Game Music 4 All announces IWADON Hiroyuki Iwatsuki Tribute Album
March 17th, 2010 | 
Author: 
After nearly a year of radio silence in relation to our compilations here at Game Music 4 All, I am very proud to announce the next in our series of eclectic albums. IWADON Hiroyuki Iwatsuki Tribute Album.
Alongside the hard work of Jeriaska of Nobuooo.com, an incredibly diverse and amazingly talented collection of musicians has been gathered to pay tribute to a composer who has been creating amazing game soundtracks for 20 years, but has been largely overlooked by many. That composer is Hiroyuki Iwatsuki. Iwatsuki, or IWADON as he was credited on his early game soundtracks (and still uses on social network sites like twitter and last.fm). composed music to many cult classic games such as Wild Guns, Ninja Warriors, and Pocky & Rocky, as well as newer titles like the amazing XBLA shoot-em-up Omega Five.
IWADON will be comprised of over 100 minutes of music, and will be available to stream for free starting March 24th, as well as a free download of the album through bandcamp at a date soon after. Musicians both large and small, and from genres as varied as orchestral to hip hop, from trance to jazz, and a wide variety more. The album will also include extensive liner notes on each track as well as links to the original tracks via youtube via the album’s web page. We might even be having multimedia apps for the album for mobile platforms on a future date.
This album has been under wraps for close to a year and we are glad to finally unveil it at the end of this month with a panel at PAX East taking place on Friday, March 26th at 4:30PM in the JamSpace room. If you are attending PAX East please come out and sit in on our panel to learn more about this compilation as well as Horiyuki Iwatsuki himself and all the artists involved in this tribute.
Finally, to help satiate your thirst for some music from this album, as well as to help spread the word, Jeriaska has put together the first of several videos showcasing some of the amazing music from this compilation. The first is below, and features Kento Watanabe and his arrangement of IWADON’s Omega Five track Stage Clear: Report from Destroyer. Watanabe’s rearrangement is titled Report From the 1920s.
IWADON: Report from the 1920s from Jeriaska on Vimeo.
Posted in album release, GM4A Records | 
Tags: gamemusic4all, Hiroyuki Iwatsuki, IWADON, upcoming album release
This is definitely one hell of a tribute album (I’m on it too) and everyone should check it out. Not only is it free VGM but it spotlights one of the most unique composers of our time!
Also, for those who enjoy the interview with Kento linked to in this article, consider sending Simon of Higher Plain Music a message at @sitorimon on twitter. It’s his birthday today.
We can’t wait to hear this! We are proud to be a part of it and look forward hearing all the other artists as well. Cheers!
Greatly looking forward to this one.
Almost done listening to the whole album…
it’s GREAT stuff! It’s an honor to be featured and I’m definitely going to check many of the other artists out in the future.
Thanks for all the hard work you did with the album!
/Henrik
I’ve really enjoyed listening to this album, great work by all involved. I keep checking back to see if it’s available for download yet, any ETA on that? No rush, just checking – would love to take this on the go, in the car, etc. Thanks!
Really glad you have been enjoying the album! Looks like the estimated time for free download will be sometime in June or July, still finalizing a lot but hope you can stand the wait. Thanks again for checking out the album and enjoying it so much!
Cool thanks for the update! Definitely worth the wait, can’t complain. I appreciate you taking the time to reply. =)