Higher Plain Music » Akira Yamaoka

Laura Shigihara Talks “Play for Japan”

Higher Plain Music — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:13:59 +0000

The adorable Laura Shigihara talks on her YouTube channel about the excellent Play for Japan Charity CD that’s being spearheaded by Akira Yamaoka.

The full tracklist:

Akira Yamaoka (Shadows of the Damned) | “Ex Animo”
Arthur Inasi (Harmonix) | “We Are One”
Bear McCreary (SOCOM 4) | “Maverick Regeneration”
Chance Thomas (Lord of the Rings Online) | “Rise Up”
Hip Tanaka.β (Mother) | “HVC-1384″
Inon Zur feat. The Lyris Quartet (Dragon Age) | “Remember”
Jason Graves (Dead Space) | “Necromancer”
Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros.) | “Super Mario Medley On Two Pianos”
Laura Karpman (Everquest II) w/Lisbeth Scott | “Pine Wind Sound”
Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) | “Jump”
Mitsuto Suzuki (The 3rd Birthday) | “Play for You”
Nobuko Toda (Metal Gear Solid 4) | “Reminiscence”
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) | “Every New Morning”
Penka Kouneva (Prince of Persia) | “White Cloud”
Sean Murray (Call of Duty) | “The Temple Stone”
Tommy Tallarico (Advent Rising) | “Greater Lights”
Woody Jackson (Red Dead Redemption) | “Moshi Moshi”
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger) | “Dimension Break”

“Play for Japan: The Album” will be released on iTunes in June, and I’ll make sure to tell you the exact date as soon as we know. 100% of the profits will be donated to the relief efforts in Japan

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Arthur Inasi, Bear McCreary, Hip Tanaka, Inon Zur, Jason Graves, Koji Kondo, Laura Karpman, Laura Shigihara, Mitsuto Suzuki, Nobuko Toda, Nobuo Uematsu, Penka Kouneva, Sean Murray, Tommy Tallarico, Woody Jackson, Yasunori Mitsuda

Most Viewed: February 2010

Higher Plain Music — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:09:31 +0000

Well February 2010 saw our busiest month ever at Higher Plain Music as we hit a record number of views on the website. Thank you so much to everyone that comes to visit. One man completely dominiated though with 3 threads in the top 10 viewed and that’s Brendan Perry as the anticipation of Ark reaches feverpitch. It was also the first month when game reviews really notched up the hits with both winter games reviews grabbing 4th and 5th on the most viewed chart. Also with the new way the stats are made, I have over 700 unaccounted views, so please remember to click the actual posts for views to count! Here’s the top 10 artists and top 5 games of February.

Top 10 Artists

01. Brendan Perry (^)

02. Naoyuki Hiroko (Halo Legends crew) (NE)

03. Cris Velasco (NE)

04. Lisa Gerrard (^)

05. Garry Schyman (NE)

06. Jesper Kyd (RE)

07. Yoko Shimomura (NE)

08. Imogen Heap (v)

09. Panda Transport (NE)

10. Akira Yamaoka (v)

Top 5 Games

01. RTL Winter Sports 2010 (PS3)

02. Vancouver 2010 (PS3)

03. Musaic Box (PC)

04. Numblast (PS3)

05. Zoocube (PS2)

The next week may be a bit sporadic due to my own album being released this week but after that its back to usual!

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Brendan Perry, Cris Velasco, Garry Schyman, Imogen Heap, Jesper Kyd, Lisa Gerrard, Naoyuki Hiroko, Panda Transport, Yoko Shimomura

Poll: Which is Your Favourite Silent Hill Soundtrack?

Higher Plain Music — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:53:52 +0000

We all know and love Akira Yamaoka’s fantastic soundtracks, but do you have a favourite?

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka

Most Viewed: January 2010

Higher Plain Music — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:27:13 +0000

Well first month of the new decade is behind us and it certainly was a busy one! Just about averaged a post a day (phew – new years resolution not broken immediately!) and site traffic rose after a quiet December back to normal figures again. However, top of the bill was a certain Lisa Gerrard with the news of The Black Opal’s release and the review of “Balibo” really setting the readers alight. Here’s the top 10 artist’s and top 5 games of the month.

