Everything's gonna be all right.

Song title: Hang in There Baby

Info: The second last song from the fantastical "Advertory Suite" (explanation to come in the near future), this piece was inspired by the 70s poster from which it derives its name. In working on this composition, I tried to find the right blend of sadness and hope. And what can I say? I love cats :)

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Download: Hang in There Baby

A touch of Latin...

Song title: Cold Passion

Info: My first foray into the pseudo-Latin genre of music came with this piece, written sometime during the twilight days of the 2nd millennium; one of my first few attempts to seek new horizons and break out of what could be described as a very cramped comfort zone. While the resultant piece is unmistakably Latin in feel, the song feels deprived of genuine passion often associated with the genre, this fact being reflected in the title.

Download: Cold Passion

Chillin' out in the Milky Way

Song title: Space 2082

Info: Picture yourself chilling out in a futuristic bar, a cocktail drink resting in the palm of your hand. All this time, you are staring out at a star-spangled galaxy with no horizon in sight...

A childish romance, I know, but whether inter-galactic travel for the masses will come to pass during my lifetime is something I have a keen interest in. If the year mentioned in the song's title is any indication of when this future will become reality, however, the answer would be a resounding "no." Whoops.

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Download: Space 2082

A love simple and pure.

Song title: An Angel to Hold

Info: An unashamedly romantic, unadulterated love song was my objective as I set out to compose this piece. Armed with my interpretation of the different emotions that saturates an individual's mind when it is overflowing with the thoughts of his object of affection: unwavering love and adoration, pride and admiration, the desire to care for and protect from harm,  the need to be near, and other less tangible concepts--I put finger to keyboard. The result is thus.

Download: An Angel to Hold

Back when fossil fuels were in abundance...

Song title: Suburbs (Tree-lined Streets)

Info: I very much had a film score in mind when this piece came into being a few years shy of the new millennium: A middle class suburb in early 20th century America, bustling with life as the denizens of said tree-lined streets go about enjoying a carefree weekend with family and friends. Not that I have firsthand experience growing up in early 20th century America, mind you...

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Download: Suburbs (Tree-lined Streets)

Save early, save often.

Song title: Good Night

Info: I originally began work on this piece several years back, but never got around to refining and converting it to MP3 format. Anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game will instantly recognize exactly at which point in the game this tune is supposed to play (if it indeed is a track from said game). So pitch a tent or cabin, stir up a campfire, and sleep all your injuries and ailments away! Oh, and don't forget to save the game also, lest the hours of excruciating progress you made through the random encounter dungeon be undone. 

Download: Good Night

Within the Bowels of Hell...

Song title: Hell Stage

Info: What happens when you take a rank-and-file white-collar employee of a generic Japanese corporation and throw him into the pits of hell? You get "SalaryMan"--an  upcoming, poorly publicized, traditional side-scrolling action game that will have all of you wishing that the 80's (and to a lesser extent, the 90's) never ended. My friend kououken is doing most of the design and programming work, and I'm contributing background music (this being one of them), theme songs, and emotional support. Enjoy!

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Download: Hell Stage

Two loaves of bread, two bottles of wine later...

Song title: Sorrow

Info: Please refer to the previous post. While I apologize for my laziness, I saw no point in writing up a new blurb for this piece.

Download: Sorrow

A loaf of bread, a bottle of wine...

Song title: Serenity

Info: To me, the string section is like the bread of music composition, and harp, the wine. What I'm trying to say is, I have a tendency to overuse and abuse these two instruments in songwriting. But it cannot be denied that simplicity is the mother of perfection. In other words, I'm trying to pass off a 45 second tune boasting all of two instruments as a completed piece of writing.

Getting back on subject, this is another one of my earliest works, written back in '96 when the majority of my weekends were spent in solitary RPG gaming bliss. As you'll see for yourself, there isn't much to the song, but despite this--or perhaps, because of this--I find it a lot more whole a tune than others for which I've attempted to incorporate a dozen or so instruments just to prove to myself that I could. A similar logic applies to the brevity of the song. My lame attempts at stretching out a perfectly passable tune to beyond my magical two-minute mark can be compared to a man who has barely enough jam for a single slice of toast, yet tries to spread it out on a whole loaf. And then proceeds to water down a bottle of good merlot so that all his guests can enjoy a glass. I don't know what jam toast and wine are doing at the same party, but I've managed to get a descriptive metaphor down for each, so am satisfied.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. It would be ludicrous for the Info section of the post to take longer to read than the length of the song it describes. The song title is as self-explanatory as they come.

Download: Serenity

Fleet of foot, sleight of hand.

Song title: Sneakish

Info: All I remember about writing this song is that I was trying to come up with something else altogether. But now that it's become a composition of its own and all that, I feel obligated to offer background information to accompany this post: some dude sneaking around, obviously up to no good, in a comedic scene in what would otherwise be a serious film. Yeah, that'll do.

Download: Sneakish

A vehicular tribute.

Song title: Fun Kart Go!

Info: I was tasked by kououken with writing a go-kart theme song that didn't sound like a rip-off from the SNES game, Super Mario Kart. The result can only be described as an epic fail.

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Download: Fun Kart Go!