Jeremy Soule

[Dragon God]

Here is in my opinion the finest american video game music composer out there. At the age of 20, he composed his first soundtrack : the magnificient but often under-appreaciated Secret of Evermore. Some of his better known works include Icewind Dale, The Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights and last but not least, Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic.

Soule's talent may seem as he does mostly ambient themes, but he also manages to write captivating "Film Quality" orchestral scores, which he does so well. His music easily reaches out to me and I feel an array of emotions as I reminiscence the game's events as I listen.

While I'm aware that Secret of Evermore was not released in Japan, mostly due to the fact that it was developped and published by the american branch of SquareSoft back in 1995; has the PC titles he worked on made it over to Japan ? I'd love to see him work with any japanese composer and see(hear) the results of the mix... although this may well never occur.

Anyways, to any among you here who never heard of Mr. Soule, you really should give a listen to his samples at his website : http://www.jeremysoule.com

I'm really wondering if he is well known in Japan....

[cloudff7]

I wasn't too thrilled with the Secret of Evermore soundtrack...too many soundeffects in my opinion. I like more traditional music I guess. Anyway some of the tracks are really nice sounding. Icewind Dale does have some really nice music to it. Also, Neverwinter Nights is nice to! A very often overlooked composer...

[demalavor]

I think Jeremy Soule is pretty good, but my favourite american video game composer would be Bill Brown. www.billbrownmusic.com

Trust me, download the Lineage 2 Outro from his site, you won't be dissapointed.

[Anonymous]

I remember Total Annihilation had an amazing "movie" like soundtrack, it's one of my favs from him.

I wasen't to thirlled with Evermore either.

[Rain Corale]

I think there were some who were a little too hard on the Secret of Evermore sountrack. I don't think Jeremy was geared to write music of that simplicity. He is incredibly well knowledged in the ways of theory and counterpoint and its in my belief that the primitive sound capabilities of the Snes weren't able to accomodate Jeremy's style. The style of music that the Snes employed as well as the Nes was quite limited. There is something almost minimilistic about Snes and Nes soundtracks and it incorporates a completely different style of scoring. That taken into consideration, its easy to see that many of the musical ideas behind SOE, were very capable, albeit a little underdeveloped. If you have the foresight to look past that, you can begin to see the potential behind Jeremy's work. Just look at his scores now. I think we can expect amazing things from Jeremy in the future.

[tjhv]

Please tell me if there is any other soundtrack similar to Secret of Evermore, with a variety of background noise at different locations. I always wonder in other games û where did music come from when you are in the middle of some cave? Give me the natural sounds of Bugmuck Swamp and BlimpÆs Bog any day.

[BlackThirteen]

Some years ago I exchanged email discussion with Jeremy Soule. Believe me he is a very kind person!

Besides Secret of Evermore was my favorite soundtrack during this era.

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my developer team: www.blossomsoft.com

[Koala]

Secret of Evermore is still one of my favorite games and soundtracks. I actually wanted to purchase the soundtrack for the longest amount of time but could never find where to. Jeremy Soule himself, I feel, is under-appreciated and I love his style. It was new, refreshing.

[tjhv]

Depending on how bad you want the SOE CD, I observe occasionally on auction for much higher prices than I expected.
any chance Je. Soule could acquire the rights to his soundtrack and publish a reprint? Certainly demand is there!
Long live the canine toaster!

[Drakken]

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind theme is one of my favorite vg songs. He's definitely a very talented composer.

I also like his work in Star Wars: KotOR. The music set the tone pretty well.