01) Lisa Gerrard

02) Brendan Perry

03) Jesper Kyd

04) Musashi Hamauzu

05) Imogen Heap

06) Utada

07) Mike Reagan / Cris Velasco

08) Akira Yamaoka

09) Yasunori Mitsuda

10) Sarah Slean

—

Games

—

01) Battle Tanks (PS3)

02) Winter Sports 2010 (PS3)

03) Vancouver 2010 (PS3)

04) Hyperballoid (Ps3)

05) .detuned (PS3)

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Brendan Perry, Cris Velasco, Imogen Heap, Jesper Kyd, Lisa Gerrard, Mike Reagan, musashi hamauzu, Sarah Slean, Utada, Yasunori Mitsuda

Most Viewed For 2009

Higher Plain Music — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:36:04 +0000

Well the year is out and so we leave 2009 with our top 10 most viewed artists and here they are:

01) Lisa Gerrard: With more posts getting more than 150+ views than any other artist, Lisa Gerrard topped our most viewed list and she looks to stay high in 2010. Her Balibo soundtrack was amazing, and we’re still waiting for her 2009 album “The Black Opal” to arrive to review. Well done Lisa

02) Vienna Teng: Vienna went under the radar for me and is a surprise second. Her fourth album Inland Territory is absolutely stunning and we got our hands on her live DVD from a while back and loved that too. Hears hoping to more in 2010!

03) Brendan Perry: The anticipation for Ark continues and Brendan continues to clock up hits while we wait. Ark looks like hitting early 2010 and rest assured, HPM will be buying it on release day!

04) OverClocked ReMix: Well the biggest game music remixing project chalked up several releases but it was the FF4 project that really exploded over here grabbing the most viewed interview in 2009 with the project managers. 2010 will no doubt see tons of remixes for all and I’ll drink to that *glug*.

05) Akira Yamaoka: Well HPM did a lot of reviewing of Silent Hill soundtracks in 09 and that’s because the reviews always seem popular. Now Akira has left Konami (although Shattered Memories is still composed by him) it remains to be seen when we’ll hear of him next. Not too soon we hope!

06) Imogen Heap: Imogen actually had the most viewed post of 2009 with over 700 views of bizarrely the tracklisting for Ellipse. Sadly not as many read the review so that’s why Immi is down in 7th. 2010 looks like a year of touring so expect Heap to appear in the live vault!

07) Utada: This Is the One was one of pop’s best albums and was the third most read music review of 2009 and top of the non-game music reviews. Utada’s groove is definately on and maybe we’ll hear some more Japanese work in 2010.

08) Tori Amos: Tori strangely didn’t feature highly on the most viewed threads lists but constantly propped up just outside the top 10 and so ended up 8th overall. Abnormally Attracted to Sin and Midwinter Graces were fantastic albums that deserve much love and so 2010 should see Tori enjoy a break for a few months!

09) Hiroki Kikuta: The most read review of 2009 belongs to Hiroki and the Secret of Mana + Review that clocked over 500 hits. Hiroki was kind enough to send over one of his more obscure soundtracks which will be reviewed in 2010. Thank you Kikuta-san!

10) Christopher Tin: Sneaking in by just 2 views over Sarah Slean, Christopher Tin’s Calling All Dawns is simply devine and snatched the final spot on our top 10. Chris is a genuinely nice guy and deserves all the credit the albums recieved.

Top 5 Game Reviews

01) Battle Tanks (PS3)

02) Trash Panic (PS3)

03) Numblast (PS3)

04) Shatter (PS3)

05) Magic Ball (PS3)

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Brendan Perry, Christopher Tin, Hiroki Kikuta, Imogen Heap, Lisa Gerrard, OverClocked ReMix, Tori Amos, Utada, Vienna Teng

Most Viewed – November 2009

Higher Plain Music — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:54:25 +0000

Well November was a bit of a wash out for new posts due to my house move, but that didn’t stop November being the fifth busiest month of all time for hits! It was primarily down to one lady, Lisa Gerrard, who’s new album more than tripled the hits of the second placed artist. We’ll be reviewing all three new releases of Lisa’s this month.

01) Lisa Gerrard (2 months)

02) Tori Amos (^)

03) Brendan Perry (^)

04) Christopher Tin (v)

05) Hiroki Kikuta (^)

06) Imogen Heap (v)

07) Akira Yamaoka (RE)

08) Sarah Slean (RE)

09) Anonymous 4 (v)

10) Utada (RE)

—-

Games

01) .detuned (PS3)

02) Battle Tanks (PS3)

03) Numblast (PS3)

04) Shatter (PS3)

05) GripShaft (PS3)

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Anonymous 4, Brendan Perry, Christopher Tin, Hiroki Kikuta, Imogen Heap, Lisa Gerrard, Sarah Slean, Tori Amos, Utada

Akira Yamaoka – Silent Hill 4 OST Review

Higher Plain Music — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:29:31 +0000

Silent Hill 4 -The Room- once again see’s Akira Yamaoka throw himself and the kitchen sink at a bizarre mix of ambience, noise, haunting melodies and rocked out beats. This time round the ambience and noise have been put on a back burner however as we gear up for the most melodic assault yet.

