Subway Meditations: latest Michael Bross album
 

Michael Bross has released his latest album: Subway Meditations. Unlike his more recent original music, this comes with a more substantial 12 tracks in the experimental, ambient electronica style. The hook here is that a lot of the sounds used are recorded by Michael in the field — and in this case the field is the Los Angeles and San Francisco subways. Rumbling carriages, squealing brakes, the coughs and footsteps of passengers, and the echoey PA all feature.

And it’s available to buy now from Michael’s site! http://bross.com/recordings/brossalbum_sm.html

I already have it, but I haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet.

More information is available on OddBlog.

You have an interesting taste, my friend.

Michael Bross was the artist who did the music for Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath, that's why it's mentioned here.

I personally didn't care for Michael Bross's music. He's a good ambient composer, but I feel his attempts at orchestral sounding pieces fall flat. I prefer Ellen Meijers' work ten fold, but perhaps that's just me.

After reading Bross's website, I recall him blaming the ineptitude of his teacher for getting into the music biz (which was actually his second career choice). I find that sort of pathetic in all honesty. I've had nothing but inept art teachers my whole life and it hasn't affected my ability to draw. Bross grew up in Gabe (Used) and I's hometown of Pittsburgh, which is pretty much a cultureless wasteland, so I guess I can't lay all the blame on him for an unavailing artistic blossoming.

I do like the "Stealth" and "Fighting Outlaws" themes though.

Turns out Ellen's husband, Josh Gabriel, was the composer. Ellen was in sound design.

Josh did the score, but Ellen did the soundtrack.

Er... I'm not musically literate, what's the difference?

Basicly, score is the written portion; the soundtrack is the recorded portion.

Anyway, I don't really care for Bross's non-incidental music.

Also, Pittsburgh is so not a cultureless wasteland just because you don't like Andy Warhol! :p

It is too, Gabe. Just because you're Italian and living here doesn't mean it has culture.
Any town without a Chinatown is cultureless. The strip doesn't count, even if it does have a few nice asian markets.

As for whoever did the soundscore or scoretrack or whatever you crazy kids call it, it's better than Bross. Josh or Ellen, whatever.

First of all, when I lived in the states, I lived about an hour and a half away. You think you know culturally desolate? Try my habitat of Johnstown. Also, CMU?!

On topicness: Anyone got any info on this Josh Gabriel person?

I lived in Bumfuck Mars for 12 years where Jesus was bigger than Coke, but I'm not getting into a pissing contest. Just because you lived in an equally desolate area doesn't make Pittsburgh anymore cultured, only by comparison. Also, Andy Warhol is a fauxhemian prick - something I thought we had agreed on long ago.

Also, Josh, yes, topic... right.

Ah right. Forgot about that detail. And no, Warhol definately is not on my shit list.

He's the Gabriel in the Gabriel & Dresden duo:
http://www.myspace.com/gabrielanddresden
http://www.gabrielanddresden.com/

And is apparently still friends with Lorne (they met up way before OWI was born)

Josh Gabriel is (or was) one half of the very prolific DJ duo Gabriel & Dresden. He was Lorne’m college roommate, presumably the California Institute for the Arts. He has enough notability to have his own Wikipedia page, and it’s better maintained than Lorne’s. =P

EDIT: Xav wins.

I'll have to give a listen to Gabriel and Dresden. Is it notably Oddworldian in any way? The use of percussion in the early oddworld games, midi or no, was extremely unique. Though Bross did his part in capturing the Oddworld atmosphere, I still feel that anyone with a synthesizer and a basic grasp of Sonar or FrootyLoops could have done what he did.

Yeah I know but I find it still as an interesting taste. But I could listen AO/AE soundtracks as well, they sound quite special.

I would disagree with your terminology; all the game music counts as soundtrack. Josh did the melodic scorey things, like (some of, if not all) the music underscoring the cutscenes. Ellen did the ingame soundtrack stuff, which was less musical and more percussive and ambient. She also developed the sound effects and voices.

Which is why the following quote confused me, given that Michael's stuff is all melodic and Ellen's stuff is mostly ambient.

I would strongly disagree. Perhaps we have different definitions of what "ambience" is, but I don't think what Bross did, particularly for MO's in-game music, was melodic in any way except for a couple half-assed action cues.

I can replicate the music for Munch's Oddysee easily by just laying half my arm on the keyboard on any soft pad synth. Add a few processed beats now and then and voila. Stranger's Wrath was a little more complex and had actual tone and instrumentation, but still fell flat in comparison to Meijers' or Gabriel's savvy. Like I said, its just my opinion.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, both scores were atmospheric in their own way but the first two games had a unique sound unlike any other. Bross's music, I feel, can be too easily replicated and stuffed into too many categories.

I didn't like Bross's music in MO. It just didn't give off that same sense of wonder as Ellen's music did in AO and AE.

My god, this is a tedious conversation.

Thanks for making it better.

I do what I can.