After reading and posting in Mike's fairly depressing "Peak: "The point of greatest development" thread (http://altpop.com/stc/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2563), I started thinking about some newer talent that wasn't mentioned in that thread because their careers haven't peaked and declined yet. You know, some lesser-known composers in the grand scheme of things that can write soundtracks in circles around those lazy old folks. Here's what I came up with so far...

The dude - kt2
The good stuff - Abandoner, No Reality, from here the edge, Lost Child infinia

kt2's music is simultaneously melodic, ambient, beautiful and, most importantly, human; he has tapped into emotions I didn't know I was capable of feeling. Between his DJ Shadow-inspired Silent Hill-ish piano breakbeat and his earlier, synthy New Age stuff, kt2 has a lot of great material already and has a ton of potential to keep on moving. He released a free "best of" remastered download pack on his website, so there is absolutely no reason not to check him out: http://kt2unknown.web.fc2.com/

The dude - Yu Miyake (a.k.a. U, a.k.a. eutron)
The good stuff - Katamari Damacy (series), Tekken 4, Ridge Racer V, R: Racing Evolution

U's funky vocal samples, steady progressive tunes and innovative bitcrushing really set him apart from the rest of the pack when it comes to fresh electronica. I don't think it's coincidental that Akitaka Tohyama's style became more funky and inventive after they worked together on Tekken TAG. The man behind Katamari Damacy's catchy-as-hell main theme and the awesome "Pulse Phaze" from RRDA has a boatload of funky electronica that will keep you tapping your foot until it breaks off at the ankle. There are some awesome U tracks on R:RE, so go hunting for that game rip! It's great.

The dude - Akitaka Tohyama
The good stuff - Tekken TAG, Tekken 4, Katamari Damacy (series), DELIGHT in DAYLIGHT

A NAMCO composer like U, Tohyama owns Tekken 4 and brings some great pop to the table when it comes to the Katamari series. Unfortunately, one of his best songs, "Sterna dougallii," is only available on the very OOP DELIGHT in DAYLIGHT album (along with eutron's "Orange"). Tohyama gets better and more progressive with each soundtrack, and I am frothing at the mouth for his next project.

The dude - Masakazu Sugimori
The good stuff - Viewtiful Joe, Phoenix Wright (series)

Everyone knows that Phoenix Wright has a great DS soundtrack, and PW4 should follow suit. Viewtiful Joe's OST overshadows VJ2's because of Sugimori's great compositions - a good blend of old school melodies with a more modern electronica flair that maintains its own idenity without falling into the hellish chasm of typical VGM. Great stuff!

The dudes - Masafumi Takada & Jun Fukuda
The good stuff - killer7, The Silver Case, God Hand, Samurai Champloo

killer7 is one of my favorite OSTs, and opened my eyes to the dynamic duo of Takada and Fukuda. After hearing the brilliant GOD TRACKS! and the funky Samurai Champloo I realized that k7 wasn't a fluke; these dudes are here to stay. Even Takda's older Silver Case albums are f'n amazing. No More Heroes will own me later on this year. I highly recommend any and all of Takada's albums, but just be a little weary of Michigan; it's a bit too ambient and less enjoyable than the other stuff. Above all else, grab killer7 and GOD TRACKS as soon as you can!

My thread actually brought me to tears a few times over the past few days so this is a good idea to boost my spirits.  In addition to yours, I can only think of a few right now off the top of my head..

The dude - Kow Otani
The good stuff - Shadow of the Colossus

While he's not new at all to the music world, he's fairly new to the world of VGM.  As SotC is his only major work so far, we need to hear more from this guy ASAP!  Shadow's music blew me away when I first heard it.  That 7 minute long ending theme gets me every time, along with any track with "~Battle With the Colossus~" at the end of it's title.  Maybe we'll hear him again for the next "ICO" game, on PS3 perhaps?

The dude - Norihiko Hibino
The good stuff - Metal Gear Solid 2 & 3, Zone of the Enders (and ANUBIS), Yakuza, Elvandia Story

Personally I feel this guy is on his way up.  He got his feet wet with the Kojima games and now he's moved on to doing freelance jobs for Sega and Spike.  His often dark and sometimes jazzy style really does it for me.  Can't wait to see what he's up to these days.  MGS4 and/or ZoE3?

