

And I wouldn't be surprised if a) there was a bonus track from FF13 or b) one of his original compositions ends up in FF13.

Ramza

Wow, Hamauzu sure seems to like the German language, eh?

It's funny, because *apparently* he can't really speak German, at least not fluently. But he was born in Germany. And, though the impressionist music style has roots in France, there was a German impressionist movement that, IMO, Hamauzu emulates perfectly.

Ramza

The house on the cover is actually where he and his family lived during the first year of his life. He is not fluent in German mostly because his family came back to Japan when he was 1 years old.

Strictly speaking,  that is the neighbor house that he photed from within the house where his parents had lived in. FYI, what he intended to take picture of is actually the garden, which is the theme of this album (you can see it from the track names too).

It looks like the original songs don't have much gut to them...

01 Winterhof  1:20
02 Wäldchen  1:59
03 Kinderspiel  1:15
04 Das Zelt im Garten  1:26
05 Maiglöckchen  1:04
06 Feuerdorn  1:16
07 Die Ranke  1:40
08 Kleine Teestunde  1:38
09 Die alte Hausmauer  1:08
10 Kaki  1:08
11 Abschiedsküsschen  1:35
22 Eisblauer Himmel  2:18
23 Die Wahrheit  1:19

Short and sweet little themes. It is very much the style I expected.

I'm still totally buying this album.

Ramza

Are we going to see this album sampled in RPG Fan's soundtrack section?

yes

I wasn't actually expecting a piano album.. So in that sense I'm a little disappointed.

Has anyone else actually heard the album yet?  I'm into my second listen and I'm very impressed.  He seems to have gone back to his SF2 days (yay!!) and the arrangements of his other works are a nice touch.  A "must hear" all around.

I like it; it's a little short, imo, but maybe that is because I have been listening to a lot of classical music CDs that are 74 minutes in length of late!

Some of the songs don't stand out, but some of them do--I'm not entirely sure what is original and what isn't, so I can't make the divide there.  I think it will grow on me nicely.

Hamauzu's about the only game arrange pianist I listen to at all. Maybe the FFX Piano Collections were a little weak in comparison to his other works, but it definitely ranks up there in game piano arrange albums overall, and his SaGa Frontier II Piano Pieces, I believe, are the tip of the crest.

I'm sure there are other game piano arranges I like, but none come to mind right now.