Hi again,

May gave at least me some breathing room to catch up with things and also to revisit some older albums. I went through some film scores, e.g. The Village by James Newton Howard, Pirates of the Caribbean by Klaus Badelt, and The Time Machine, also by Badelt. Which made me kinda sad, since Badelt doesn't seem to be very active in movie scoring anymore and nowadays seems to focus more on television, which we sadly don't get any official releases from.

My attendance at the Final Symphony concert (11th of May) also triggered me to relisten the FF7 soundtrack. Valtonen's symphonic poem again made me realize how beautiful this particular score is, and also how well it tells the story just through the music.

Anyway, I found a lot of nice albums to be released in June...

Preorders:
N/A | Atelier Escha & Logy -Alchemist of Dusk Sky- Original Soundtrack
N/A | Twilight Sky Atelier Escha & Logy -Alchemist of Dusk Sky- Vocal Album
LACA-9293~4 | Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet Original Soundtrack

The yeah-stuff:
N/A | Atelier Escha & Logy -Alchemist of Dusk Sky- Maxi Single CD (might contain some interesting demo tracks, which can't be found on the other albums)
UMCK-1449 | Kiseki no Ringo Original Soundtrack (Joe Hisaishi in non-anime scoring mode)
UMCK-1450 | NHK Deep Sea Project Original Soundtrack (more Hisaishi-san, this time for a documentary -- documentary scores can actually be very interesting, see e.g. Yuki Kajiura's Rekishi Hiwa Historia, or also the Works for Soundtrack one)
N/A | Fault!!SA Special Sound CD (Hiroki Kikuta in hentai mode, not clear if there is any BGM on this one)
PCCG-01349 | Photokano Original Soundtrack (while the animation is so-so, the score really kept growing on me)

The meh-stuff:
N/A | The Last of Us Original Score (while the game looks highly interesting, I can't imagine this score to deviate much from the "ambient background" style)
SQEX-20011 | Distant Worlds music from FINAL FANTASY THE CELEBRATION (primary reason to add this was not the track selection, but more the cast of arrangers)
LACA-9297~300 | 2nd Super Robot Wars OG Original Soundtrack (large four disc box drew my attention)
LACA-15309 | Arata Kangatari Original Soundtrack (I've got no idea what this is, but it's by Kow Otani so might as well just add)
PCCG-01351 | Attack on Titan Original Soundtrack (not watching this since the show is crap IMO, just want to check out the score later)

So, the preorders are comprised of the two albums for Gust's new Atelier game, kind of a sequel to Atelier Ayesha. Also Hiroki Kikuta seems to be composer on the vocal album, so this is definitely worth checking out. I also noticed that the Suginami Junior Chorus is credited as performers. Another big plus for me, since they already rocked on e.g. FF XIII-2, Hanasaku Iroha and Owari no Hoshi no Love Song. Concerning the BGM part of the soundtrack, currently only Kazuki Yanagawa looks confirmed. However I would also like to see Yu Shimoda contributing some tracks, e.g. something like the rocking Close to the Edge.
Third and last preorder is Taro Iwashiro's Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet -- great animation, great music, nuff said

What do you think of June? Any albums coming out, that you might be interested in?

Greets,
liquid

I thought the comic was incredibly hyped, popularity fabricated and overly pompous shit, one of the most ugly cases where people got crazed by blatant undercover marketing (in other word, even more shitty Evangelion) but the anime is actually really good. Perhaps you take it too much seriously. The OP animation indicates part of it is supposed to be cheesy and a jerk.

I've seen the first two episodes and just can't connect to it. I didn't find the story remotely interesting. The characters and drama is too exaggerated in my opinion -- I just can't take something like that serious.

But it's fine. I don't have to like each and everything. Lot's of people hate Aku no Hana. For my part, I love it.

I'll be picking up the blu-ray for DW: The Celebration and the Subarashiki Kono Sekai Crossover ~ Tribute CD.

I like Attack on Titan, I prefer the more fantastical animes than realistic slice of life shows.  I tried out Aku no Hana but it was too boring, plus the rotoscoping turned me off.

If I remember correctly, Kikuta's only involvement in any of the Fault!! series was just doing the music for the OP/EDs

Oh and these...

Sayanara Umiharakawase Original Sound Track - Hoping for some of the same magic as the original and Shun.

Disgaea D2 Arrange Soundtrack - Been on a Sato and Disgaea kick after starting to play D4, and listening to the new D2 OST.

Dopamix Soundtrack - I like that there's some variety in the SS lineup for once. But I may wait on this until August and get it from C84.

This one looks interesting too:
N/A | Remember Me Original Soundtrack

I wasn't so impressed with Deriviere's recent work on Of Orcs and Man, which relied mostly on the cello performance. This here is supposed to be some kind of orchestral/electronics hybrid score.

