Hey everyone,

After an incredibly intense few months of composing and prepping for the ASU premiere of Arcadia (post about that coming soon), I’ve been reconnecting with some of my favourite pieces of music and, to be honest, finding my way back to ones from SNES. So, here’s a short burst of some of my faves:

1) “Close to Home” from Uncharted Waters: New Horizions Special Edition

I absolutely adore this piece and, most particularly, this arrangement (though the original is absolutely brilliant too). This piece comes from a Koei strategy came called Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, which the second game in this short series. It’s composed by Yoko Kanno, who famously wrote for anime like Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne and Vision of Escaflowne, and far too many other great scores to count).

There’s something about this that I find really moving. It has a Pat Metheny-esque colour that I adore, a synth that adds colour to the keyboard part, a brilliant modulation to the key of the b3 (Ab, I think) in middle of the phrase). I’ve always wanted to do an arrangement of this and live my childhood dream of getting posted on OverClocked ReMix, but the Special Edition setting is a PERFECT arrangement of this song. I wouldn’t change a note.

The game is really challenging and can be particularly obtuse, so the real tragedy is that Yoko Kanno wrote a fabulous piece of music that so few players would ever hear.

2) “Chrono Trigger” arr. the 8-Bit Big Band

A work of staggering arranging and performance. Taking the iconic original theme from the game of the same name and shredding through it? Oh my goodness, yes. Chick Corea and Jaco Pastorius-inspired? All the way to the bank. No notes 🙂

3) SimCity – Title Theme (Soyo Oka)

This was the first piece of video game music where I held my boombox to the TV speaker and pushed “record” on the cassette deck. This really sets the tone for the kind of game you’re going to encounter – remember “cozy gaming” and labels like that weren’t available in the early 90s yet.

The other important distinction is that it has to be the SNES version of SimCity’s opening theme. The game had an entirely different soundtrack than other versions, as this was an SNES launch title, and Soyo Oka knocked it out the park.

I could go on for about fifty more pieces (“Maridia” from Super Metroid, “Color of the Summer Sky” from Secret of Mana, or the entirety of the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack), but I’ll cap it here.

Expect a post about the “Arcadia” premiere pretty soon!
-Kenley