Brave Wave Productions is a Japanese-based

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

founded in 2013. It specializes in

video game music Video game music (or VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to ...

artists, often those who were active during the

chiptune Chiptune, also known as chip music or 8-bit music, is a style of synthesized electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles. The t ...

era of the 1980s and 1990s. One of the stated goals of the label is to bridge the gap between Japanese and Western game music composers. They are known for re-releasing soundtracks of older video games for CD and vinyl, which were often out of print for many years, as well as producing fully original solo albums for some of their signed artists.

History

Brave Wave was founded in 2013 by Mohammed Taher. Taher originally started communicating with musicians while organising a small EP collaboration, but ultimately began to draw the attention of veteran chiptune artists such as

Keiji Yamagishi is a Japanese video game music composer. He is known for his work on Tecmo's late 1980s and early 1990s NES titles, such as ''Ninja Gaiden''. Yamagishi has been considered a pioneer of chiptune music, producing the soundtracks of numerous titles ...

. At the time, Yamagishi had not worked on a video game in ten years. The first results of this were the 2013 album ''World 1-2'', which featured Austin Wintory,

Akira Yamaoka is a Japanese composer and music producer. He is best known for composing music for several video games in the ''Silent Hill'' series by Konami, among other games. Yamaoka also worked as a producer on the series, as well as composing for the '' ...

and many others. From there, Brave Wave would go on to produce solo albums from these artists, such as Yamagishi's ''Retro-Active'' and

Manami Matsumae is a Japanese video game music composer. She previously worked for Capcom in the 1980s, writing music for games such as '' Dynasty Wars'', '' Mercs'', '' Magic Sword'', and the original '' Mega Man''. Career She previously worked for Capcom, ...

's ''Three Movements''. Brave Wave Productions are also known for their restoration work, mastering and preparing the soundtracks of older video games for CD and vinyl re-release. The "Generation Series" includes major license titles such as ''

Street Fighter II is a fighting game developed by Capcom and originally released for arcades in 1991. It is the second installment in the ''Street Fighter'' series and the sequel to 1987's ''Street Fighter''. It is Capcom's fourteenth game to use the CP Syst ...

'', ''

Shovel Knight ''Shovel Knight'' is a platform game, platform video game developed and published by Yacht Club Games. Development was crowdfunded and the game was released for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and Windows in June 2014. It was ported to OS X and Linux in Se ...

'', and ''

Ninja Gaiden is a series of action video games by Tecmo featuring the ninja Ryu Hayabusa as its protagonist. The series was originally known as in Japan. The word "gaiden" in the North American ''Ninja Gaiden'' title means "side story" in Japanese. The o ...

''. Their vinyl collection ''Ninja Gaiden Trilogy'' marked the first official release of the ''

Ninja Gaiden III ''Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom'' is a side-scrolling platform video game developed and published by Tecmo. It was released in Japan on June 21, 1991 for the Famicom and in North America on August 15, 1991 for the Nintendo Enterta ...

'' soundtrack.

Notable artists

Chipzel Niamh Houston (born 23 September 1991), better known by her stage name Chipzel, is a musician from Northern Ireland. She is best known for making chiptune music, particularly with a Game Boy. She is also a video game music composer, and is ...

Harumi Fujita is a Japanese composer best known for her work at the video game company Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million- ...

Takahiro Izutani is a video game music composer and guitarist. He is notable for his work in the ''Metal Gear Solid'' series. Profile In 1997, his avant-garde rock band "Happy Family" released an album, "Toscco" on Cuneiform Records in the U.S. (http://cune ...

Saori Kobayashi is a video game composer and pianist. She composed music for Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America an ...

Tim McCord Timothy Todd McCord (born June 28, 1979) is an American musician. He is a member of the rock band Evanescence since 2006, playing bass until 2022 when he switched to guitar. Previously, McCord played guitar for the band The Revolution Smile fro ...

Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese composer and pianist primarily known for her work in video games. She graduated from the Osaka College of Music in 1988 and began working in the video game industry by joining Capcom the same year. She wrote music for several game ...

Stemage Grant Henry (born April 3, 1979), better known by his stage name Stemage, is an American guitarist and composer. He is known for his video game and television soundtracks, including Cartoon Network's animated series ''Steven Universe''. He is a ...

Akari Kaida is a Japanese video game music composer. She composed various soundtracks for Capcom games, including multiple in the '' Mega Man'' series. She has occasionally been credited as Akari Groves, taking the surname of her husband. Career Kaida was ...

* David Wise

References

External links

* {{Authority control Japanese record labels Record labels established in 2013

History

Notable artists

See also

References

External links