New singles by Nana-B

If you’re into pop music, here’s a cool project you might wanna hear. Nana-B is one of my guitar students. She is only 14 years old, but we already wrote and produced two pop tracks together this year! The last one has just been released:

By the way – My production/mixing/mastering schedule is closed until April 2022. I’m opening new dates for May/June/July/August 2022. Drop me a message, I’d love to work on your album or a few of your songs!

The Big Materia Takedown

🇺🇸 I’m sorry to inform you but, because of circumstances out of my control, a big part of my catalogue will be taken down from stores and streaming services.

Since 2016, I’ve been working with Materia Collective – a brand that, currently, had the biggest video game music catalog of the United States. I grew a lot as a professional musician while working there, and the music we released made me very proud.

However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, shocking revelations about working abuse and ethics inside the company were made public. It raised a big debate whithin the game music community, as artists and musicians were rightly outraged. Many decided to leave the label.

The events culminated on what I’ll call The Big Materia Takedown. Come november 30th, all the community albums released by the company will be removed from stores and streaming. We’re talking about dozens of albums and hours of music.

I sympathize with everyone involved in this case and I hope they can have a better and bright future ahead of them. I am lucky that I was never harmed in any way during this time.

However, it also raises my awarenes over the lack of control I have on music licensed by 3rd parties. This is why I also decided I am officially disconnecting from the game music community (I was already focusing on my own music anyway).

Some of the music I did will be lost forever. Producers and musicians involved in those albums are starting to orchestrate re-releases in different formats. It will, however, take some time, if it ever happens.

Just as you, I am looking forward to what the future holds. Follow me on Twitter | Instagram | Facebook for news and updates.

🇧🇷 Lamento informá-los, mas, devido a circunstâncias fora do meu controle, uma grande parte do meu catálogo será retirado das lojas e serviços de streaming.

Trabalho desde 2016 com a Materia Collective – marca que, atualmente, possui o maior catálogo de música de videogame dos Estados Unidos. Eu cresci muito como músico profissional enquanto trabalhava lá, e as músicas que lançamos me deixaram sempre muito orgulhoso.

No entanto, durante a pandemia Covid-19, revelações chocantes sobre abuso de trabalho e ética dentro da empresa foram tornadas públicas. Isso levantou um grande debate dentro da comunidade de trilhas sonoras, já que artistas e músicos ficaram, com razão, muito indignados. Muitos decidiram deixar a gravadora.

Os eventos culminaram no que chamarei de o Grande Desmonte. No dia 30 de novembro, todos os álbuns da comunidade lançados pela empresa serão removidos das lojas e do streaming. Estamos falando de dezenas de álbuns e horas de música.

Simpatizo com todos os envolvidos neste caso e espero que tenham um futuro melhor e brilhante pela frente. Tive a sorte de nunca ter sido ferido ou prejudicado de alguma maneira durante esse tempo.

No entanto, isso também aumenta meu alerta sobre a falta de controle que tenho sobre músicas licenciadas por terceiros. É por isso que também decidi que estou me desconectando oficialmente da comunidade de música para jogos (eu já estava me concentrando na minha própria música de qualquer jeito).

Algumas das músicas que fiz serão perdidas para sempre. Produtores e músicos envolvidos nesses álbuns estão começando a orquestrar relançamentos em diferentes formatos. No entanto, levará muito tempo, se é que vai acontecer.

Assim como você, estou ansioso para ver o que o futuro nos reserva. Siga-me no Twitter | Instagram | Facebook para mais notícias e atualizações.

New release: Violleth – End of the Road

If you like new metal with good hints of heavier styles, Violleth just released their first album, End of the Road. I had the pleasure of recordings basses on all tracks, as well as mixing and mastering the whole album. Production, composition and lyrice were all created by my old friend Sullivan. The album is now available on all major streaming platforms!

Apart from the songs, there is also a bass playthrough of the song “Inferno”, in case you wanna hear and watch me playing my favourite song of the album! Check it out:

Thennecan: Concert at Ñoñoparty 5 and new EP

If you follow my work, by now you probably know I’ve been deeply connected with video game music over the years. Just as movie soundtracks did before (and even opera/theatre concerts when there were no cameras or TVs), this kind of music will have a huge emotional impact when coupled with great storytelling and an amazing interactive experience.

Recently, I had the opportunity of playing bass with Thennecan at Ñoñoparty 5 – A latin american music festival that celebrates exactly the video game music culture that I adore (“Ñoño” means “nerd/geek” in some latam countries). Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 festival was entirely online.