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn returns with her achingly emotive vocals. They are first showcased with “Tender Sugar”, a slow but climactic almost darkwave piece with haunting guitars and a very low-res production – a trait that stays with us for the rest of soundtrack. At first I found the low-res approach a turn off and in some respects it still is – but if you listen to the whole thing all the way through, you don’t notice it after a short while. “Tender Sugar” is a stunning opener setting a new darker tone for the vocal pieces and sets up the listener perfectly for what’s to come.

“Waverer” is one of the more abstract tunes. A minimal drum, bass and warped echoing piano/guitar feedback hybrid swirl throughout the piece enticing you in further. “Fortunate Sleep -noone disturb her dead-” then slides in after a small noise interlude with a song that reminds me of “Forest” from Silent Hill 2 for some reason. It’s not very similar sounding but its in the same tone for me.

“Melancholy Requiem” begins the first real instrumental “song” with arpeggios of piano and some distorted keyboards and string implements. The whole piece has a dirty, edgy and uncomfortable feel to it – it encapsules the essence of Silent Hill completely especially as the song degenerates into discorded ambience – a trait again carried in many songs.

“Confinement” has a mean guitar and percussive edge to it and brings you back to the old guitar sounds of the original Silent Hill songs before “Drops of Shame” takes you on an eerie trip-hop ambient climb around the echoing room. “The Suicidal Clock Chime” is a short piece of humming noises and discorded clangs of a very broken organ by the sounds of things before “Silent Circus” returns to the trip-hop beats for a quirky tune that is actually quite funky and chilled out.

“Traversing the Portals of Reality” then returns to the more grungy guitar riffs of earlier tracks with a very b-movie stabbing organ sound that lends itself very well to rock music, as does the out of tune violins! Great work! “Into The Depths of Self Discovery” then gives us an unnerving “new age” track of keyboard delights that pulsates with echoing soft screams flying through the piece. It’s probably the closest the soundtrack comes to a properly laid out melody too in an instrumental song.

“Cradel of Forest” sees the return of Joe Romersa on vocals for an excellent song. His vocals came under a bit of criticism in Silent Hill 3′s Soundtrack however here they fit the song perfectly and actually made me appreciate “Hometown” much more. Mary gives us some backing vocals too in this catchy rock song.

“Resting Comfortably” is the only sub minute song but I adore it. Its just a circle of synthesized vocals (it sounds like it anyway) but my goodness I could listen to it for ages on end. Eerie and subtle it leads straight into “Nightmarish Waltz” with distorted vocals and drum loops before the essence of “Resting Comfortably” returns for “Pulsating Ambience” where the songs non-vocal parts are accompanied by disorientating percussive booming bassy boings, almost like an Indian Udu Pot but Silent Hill style!

Onto vocal track three “Your Rain” with Mary on full song with heartbreaking weariness before the anthemic chorus pounds through your heart. This one took a few listens before I really appreciated it but now its a firm favourite.

“The Last Mariachi” is a completely carefully mucked up song and shows genius is how to make something likeable out of non-tune before my favourite instrumental song appears. “Wounded Warsong” is all about building tension as the chords pull up further and further with grinding padded synths crawling you up with it. It gets me going every listen – pure class.

“Underground Dawn -Never Come-” is similar to the second track, trip-hop drum beats and random guitar ambience flows throughout before “Fever Chill” takes away the guitars for some banging around on vibraphones and keyboards. “Remodeling” is the last of the official instrumentals which takes you off on a fun paced tour de force of random sampling and noises which is what the series does best.

To finish the real soundtrack off we have two stunning vocal tracks. The first “Room Of Angel” is easily the most downbeat original vocal track for a game I’ve came across to date and for that it deserves a mention. The bond between piano, vocal and ambient background is electric and you can feel yourself losing your strength. Some may think its too miserable – I think its superb! Finally “Waiting For You ~Live at heaven’s Night~” is a bonus track that’s not live at all. Its unreleased and they have simply and somewhat pointlessly popped a cheering crowd in it – thankfully it doesn’t sound fake. The song is catchy and have great hooks – a good rock out grunge style with Mary giving it some welly!

The second disc features a spoken story in Japanese called “Inescapable Rain in Yoshiwara”. The reader speaks gruffy and performs voices for all the monsters leading to some quite bizarre and unnerving screeching and moaning! Of course it would be no fun it wasn’t set to all the noise that characterises the Silent Hill series.

