TheMegas posted over @ OCR:

Hey all – just wanted you to know that our album Get Equipped is
finally out! We’ve been recording the thing for over a year, but at
long last ran out of things to delay its release any further

You can get the album for $10 + $3 SH, or via Digital Download.

Beatdrop on VGMix X:

bucky o’hare posted on OCReMix:

Straight from JoeCam, OverLooked ReMix has released the first remix album of 2008 featuring music from Spelunker.

We’re pleased to announce the official release of Wardriver‘s second album, An Ideal Euphemistic, a free collective album by many of the artists on the Wardriver label.
An Ideal Euphemistic is a showcase of Wardriver talent, if you will. Featured on this album are old-school OverClocked ReMix talents like Starla, Px, and myself, obscure scene hipster OverCoat, upcomers like Skrypnyk and Monobrow, and TOP SECRET PROJECTS THAT WILL REMAIN TOP SECRET until you get me drunk enough at MAGFest. Oh, and that ILLiterate arbiter guy from R:TS.
Since the album is mostly a showcase there’s no real theme, so you can
expect a pretty wide variety of songs on there. So head on over to
Wardriver and grab this album. And if you haven’t yet, get Wardriver’s
first release, Tanasinn EP by OverCoat, while you’re there.

Merry Christmas!

His first release since “Toybox”, Shael has release a free to download album entitled “Bremelanotide”, by the band The Grammar Club. Also, there has been talk, for reference check the web site – The Grammar Club, about creating a secure download for an FLAC lossless version of the album with an eighth, bonus track, and instrumentals.

A quote from the site:

Shael posted a thread on the OCR forums, please check it out, and congratulate him!

According to a post by SGX himself on the OverClocked Remix forums, tomorrow (Wednesday, December 12), his new album, Hero of the Grey Area, goes on sale. But this is far from an ordinary sale of a CD album of his. This sale starts at, for a limited time, $4.99! Are you outta your mind? No says SGX, this is all just an experiment.

The information comes straight at you from the man himself:

“I have streaming previews of every track on the album, downloads of all
the previews and full songs available at the page above. If you follow
my stuff, you’ll know that I do release some of the tracks I put on my
albums to gather interest, but I’ve only released two full tracks and a
few shortened versions for free from this album. There’s about 40
minutes of tunes you haven’t heard yet on this album. Also, everything
has been professionally mastered, so you haven’t heard the NIIICE
sounding versions of the tracks either.

I’m doing a little experiment with the pricing of the download version – For a possibly limited time, I’m setting the price at $4.99 to start, with the option of ‘tipping’ me if you should so please.
Normally, I think I’d set the price at $7.99, so I’m going to watch how
much comes in, and decide in a month or so to put it back to fixed
pricing or not.”

Also, SGX is giving buyers a choice between high quality VBR MP3 and FLAC lossless audio formats.

Also, don’t forget about scoring a copy of the physical CD itself:

“The physical CD is set at $14.99 with free shipping. Whenever you buy a
physical item from me, you also get the download version free so that
you can listen right away. If you’ve ever seen copies of the limited
edition Chroma, Outmoded, or SGXRMX2, you’ll know I do discs up right
with sexy on-disc printing and a nice deluxe jewel case from these guys.

The Album will also go on sale at cdbaby.com and iTunes as soon as
cdbaby gets done processing and setting it all up. Can’t give a
specific date on those.”

If
you’ve ever heard SGX’s music, then you know it’s totally quality. I
suggest you pick it up as soon as possible before supplies run out! And
you know they will!

Also check out: http://www.sgxmusic.com/hotga for more information.

So OverClocked ReMix has FINALLY got around to releasing Final Fantasy VII: Voice of the Lifestream (albeit too late to join the 50 Cent / Kanye West album war of Sept 11th). Reviews have already started popping up all over the place, but they’re pretty generalized and “ZOMG AMAZING.” I’m obligated to do my own review…because I have a website…and a soapbox, and you don’t.
Having listened to the whole album 3 or 4 times since zircon gave me the torrent last night to seed, I think I have a pretty good feel for the whole thing by now. Ever since this album was announced I’ve been weary of the outcome. It was a bold endeavor taking on one of the most well-known soundtracks among video game fans AND vowing to arrange MOST of it. Not to mention the hype that had been mounting up over time (especially right before it’s release…and even after it’s release). I wanted to hear it for myself. Screw the hype.