Now, our concert with Thennecan is available on Youtube where you can watch it anytime! There you can hear our heavy metal arrangements of iconic soundtracks such as Out Run, Pokémon, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Monster Hunter. If you’re a geek headbanger, this is a must-see!

The songs played on the concert were also released as an EP entitled “VGM Life” which is now available on all major streaming apps and websites, such as Bandcamp (linked below). Now, there are no excuses not to hear our arrangements! Remember: All plays and likes count, and sharing means the world to us! Thank you VERY much and I hope you enjoy it!

New single Released – Hyperspheres

The history of this song dates back to the beginnings my own history. It was first created as part of an unreleased electronic music soundtrack for a play, when I was still beginning to work with music, way back in 2007. Later, in 2012, it was completely rewritten as a progressive rock piece and used on Jeriaska’s Videogame Music In Context DVD series, as the soundtrack for Nobuo Uematsu’s interview – An important milestone in my career, since Uematsu was one of my biggest musical influences.

Now, in 2021, realizing this is still a really interesting piece, I decided to finally release it as a single, completely remastered to meet the highest audio standards. I always had an alien landscape in my mind when I was working on this song – Ancient ruins where an old hypersphere device dwells, constructed by forgotten races to teleport between worlds – All in the best Carl Sagan fashion. Pixel artist Arcanepixels captured that idea perfectly on his visual interpretation of this song, as you can now see on the cover art.

With love, I hope you enjoy this tiny bit of history! Click on the image below to play, or search for the track on your favourite streaming service!

The Vicious Head Society releases new album “Extinction Level Event”

This album tells the stories of 7 different people facing the end – How they process the event, what meaning or impact their lives have had. It asks what they cherish, what grudges or ill will they hold on to. Will they face the end with dignity? Essentially, the album asks the same question of us, the listener. Grief and loss are never far away. Are we willing to carry bitterness, anger and resentment to our death or are we willing to let go? Conversely, are there people in our lives that are deserving of forgiveness?

“Extinction Level Event”, by The Vicious Head Society, is out now – And as you might know, I played bass and additional instruments on quite a few tracks, and mixed/mastered the whole thing. You can now listen to the album on your favourite streaming service. Also, if for some reason you miss seeing me on camera, you can watch me playing the bass lines I recorded for two songs of the album:

Hope you like it! By the way – There’s lots of new music in the way, so stay tuned!

New compilations by the Materia Collective

Recently, I had the pleasure of recording to many albums from the Materia Collective. Two of them have been released recently, a tribute to Octopath Traveler and a tribute to Silent Hill.

On FLAMESGRACE: A Tribute To Octopath Traveller, I had the pleasure of recording two songs. The first one is a cool arrangement by Fredrik Häthén entitled “The Coastlands“. The second one is an arrangement created with my project Materia Brasilis – a group known for bringing brazilian rhythms and styles to the game music world. We had a guest jazz horn player, JohnStacy, and Peter Jones on trumpets. It all sums up to an orchestral experience that reminisces the exotic work of Villa Lobos as much as the bossa nova of Tom Jobim, entitled “Atlasdam, Seat of Learning”.

Click on the images below to listen:

On OTHERWORLD: A Tribute to Silent Hill, I recorded for six tracks. The album has an experimental, industrial nature. If you’re still on the brazilian feel, listen to “Otherside“, a jazzy bossa arrangement created by Justin Levine. I recorded acoustic guitars for this song.

“Forest“, is a choral arrangement by John Michael Hunt, to which I contributed recording tenor voices. “Room of [Dark] Angels“, by JDWasabi and Luci Holland, includes some ambient recordings by me. But spooky-wise, the great star is an arrangement of My Heaven, which I did using monotron analog synthesizers and a washing machine (yep, I was beating a washing machine to create that rhythm).

Two other tracks were created by Free The Green Beans, a band to which I play guitars. The first one is “Echo The Absurd“, a track heavily inspired by the music of David Bowie. The second one is a very interesting track inspired by Nine Inch Nails, where most of the sounds and nosies were created with a heavily processed guitar sound. No synths were used there.

Other albums are coming before the end of 2020 – Stay tuned!

New videos and singles by Thennecan

Guitarist, composer and producer from Chile, Thennecan released two new singles to which I had the big pleasure of recording basses. Expect to hear influences from Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock and Latinamerican Fusion here, plus a bass solo on Ken’s Theme!

Spotify | Deezer | Bandcamp | Apple Music