For any fighting game enthusiast, Namco is releasing the TTT2+ OST later this month. It's basically the console related tracks in a 2 disc format (versus the mp3 compressed version back in 2012) along with a bonus track or two. Release date is June 28th. Snoop Dogg's track is not included in the track list:

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Plus: SRIN-1109

Here are the notable releases for the month as I see them (including a few previous mentions), though the Joe Hisaishi one is the only one I imagine I'd buy.  We also have several reprints for two major series.

- Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded (Austin Wintory)  [Bandcamp]
- FX3 Remastered (Virt)  [Bandcamp]
- The Last of Us OST (Gustavo Santaolalla)  [Amazon]
- Final Fantasy Distant Worlds: The Celebration (blu-ray)
- Tekken Tag Tournament OST Plus
- NHK Special: Giant Deep Sea Creatures OST (Joe Hisaishi, documentary OST)

Reprints:
- the Etrian Odyssey 1-3 OSTs and Super Arrange Versions
- all four Macross Plus soundtracks (Yoko Kanno)

Just bought this this morning. Well worth the $6 for better-than-CD-quality lossless.

Uhh, more 96kHz/24bit madness?

Naw, it's 48/24 like the other Wintory stuff.

I pre-ordered these few, I was watching almost all these series (except Date a Live) and like what I heard in them:

1.VALVRAVE THE LIBERATOR (AKIRA SENJU)
VTCL-60348 | Release Date: 2013/07/03

2.RDG RED DATA GIRL (MASUMI ITO, myu)
LACA-9301 | Release Date: 2013/07/03

3.HYAKKA RYORAN: SAMURAI BRIDE (TATSUYA KATO)
LACA-15311 | Release Date: 2013/07/03

4.DATE A LIVE – SECOND HALF (GO SAKABE)
COCX-38065 | Release Date: 2013/06/26

5.THE DEVIL IS A PART-TIMMER!! (RYOSUKE NAKANISHI)
LACA-9295 | Release Date: 2013/06/26

6.GARGANTIA ON THE VERDUROUS PLANET (TARO IWASHIRO)
LACA-9293 | Release Date: 2013/06/26

7.BEAST SAGA VOL. II (KOICHIRO KAMEYAMA)
COCX-38066 | Release Date: 2013/06

I just realized that I missed this one here:
TBR23169D-2 | Kotonoha no Niwa Soundtracks

Score to the latest anime work by Makoto Shinkai. I found this interesting since TENMON usually writes the music for his films.

Good score, but only included in the bluray so it's a pricey expense

My package with the Atelier Escha & Logy albums made a small odyssey from Japan to Germany. So I got this ordered from Amazon.co.jp through a middleman, who sent the package on 4th of July (registered SAL, so with tracking). I turned out at the beginning of August, that it was delivered to the wrong person (despite being registered) on 12th of July already. Showed me again how much of a pain in the ass it is to deal with the german post when problems appear. Luckily I could find out the wrong recipient myself and finally get the package from him. Thank you german post, FOR FUxKING NOTHING!!! </rant>

Anyway, I'm totally digging the soundtrack. I find it much more diverse than the Ayesha one. Guess that's to be expected with the new addition of composers. The more, the merrier

Just wondering, but since there is also an amazon germany, can you not also order straight off amazon japan? You can order cds from amazon jp in the US.

You can order straight from Amazon.co.jp, if you're prepared to pay for some crazy shipping rates, that is. Which I'm not. Also you're very likely to pay customs duties for the package.

Well it's not great that you're forced to use EMS from amazon japan and I don't know the rates for europe or how much paying customs factors into the cost, but it did make me ponder whether I would save money, and no, not with SMJ I wouldn't.  My last package from there was three items from yahoo at 2800, 1500, 1800 yen and after all the fees and shipping it came to $139.85.  My last amazon was three cds at 3000, 3400, and 4800 yen and with shipping it came to $140.64

I used EMS a couple of years ago, when I just started collecting music. I had nothing but bad experiences with it. Packages didn't arrive; were returned to the shipper without me getting any notice; were shipped back from the initial customs processing in Germany back to Japan, just to be shipped back to Germany from there, and more stuff like that..

I got really fed up with it and I'm now only using SAL. It turned out to be a lot less hassle and the packages take nearly the same amount of shipping time, since they're not as thoroughly checked as the EMS ones. The issue I had with this package had nothing to do with it being either SAL or EMS. My name was clearly written on the package, something the middleman already proved to me by sending me a scan of the receipt. The postman just did not check at all if the name of the signee matched the addressee. Could have happened with any other parcel.

I never ordered from Amazon.co.jp directly anymore, after they changed their policy for international shippings, and I don't intend to. I source most of my purchases from either CDJ or YesAsia. But some releases just don't show up on CDJ (however the Escha & Logy albums are now also available from CDJ, which wasn't so clear initially), so from time to time I have to swallow the bitter pill. But I rather pay the middleman a few bucks, than giving them this lousy "express" service *g*

I am absolutely loving the Gargantia on the Verdurous planet soundtrack, it's so good! I picked it up on a whim and am pleasantly surprised.