Media Reviews
Welcome to our media reviews! Here we give our reviews on various pieces of media, ranging from good to bad. Usually, we'll save reviews for media that really impacted us (positively or negatively!).
HARUMI HOSONO - VIDEO GAME MUSIC (1984)
07/25/2025
★★★★☆
Harumi Hosono's Video Game Music is a 1984 chiptune album that depicts various arcade game soundtracks, with sound effects purposefully rearranged to create a semi-unique sound. It's a really beautiful album even though to most it's just arcade sound effects. It was a collaboration between Hosono and composers working at Namco, and could even be considered one of the first video game soundtrack albums!
What can I say, really? It's classic arcade chiptune. Each blip and bleep is endlessly pleasing to the ear, begging you to put more quarters into the machine. The sound effects keep the music from feeling empty, cause what is an arcade game without actual arcade game sounds?
If you listen to any song from the album make it Galaga. The Galaga soundtrack is already wonderful, but the overlaid sound effects are like the perfect accent piece for an outfit.
I really want the vinyl of this album one day, but it's like $50. Maybe another time :P
-Kay
PSYNWAV - MUSICAL TRANSIENTS (2025)
06/22/2025
★★★★★
Mashups have been part of internet culture for a long time, and in most cases they're made as a form of humor. How funny would it be to, for example, mix "Welcome to the Black Parade", "The Rainbow Connection", and "I'm a Believer" into one coherent song?
Psynwav dared to ask the question: what if a mashup was played seriously? What if it could tell a story?
"Musical Transients" is a collection of 8 songs that doubles as a coming out album. It tells the story of Psynwav's burgeoning gender dysphoria, their questioning, and their eventual acceptance and joy. Lyrics from existing songs are carefully arranged and sentence mixed to their fullest potential. Lyrics are given new, gut-wrenching context. To give you a taste without revealing too much, imagine "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" recontextualized to be about the dysphoria of a closeted trans woman. It shouldn't work, but it does. I'm not afraid to admit I cried listening to this record several times.
However, this album is still very fun. It sounds great, it's exciting, and if you weren't listening to the lyrics you wouldn't suspect its deeper meaning. If you listen to this, I 100% suggest keeping all of your focus on the lyrics (or using Genius while listening to it).
-Voxel (+Others)