The dude - Mitsuhiro Kaneda
The good stuff - ESPGALUDA II (one track), Metal Slug 6, Bleach - Heat the Soul, The Starting Over Hyper Street Fighter II Remix Tracks

Everything I listed there is pretty solid stuff.  He's definitely someone to watch.  Sakimoto and Iwata must think highly of him as they brought him into their group over at Basiscape.  Time will tell!  Listen to his track on ESPGALUDA II and feel his power.

The dude - S.S.H
The good stuff - Lost Child, Atelier Iris ETERNAL MANA 1 & 2 Arranged Tracks, and random remixes from his site

His speed metal style kicks serious amounts of ass.  Every Lost Child CD he's worked on blows me away and is some of the *best* driving music known to man, trust me.  He definitely needs to do some more stuff on his own, rather than occasional remixes here and there.  If you're curious, you can here a lot of his remixes at his official site: http://ssh.ne.jp/

That's all for now.  Can't wait to see what other people post for this topic!  I do feel a bit better now too, thanks Zane.

-Mike

I've heard the Lost Child stuff and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Definately worth checking out.

A couple names come to mind. My enthusiasm is limited because it's questionable when I'll see some of these guys again (as I've alluded to before, the current VGM release list is complete shit):

Yasumasa Sato - The main composer from the Shin Sangoku Musou BB OST (my favorite OST from last year). Intense power-metal at its' finest, easily overshadowing anything MASA has done (and I like MASA). I really hope to hear more from this guy.

Kemmei Adachi, Manabu Abe - Battle Gear 4 is basically the only soundtrack I've listened to with any consistancy this year. Not the most blinding VGM rock, but a couple of legitimate classics amidst the pack ("Heaven on a Heartbeat", "Slippin' Away", "Moment of True" off the top of my head).

Yukihiro Jindo - The main guy over at Falcom now, apparently. He's hit or miss (he can rock, but he's wasting his time with synth-orchestra and techno pieces), but he's done a fine job with both Felghana and Ys Origin and I'd like to believe he's only going to get better. Needs more 80's though and less of a superficial "modern" feel.

Masanori Akita - After Enthusia and the first PS2/Xbox/GC TMNT game, this guy just...disappeared. If anyone finds what planet this guy ended up in, please post.

The Atelier Team - If I were to draw a regression line for these guys, it would be straight as an arrow. Mind you, it would be very high up on the graph, but it would be very straight, as these guys have neither improved nor turned to suck over the course of the 5 main soundtracks I've listened to them for. I'm fine with consistancy, but so many of their pieces are on the cusp of greatness (and they seem to be one of the few good melodic VGM composers left in existence), it feels like they could be so much more than what they currently are.

Masato Kouda, Noriyasu Agematsu - I have to give these guys the benefit of the doubt, as both have done a fine job filling in for Naruke in the Wild Arms series. Both can be hit or miss, but both are responsible for plenty of killer tracks between them.

Yoshihiro Sato - A bit of an oddball/dinosaur, but now that I've listened to a couple more "virtuoso" solo rock albums, I really like this guy on Cyber Org (well, disc 1 anyway) more than I did before. Hopefully, he'll be gracing us with another soundtrack one of these years...He's no Vai or Malmsteen, but he's fine by me (although I like "High Powered Drivin'" and "Winds of July" more than anything I've heard from those two).

Hiroki Kikuta - Another dinosaur, but if what I've heard about him is true and he starts composing seriously again (and gets to releasing his older material), we could be in for a treat. The talent level of this guy is scary.

I want to say Masayoshi Soken for his SD4 arranges and about 3 tracks from the Mario Basketball 3-on-3 OST, but he needs more consistancy before I take him seriously. I'll be interested in hearing his first full-blown score.

I'll definitely second Takada as one to watch. I didn't like michigan or killer7 too much, but God Tracks! made me a believer and I can't wait for his next project. "Sunset Heroes" is as good a direction as any for modern VGM. More SSH would also be highly appreciated, now that my ears are more in tune with his guitar synth and playing style (I swear it's the exact same synth on the Guilty Gear X arcade soundtrack, something I've also come around to).

