Song Spotlight: Sebastian Wolff - World of Goo Piano Medley

If you enjoyed the World of Goo soundtrack, then you will very likely enjoy this song as well. Sebastian Wolff has created an awesome 14-minute piano medley of many of the songs from the soundtrack and made it available on his website (which also contains sheet music for the entire soundtrack). The melodies translate amazingly well to the piano, and Wolff performs the piece extremely well, giving it more of a classical feel. If you're a fan of solo piano music (as I have become lately, to my surprise), of World of Goo, or of video games in general, this song is well worth checking out.

I feel like I should write more here, but that's probably because I don't usually do song spotlights. You can read the previous post about the World of Goo soundtrack (and download it if you need to) if you'd like to know more about the music in this medley. Otherwise, I'd say just go and listen to this medley for yourself to see what you think (the MP3 is located about halfway down the page, below the video). Happy listening!

URLs:
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2009/04/album-spotlight-world-of-goo-soundtrack.html
http://goo.sebastianwolff.info/

Album Spotlight: World of Goo soundtrack

This post is a little overdue, but I hope you'll still enjoy it just the same. If you play video games, then you've probably heard of a game called World of Goo that was released last fall on various computer operating systtems and also on the Wii. The game has been extremely well received and has won numerous awards. Unfortunately, I can't say too much more about it, mainly because of the fact that I still haven't played it (although I will soon - as I was preparing this post, I got an email informing me that the Wii Points I won in the last Tetris Party tournament are ready to be claimed, so I finally have enough points to buy the game). On the plus side, though (and much more relevant to this blog), the entire soundtrack to the game can be downloaded for free from the website of Kyle Gabler, one half of the team that made the game. 

The appropriately titled "World of Goo Beginning" opens the album. After a brief, dramatic sounding choral intro, the song's tempo picks up and the mood changes to a very Danny Elfman-like feel; the majority of the rest of the album's songs fall somewhere between these two extremes. "Brave Adventurers" has a very nice melody which is also found in "Ode to the Bridge Builder". "Regurgitation Pumping Station" alternates between slow, jazzy sections and faster sections that sound like spy music. "Screamer" is a short but very sweet song with a dark feel to it and a guitar sound that reminds me of Eddie Van Halen's work on "Respect the Wind" from the Twister soundtrack. "The Last of the Goo Balls and the Telescope Operator" is another song that is short, but very beautiful and melancholy.

Gabler has provided notes about many of the songs which are worth taking the time to read, as they often reveal funny, interesting, and downright amazing information about the songs. Without spoiling anything, my favourite tidbits involve how the choir sound in "Burning Man" was achieved, where the drum sounds in "Best of Times" come from, and the warning that comes with "Red Carpet Extend-o-matic" (which, despite being based on one of my least favourite types of music, is insanely catchy and one of my favourite songs on the album).

What's truly great about this soundtrack is how well the music stands on its own - as I mentioned above, I still haven't played the game, yet I've listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. So even if you haven't played the game, it is still well worth checking out. Happy listening!

URLs:
http://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack/

Some free music for Easter

I have a little bit of Easter music to share with you on this Easter weekend. I wanted to have more music to share and to have this post up earlier, but that didn't quite work out. I hope you will still enjoy this music anyway.

First, classical.com currently has Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater available as a free download. As with all free downloads from classical.com, you need to act quickly if you want to get this one, as it will only be available for a couple of weeks.

Second, much of Handel's Messiah can be found between Classic Cat and Wikipedia. While Messiah is most commonly performed during Christmas, it was actually first performed during Lent - in fact, the entire second part of the work's three parts ("The Passion") relates to the Easter season, and the "Hallelujah" chorus is found in the middle of parts II and III. You won't find the complete work between these two sites, but most of the first two parts (including "Hallelujah") are there.

Finally, and more on the contemporary side, an acoustic version of Marillion's "Easter" can be found on their Downloads page (not the most well organized page I've ever seen, but the MP3s can be found on the left side under Audio Tracks; "Easter" itself is under RTL2 Radio Session, 7 June 2004). First released nearly 20 years ago on Seasons End, this has long been one of Marillion's most popular songs. The version found here is very stripped down, but still very beautiful.

However you have been spending this Easter Sunday, I hope you have been enjoying it. If you find any of this music enjoyable, then so much the better. Happy listening, and Happy Easter!

URLs:

http://www.classical.com/album/FF16835 (no longer available for free)

http://www.classiccat.net/handel_gf/56.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list

http://www.marillion.com/fans/downloads.htm

Guest post at Music Musings

I'm guest posting at David D Muir's Music Musings blog this week in order to help David meet a writing deadline later this month.  Music Musings is a great little blog that features all kinds of music news and opinions.  Every Friday he links to a source of free music downloads, so for my guest post I wrote an album spotlight for Six Red Carpets' Nightmares + Lullabies album.  I hope that you enjoy it, and also that you stay there for a while to see everything else that his blog has to offer.

Happy reading and listening!

URLs:

http://musicddm.blogspot.com/

http://musicddm.blogspot.com/2009/04/free-download-friday-6.html

About the last post...

In case anyone thought they were going to have to start paying money to access this blog's content, allow me to ensure you that that will not be the case.  I decided to have a little fun for April Fools Day yesterday - if you look carefully at the post, specifically the first letter of each paragaph, you'll find a message encoded in it.  This blog will continue to be as free as the music I write about in it.  Regular posting should resume shortly.  See you soon!