Hello!

WELCOME TO COALESCESION RECORDINGS!

My name’s Steven, founder of Coalescesion Records. I’d like to introduce you to the label, the Coalescesion blog and myself. The blog here will mostly be utilized for announcements, soundtrack news, highlighting different composers, video games, movies and television in addition to thoughts, opinions and other musings.

The impetus behind starting this label stems from my love of music, video games, film, television and the soundtracks that accompany them. More specifically, the desire to preserve and elevate video game soundtracks.

Inspired by the many boutique soundtrack labels and video game shops that came before, I wanted to create a label that would focus on the world of video game music (VGM) and give prestige to the composers and their works. I want to keep the music relative, to see quality releases, to keep classic titles in print and build a bridge for imports. Driving the costs down and making these releases affordable and accessible. These are the goals Coalescesion will work hard to achieve in the coming years.

Like a lot of people, I grew up on video games and music. It wouldn’t be until later that I started to really appreciate how important music can be to the medium it accompanies. In some cases, the music itself becomes a character. It becomes so important to the identity that its hard to think about a game or a film or a television show without its signature atmospheres, themes and music. Often when we reminisce with others about our favorite memories or moments from a game or movie, there’s usually a piece of music attached that you connected with emotionally. Consciously or subconsciously. Thankfully, there are a lot of fantastic boutique label’s out there that have forged this path, remastering and releasing complete scores and soundtracks from the well-known to the obscure across a variety of formats. As a music lover and soundtrack enthusiast, I want to see more video game soundtracks given the premium release treatment. Its the reason I founded this label.

Here’s a little anecdote:

Some years ago I read an article that troubled me, Konami games had commissioned an HD update to Silent Hill 2 & 3 for the PlayStation 3. This was awesome news, two classic PS2 era titles getting a new coat of paint. Exciting right? Unfortunately, while the games themselves held up really well, the final product was marred with technical issues and glitches that didn’t exist in the original. How is it the original is technically superior when the remasters have the same code (barring different hardware architecture)?

Well, according to the developer Hijinx Studios, they had to reverse engineer the games code from a retail copy of the game. Allegedly, Konami (or Team Silent, developer of the original titles) lost the original source code. Reading this, I was shocked. Especially for such a popular title, how had the assets not been properly archived? I had always assumed — with games, movies, music — that all the assets were neatly buttoned up and archived for future use. To Hijinx Studio’s credit, they did a solid job working with what they had, working on patches post release to smooth out the issues. But the thought that something like this could be misplaced? Or lost to time? It’s a scary thought. That’s why preservation is so important, to stay relevant, and so future generations can enjoy and be inspired. This is part of Coalescesion’s mission.

Lastly, I’d just like to say thank you, I appreciate you. Please stay tuned, I have much more to say!

::Steve::