That being said, I can say that the album falls WELL above my expectations, but still falls short of “knocking me off my feet”, as some would suggest. Some of the songs I absolutely LOVE, like bLiNd and Spekko (as Steffan Andrews)’s JENOVA themes, respectively, along with Star’s Highwind mix (The Highwind Takes to the Skies), Terethian’s ReMix of the Gold Saucer / Cid’s theme (Alien Exploration), bladiator’s “The Golden Ivories of Gaia,” & Darangen’s “Collision (Northern Crater)”.

Some of the other songs on the album, while technically good, leave me wanting more. Zircon & Sixto’s ReMix of Red XIII’s theme could best be describe as “Balls awesome technoz in a similar chord progression to the original song, 2(?) bars of the original tune repeated twice, and then more balls awesome technoz. While it SOUNDS cool and all, it…hardly feels like an arrangement of the original Red XIII theme aside from those 2 bars. Same can be said for Danny B’s Turk’s theme. I went around class playing a few of the songs for some of my friends, almost all of which love FF7 as much as your average fanboy, and NONE of them could identify a lot of songs. Cid’s theme by Jovette Rivera suffers a similar problem but…well let’s just say that song isn’t really my favorite.

Some other things of note (& minor knit-picks) include:

• If you see Sixto Sounds credited in any song, it basically means they needed a crazy guitar solo. It almost feels as if they said “Well this song is good…but it needs more…CRAZY GUITAR SOLO” and bam, Sixto is off. Not that this is a BAD thing, since Sixto is REALLY GOOD at what he does, just…look out for it =P. I assure you, even if you’re doubting they could possibly fit a guitar solo into this song, it’ll be there.
• One-Winged Angel remix end kind of…suddenly. Like F4T4L said “a One-Winged Angel remix that’s less than 6 minutes is blasphemy.” It’s not at all a BAD SONG, but…geez. Give me AT LEAST another minute and a half.
• Suzu’s song sounds…well a lot like Suzu at first, and then Sixto totally tears it to shit.
• Tefnek is amazing.
• Haroon r teh back <3333 All this being said, the best way I could some this up as a whole is this: If you’re familiar with the artists on this album, you’re pretty familiar with what you’re getting here on a song basis. This isn’t really BEYOND anything we’ve heard from OC ReMix before, but almost all the songs on this album are better than MOST OverClocked ReMixes. It’s HANDS DOWN the best OCR album but…it can’t really hold a torch to stuff like the Black Mages (though better than PMM), but I mean…it is free, which is what tips the scales on this one.

ZOMG WHY IS THE ALBUM EXPLODED ALL OVER ITUNES? (on WMP and Winamp Media Libraries, too)

Mostly because OCR still doesn’t believe in “Album Artist” tags (or embedded album art, for that matter). Watch what happens when we give all the songs a “Various Artist” entry for the Album Artist field…

SO MUCH BETTER! (Album art added seperately.)

From OCR:

“Hey guys. I have a bit of exciting news to announce. First and foremost, my first original album is currently underway! That’s right – one album, one me, and… an indeterminate number of songs. ^_~ When will be the release, you ask? I’m shooting for this coming spring, 2008. A realistic goal, I believe, but I’ll hold off on the specifics until things are closer to completion.”
“Now, if you are a particularly zealous fan – or even a mildly curious person – then you’re in luck! I have finally set up an official mailing list, which will allow me to send out the occasional update with samples of my current work, release dates, and other tasty tidbits. If you’re at all interested, don’t hesitate to join! Just head over to the “Contact” page on my website, enter in your email address, and check off the “Join my Mailing List” option before submitting.”

You can sign up for the mailing list here.