Time And Space, The Pokemon Diamond And Pearl Tribute Album, Available Now
It’s a huge day for Poke-fans as Pokemon Sword and Shield are officially released onto Nintendo Switch, but if you travel back a few gens, today also marks the release of a tribute album for the Nintendo DS’s Diamond and Pearl games. Time And Space was created by Braxton Burks, a game composer, arranger, and orchestrator from Seattle.
Burks has composed tribute albums to Pokemon before, starting with Kanto Symphony, then moving through the mainline series with Johto Legends and Double Team!. This time they’ve created 16 new arrangements based around D&P’s most memorable melodies.
“The soundtrack to the games _Pokémon Diamond_ and _Pearl_ marked a large departure from GAME FREAK’s typical music production style, which up to that point had mostly been constrained by the low fidelity instruments of the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance era,” says Burks. “With the Nintendo DS hardware came room for the composers to write music with higher quality synths, electronics, and drums, expanding their palette to encompass a broad range of genres.”
“This inspired me to experiment with my own palette and break orchestration conventions for _TIME & SPACE_. Instead of writing pure orchestral versions of themes, I opted for a more hybrid approach: using percussion, synths, and other non-orchestral instruments to complement the acoustic elements of my pieces and adding further depth to the base arrangements. Overall, I’m very happy with the result! I feel like the battle tracks from this album in particular have the most impact of any _Pokémon_ tracks I’ve had the pleasure of arranging.”
Time And Space also includes contributions from woodwinds player Kristin Naigus, vocalist Reven, pianist Augustine Mayuga Gonzales, and the Videri String Quartet. You can find the album on most digital music markets through this link.