Each chapter is given a note of the music scale and each one works in harmony with the next. The atmosphere is tense and I’m sure if it were in English, you could appreciate the disc a whole lot more. However even in Japanese you can immerse yourself as the reader gets well into the story and the ambience unnerves you.

So does it match the previous three soundtracks? In a word – Yes! This soundtrack took an awful long time for me to really appreciate. I instantly fell in love with 2 & 3, and the original soundtrack I believe deserves status purely on its bold statement of noise. It didn’t feel like collectively it held together as the balance of melody overcame the ambience and therefore lacklustureness random noises couldn’t hold their own.

Now however on a relisten while writing this review, I can safely say it deserves its place up with the first three soundtracks. A fine collection, a fine series – Well done Akira Yamaoka!

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Joe Romersa, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn

Most Viewed: August 2009

Higher Plain Music — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:43:50 +0000

And so to August 2009 where we had a four way fight for the top this month, won by Imogen Heap whereby more people actually viewed the tracklisting after the whole album was posted as a streaming audio on the website and people didn’t actually listen to the album itself! However, HPM has not reviewed Ellipse (although I personally love it already) because I’ve ordered the two disc edition and want to hold on until it comes through.

Behind it was all go for OverClocked Remix, Module and Brendan Perry.

01) Imogen Heap (^)

02) OverClocked ReMix (v)

03) Module (NE)

04) Brendan Perry (v)

05) Utada (v)

06) Kento Watanabe (NE)

07) Akira Yamaoka (^)

08) Hiroki Kikuta (v)

09) Vienna Teng (v)

10) Baiyon (NE)

Top 3 Games

01) Shatter

02) Numblast

03) Magic Ball

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Baiyon, Brendan Perry, Hiroki Kikuta, Imogen Heap, module, OverClocked ReMix, Utada, Vienna Teng

Most Viewed – July 2009

Higher Plain Music — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:11:29 +0000

Well was there really any doubt? OverClocked Remix absolutely smashed the charts with almost more views on OCR posts than the rest of the site put together! Only Imogen Heap’s track listing for her latest album Ellipse was able to pull in big numbers too. Interesting we had almost exactly the same number of visitors as June (14 difference) and it was our third most viewed month of the sites history. We did break one new record, our first day with more than 200 hits! August should be a great month too. Let’s enjoy the summer!

01) OverClocked Remix (RE)

02) Imogen Heap (v)

03) Brendan Perry (^)

04) Utada (^)

05) Vienna Teng (v)

06) Hiroki Kikuta (RE)

07) Akira Yamaoka (v)

08) Natalie Imbruglia (NE)

09) Patrick Wolf (v)

10) Dead Can Dance (v)

Top 3 Games Reviews

01) Numblast

02) Trash Panic

03) Magic Ball

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance, Hiroki Kikuta, Imogen Heap, Natalie Imbruglia, OverClocked ReMix, Patrick Wolf, Utada, Vienna Teng

Most Viewed – June 09

Higher Plain Music — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:45:37 +0000

June missed being our most busiest month by just 21 hits so March 09 still holds the crown of busiest month – however for the first time ever one artist completely outrun everyone else by such a margin, their top post (our most viewed post this month) had more hits than the second, third and fourth busiest posts combined! Well done the Imogen Heap – everyone’s gone mad over the tracklist for Ellipse and we’ll be buying the album on release day so expect a sharp review on the day (provided its in shops – we couldn’t get a copy for Speak For Yourself in a store and had to buy online and wait). Patrick Wolf, Dead Can Dance & Vienna Teng’s album reviews all followed behind. Here’s the top 10 artists followed by the only two game reviews on site (we will be doing a top 5 game hits too). Congrats to Lisa Germano for making a new entry and Tori Amos, number 1 last month, dropped straight back out the charts again! June should be a busy month with lots of reviews not just here, but over on new site I Love Disaster Movies, which is another personal indulgence to another hobby of mine! Enjoy the summer!

01) Imogen Heap (1 Month)

02) Patrick Wolf (RE)

03) Dead Can Dance (RE)

04) Vienna Teng (-)

05) Akira Yamaoka (^)

06) Utada (v)

07) Brendan Perry (-)

08) Sarah Slean (v)

09) Lisa Germano (NE)

10) Yasunori Mitsuda (RE)

Tagged: Akira Yamaoka, Brendan Perry, Dead Can Dance, Imogen Heap, Lisa Germano, Patrick Wolf, Sarah Slean, Utada, Vienna Teng, Yasunori Mitsuda