I also want to say the guy who composed Magical Bringer Korona True, but only "Sundervolt" is credited. Blazing rock, much in the SSH synth-thrash style, mixed in with lighter themes and quality Jpop (but these are in the vast minority...It's mostly a rocker).

Just one quick one as I run out the door: Yoshitaka Hirota.  His only major work so far has been on the Shadow Hearts series (aside from some work on drama albums, it seems), but pretty much all the best material in SH came from him.  He's got a fresh, inventive style that produces some amazing music... parts of Shadow Hearts somehow manage to be both discordant and beautiful.  His career seems to be closely tied to Mitsuda in some respects -- they both worked on SH and the aforementioned random drama albums. Regardless of how you might personally feel about Mitsuda (I love him), that's a great name to be associated with in the VGM industry, and I'm hoping Hirota's resume lands him more work in the future.

Is this the guy who composed "Bit Crusher" from Tekken 4? If so, he's amazing.

I absolutely loved God Tracks, but I thought Samurai Champloo was mostly dull.

I agree about Norihiko Hibino. He's amazing, but he should try doing different stuff; his electronica is getting a bit old.

No, that's Satoru Kousaki. He also composed "Touch and Go", another T4 fave of mine.

If you want good, dark, jazzy stuff from Norihiko Hibino, check out Akashi if you haven't already. It's been out a couple years now, but it's still very fresh if you ask me. Les albumes originales pour le gagner.

Otherwise, last time I checked, someone else composes the Metal Gear Solid main theme (Tappy, isn't it?) Hibino mostly does the cut scenes background musics, which, in my opinion, are bland and uninspring out-of-context en generale.

You may beg to differ, but I hardly think Metal Gear Solid and Zone of Enders best tracks are done by Hibino.

...

Atelier Team (Nakagawa, Tsuchiya, Achiwa, Inagaki)

Someone else mentioned this before, I'll agree; the Atelier Iris and Ar-Tonelico soundtracks are my current top favorites.

Personally, I really enjoy his recent vocal concept album with Rekka Katakiri, Kinema in the Hall.

...

WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED OF THIS.

*orders!*

Some people already covered some I would mention, so:

The guy - Shinji Meguro - I fear he may have already peaked with DDS, especially considering how awful Persona 3 was, but he's still one of the few composers I will continue to follow (for the time being).

The team - Ibis/Lungwort - Tried these guys out on a whim, I think they make music to PC graphic novels (as well as original stuff), other than that I have no real knowledge about them other than they make some pretty awesome stuff that can be summed up as moody, melodic, rhythmic, old-school RPG stuff.  Seriously this is some of the best original stuff I've heard in a looong while, it's too bad it's so far under the radar that I doubt even a lot of people in Japan know about them.

Addy to their sites for those interested: http://woodruff.press.ne.jp/lungwort/

www.afz.jp/~ibis/

Or should we say Georgy Sviridov?

I'm anticipating Takeharu Ishimoto's debut album, Subarashiki Kono Sekai: It's a Wonderful World, scheduled for August 22.  The songs "Twister" and "Give Me All Your Love" have become fixtures of my playlist.  Same with the BGM looping on Square Enix's official site.  Ishimoto is also currently working on the scores for Dissidia Final Fantasy and Crisis Core.

I thought it was Shoji Meguro?

Agree with all of the above. Definitely looking forward to more Kouda and Agematsu on Wild ARMs.

Zane:
Thanks for the link to kt2, great stuff. Now I'm a bit bummed I passed on the Abandoner soundtrack.

Where can I get a copy of GOD TRACKS!? I haven't seen it anywhere.

yes, it is Shoji Meguro.

The man - Manabu Namiki

The goods - Espgaulda II, Mushihimesama, Dodonpachi

This man opened my eyes to the sub-genre of shmup soundtracks.  Mushihimesama was definitely some of his best work and being paired up with Masaharu Iwata didn't hurt either.  He's not the newest talent, but I haven't seen his name mentioned in either topic.