Original Soundchat

If you’re seeing this, you might be confused! This is not Original Soundchat, what manner of trickery is this? This is the first episode of Joe’s new podcast Pixel Symphonic, it’s being dropped onto this feed just this one time in order to make sure it reaches YOUR EARS! We hope you enjoy!

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It’s time for the inaugural episode of a brand new outing! Pixel Symphonic is a show about video game music. We’re here to learn and talk about it with the people who make it, the people who listen to it, and everything in between. This new show will be releasing one episode a month, with a new guest each month.

For my first guest it just felt right to bring on my old Original Soundchat cohost Peter Spezia. He may be retired and out of the game now, but there’s nobody else in the world I like talking about game music with more. Our conversation goes into how we got into video music through largely the same entry point, and also Peter’s favorite soundtrack from his adult years.

This episode features music by Nor, Takahiro Nishi, Shogo Sakai, Masaaki Iwasaki, David Wise, Michiko Naruke, Jun Senoue, Nobuo Uematsu, Yuka Tsujioko, Kenji Ito, Jun Ishikawa, Noriyuki Iwadare, Kenichi Nishimaki, Yoko Shimomura, Shoji Meguro, and ACE.

THIS WEEK: Peter descends into a volcano to witness the ultimate showdown between Heihachi and Kazuya Mishima with Rio Hamamoto's work in Tekken 7 and Joe braves the terrifying natural elements to stop a potential nuclear terrorist attack in Disaster: Day of Crisis.

THIS WEEK: Joe puts up his boxing gloves to reboot Nintendo's original fighting franchise on Wii in Punch-Out!! (2009) and Peter perceives lies in the courtroom with a magical bracelet to discover why a famous lawyer got disbarred with Toshihiko Horiyama's work in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

THIS WEEK: Joe jumps between dimensions to stop a cyborg invasion using roguelike elements with Steve London's work in Star Renegades.

THIS WEEK: Joe retrieves the logs of a derelict spaceship while hearing suspicious stories from two AI companions with Isaac Schankler's work in Analogue: A Hate Story and Peter races into the Blue Falcon to show off power of Mode 7 on Super Nintendo in F-Zero.

THIS WEEK: Joe and Peter present their combined list of the top 10 best game soundtracks of 2023

THIS WEEK: Peter prepares for the twilight of the gods across each of the nine realms all throughout a continuous camera shot with Hozier's work in God of War Ragnarök.

THIS WEEK: Joe works as a physically augmented UNATCO agent to recover stolen shipments of a vaccine to a pandemic known as the Gray Death with Alexander Brandon's work in Deus Ex.

THIS WEEK: Peter collects S-K-A-T-E letters while pulling off sick skateboard combos with Brian Bright's work in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Joe flexes his inner bodybuilder with the sidescrolling shooter featuring fighting game inputs in Ai Cho Aniki.

THIS WEEK: Peter returns home to Possum Springs to hang out with friends and uncover the town's darkest secret with Scott Benson's work in Night in the Woods.