While most of Bob Ostertag’s music is already freely available under a common creative license, his 2007 release marks a new milestone. wOOt is his first recording to go directly to free internet download rather than initially on a CD . The distinction is fitting as the composer created this 50 minute work by using only samples from 18 computer video games including Legend of Zelda, Myst, and World of Warcraft. The fragments are cut, pasted, looped, mashed, overlapped…pretty much everything is done to them that is possible except to bake them at 350 degrees in the oven. The piece starts with a single theme which evolves into a virtual fugue of video game sounds. From that point the work changes constantly making it an aural roller coaster ride. Ostertag’s best works, such as Sooner or Later or All The Rage have strong personal and socio-political themes. wOOt appears to have no purpose but to dazzle you with what can be done with a few primitive sound samples. While not the best of Ostertag’s creations, it is still a very witty and entertaining 50 minutes of music.

The album is available in 160kbps MP3. If you enjoy the music, support the artist by buying his CDs.

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I must admit to a certain dislike for 8 bit music. In my opinion, it is comparable to playing Gene Krupa drum solos with one hand on wooden blocks. Occasionally though, as in all music, someone actually manages to make it into something exciting and worth listening to.

Take David Morneau’s dance score titled Abandoned Revolution. Morneau’s chosen instrument is a Nintendo Game Boy aided by a loop sequencer called Nanoloop. With this limited material he created a clever suite of compositons for Boris Willis’ multimedia work of the same name. After a Straussian introduction Space Invaders style, Morneau melds the simple Game Boy themes into catchy rhythms that keeps the listener’s interest. Stolen melodies from Strauss, Copeland, and others abound and blend effortlessly. “Martha Graham Cracker” is almost industrial while the sixth track “Abandoned Revolution” sounds like a chase scene involving Pacman and the Keystone Cops. Morneau’s own description of “Terry Riley vs. Donkey Kong” seems quite appropriate. This is a retro trip that even Mario will approve of.

The work is available as separate tracks in 192kbps MP3.

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I recently played the shooter PC game, Jets N’ Guns at a friend’s house. It’s an exciting game but what really captured my attention was the riveting soundtrack. I did a search on the internet and was happily surprised to see it as a free download!

The Swedish metal band Machina Supremacy has created a bit of a monster. At 28 tracks and about an hour, there’s all the machine gun guitar and pulsing electronic sounds you might expect. However the band has enough tricks up its sleeves to keep the music from ever being redundant. At times it can be quite humorous as in the use of an old marching drill riff in “Little Green Men” and the Pac Man sounding start of “Megascorcher”. ” Other tracks like “Insectiod” evokes a horror movie atmosphere or a “watery” presence as in “Kings of the Sea”. Overall, this is an impressive piece of work.

The album is available in 192kbps MP3 either by separate tracks or as a full album zip.

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The very enjoyable soundtracks for the legendary Monkey Island games were never released, but fans have ripped them from the game files and offered them for download. There’s quite a variety, from tiny musical cues (”Choose Your Weapon”) to short themes (”Cutthroat Bill”) to fun melodies (”Edward Van Helgen”) to ambient (”Goodsoup Family Crypt”) to sing along comedy bits (”A Pirate I Was Meant To Be”, my favorite track). And that’s just from one of the albums. All four soundtracks are available: The Secret of Monkey Island, LeChuck’s Revenge, Curse of Monkey Island, and Escape from Monkey Island. Five hours of piratey goodness to be heard!

The MP3s are available in varying bitrates.

No longer available

In 2001, the 3D outer-space RTS Homeworld Game of the Year edition was shipped with a soundtrack CD for the game, which happened to be one of the coolest ambient albums of the past few years (here is my review). When the followup, Homeworld: Cataclysm was released, players were treated to another excellent ambient game soundtrack, but no CD. So, fans hacked the game files, extracted the audio themselves, and put the soundtrack on the web. Gotta love hackers. This is professional ambient bliss; don’t miss it.

The 62 brief tracks are in 128kbps MP3 format.

No Longer Available