Tomáš Dvořák - Machinarium (2009)

Machinarium is an unusual indie game brought into the gaming world by a small recently established Czech independent studio called Amanita Design. Machinarium is a triumph of an outstanding game design, a retro universe full of complicated mechanical constructions. The fact that it has no dialogue at all makes the soundtrack to the game all that much more important.

At its heart the Machinarium soundtrack is an electronic album, creating an enveloping environment of sound that conjures up images of very simple, decaying machines. But it runs the gamut from beautiful, lush ambient arrangements with simple instrumentation, to catchy electro dance music, to childlike melodies.

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The Advantage - Elf Titled (2006)

For a blog that came to be from a video game website, I think it would fitting to put up an album that does some math rock-esque style covers of classic video game soundtracks. They have covered songs from numerous video games, including Mega Man, Batman, Castlevania, Contra etc. The cover of the album also does the justice of what you would expect.

There is little intrinsic cheesiness to the original compositions - most of the songs are wiry and ambitious on bass and guitar with interesting counterpoints, such as the extremely frantic bass and high, graceful guitar soloing of the Batman stage 1 music, or the stumbling, disorienting time changes of the Contra themes.

Overall this is a fun release from some dudes that love their childhoods enough to form a band and cover some of their favorite songs from their NES/Super Nintendo games. All of the albums tracks are fun with the second half of the album owning more standout tracks that seem to fit the Math Rock mold almost perfectly. The songs are all translated quite well and there is almost no way of telling a difference, for better or worse.

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