Back catalogue: Modern Classical

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing to corner of outer sleeve but otherwise in excellent condition***


From the moment you hit play on 'A New Threat Is Born', the first few minutes on this soundtrack to the acclaimed video game, Resident Evil 3, you could easily close your eyes and feel like you're back sat in front of a TV playing the story through. If you're unfamiliar with the franchise, let's just say it (re)wrote the book on survival horror, and a big part of this was in the scores used to accompany the on-screen tension. Less focused on specific theme tunes and tracks, over time the emphasis has increasingly fallen on building atmosphere and setting up jump scares for unassuming players. On a record, that sounds like a combination of fast moving and quickly developing instrumental movements and intimidating sound effects. Perhaps not the dinner party soundtrack you were looking for, nevertheless it makes a big impact.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***


Will Thomas Long's and Danielle Baquet-Long's magnificent album Celer is an alluring fusion of classic ambient and minimalism that comes steeped in a very real sense of romance. It comes with underlying themes of longing, melancholy, and nostalgia and begins with the sound of a train evoking a sense of travel. Throughout the piece, grandiose string loops alternate with various field recordings, creating contrasts between the concrete and abstract, the mundane and the exalted. Despite the epic feel of the string loops, the title, 'Engaged Touches', hints at intimacy. This powerful romanticism characterises much of Celer's work, making this another noteworthy addition to their growing repertoire.

Review: The third LP in the Chypho series from Jahbulon Records, Episodes in Oceanography, features striking cover art that helps make it another collector's gem. Chypho hails from Huntsville, Alabama and the music here does what it says not he tine - profiles an underwater world in painterly and immersive ambient tones. There are plenty of microscopic details that drift by, shimmering sun rays that piece the surface and implied rhythms that sway to and fro like the shifting sands of the ocean floor. It's a real soother for the soul but a great bit of nourishment for the mind.

Review: Chypho is on a roll with this super trio of albums on Jahbulon Records. The second album in the Episodes in Oceanography series, is another must-cop for ambient lovers and it is enhanced by striking cover art and great mastering. Hailing from Huntsville, Alabama, Chypho's music vividly explores an underwater world through immersive ambient tones and this edition captures subtle, microscopic details in deft melodies, with bright keys breaking the surface and supple rhythms swaying like ocean currents. It's a soothing journey for the soul, offering both relaxation and nourishment for the mind, and is a tranquil, yet thought-provoking place to get lost. Very nice indeed.

Review: Andrea Cichecki - a German DJ, music producer and audio engineer based in Dresden - presents her debut LP for Castles In Space, building on an intense reflection on her past. Having been brought up on the precipice of countryside and woodland, Cichecki is a lifelong adherent to what she called the "edge effect", thriving on the boundaries of things both metaphorical and actual, rather than sticking within them. Bringing macro-cosmic scale to Moogish synthesis, each track weaves a personal story of an implicit, instrumental nature, unalloyed by words, and incorporates field recordings from the Ore Mountains and the wild, valleyed landscape of Saxon, Switzerland.

Review: The full 83 track suite from the original Halo trilogy of video games is here, bringing you an exemplary score befitting of one of the most acclaimed Arcadian future combat shooter game series in the world. Now you can figuratively "don" your very own sonic Spartan supersoldier suit, as the game's trademark musical motifs - mystical Gregorian choral chants, missionary orchestral movements, gloried verging-on-prog upswells and downturns - are laid in pristine electronica-augmented fashion, by composers Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori and C Paul Johnson. The midpoint of the record marks a highlight, where the Halo 2 soundtrack heard a long list of A-list musician collaborators, marking a heavy metal and nu-metal sojourn.

Review: Laced Records and Halo Studios partner up to bring the epic soundtracks of the original Halo trilogy to vinyl for the first time, remastering and revamping 83 original scores from Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3. the music that defined a franchise is thus ethered in perpetuity. Weaving orchestral elements, prog rock, drum corps marches, and heavy metal, Halo presents a perfect bottling of angst and militancy; owing to its popularity with a certain teen gamer cohort, Halo 2's score especially made history as the first video game OST to chart on the Billboard 200. Now, each soundtrack is presented in its own sleeve with custom artwork, and comes in a collector's box adorned with a debossed Halo logo and silver laminate finish.