Entitled Benyamin Nuss Plays Uematsu, the album will commemorate Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu’s music with a wide range of creative and evocative piano arrangements. The album promises to demonstrate Nuss’ virtuoso technique and will transfer his emotional connection with the music to the audience. To be released this summer, it will be the first time game music has ever been commemorated by a major classical label and promises to be the greatest game music piano album ever released.

While still at the start of a promising career, Nuss already has several eminent recordings behind him. Last year, he recorded Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with the WDR Radio Orchestra and performed Shimomura’s Kingdom Hearts fantasia at the game music concert Symphonic Fantasies – Music from Square Enix. Now 21, he is signed to the world’s biggest record label, Universal Music, and aims to appeal to game music fans and classical listeners alike with his most momentous production to date.

Classics from Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Fantasy VI to Final Fantasy IX will headline the album. The composer’s latest RPG scores will also feature, alongside a surprising tribute to one of his first composition works. While the majority of the arrangements are dedicated to specific pieces, listeners should also expect three expansive suites, dedicated to Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, and, of course, Final Fantasy VII. Readers should check back in coming days for full details on the track listings for the album. Featuring wonderful melodies, pioneering arrangers, and a passionate pianist, Benyamin Nuss Plays Uematsu is the most ambitious game music piano production of all time and looks set to at last bridge the worlds of classical and game music. The album will be released by Universal Music on September 17, 2010.

A big thanks to Square Enix Music for bringing us this interesting bit of info. This album sounds like pure awesomesauce to me. Check out the link to their site for more info on Benyamin Nuss and his career.

So, given how long Voices of the Lifestream has been in existence, we’re not sure how many of you haven’t heard of it before, but since we here at Thelifestream.net are into all things Final Fantasy Seven and want to encourage fan projects of all sorts, we figured we’d tell everyone who wasn’t already aware know about this awesome fan orchestrated remix album to the great songs of Final Fantasy Seven, and let you listen to these awesome arrangements at the same time.

For those of you unfamiliar with OC ReMix, it is a project where numerous fan composers take video game sound tracks and put their own unique spin on the original works, to make a familiar yet unique versions of the songs you all know and love, and their Voices of the Lifestream project is no different. The ninth full album made by OC ReMix, it features forty five arrangements performed by forty two different remixers, and we here at TLS are proud to showcase these songs here on our website.

As for how, that brings us to our new embedded MP3 player. I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now that there is a spiffy new bar at the bottom of your browser window when you view the front page, and that is our new Streampad mp3 player, which you can use to listen to any or all of the album’s songs here on the website, or you can download them all yourself here on The Lifestream or at the the source.

Now, without further ado, get listening!

CD 1- Crisis

1-01 pixietricks, zircon – Deliverance of the Heart (Heart of Anxiety)

1-02 Big Giant Circles – Every Story Begins with a Name (Opening – Bombing Mission)

1-03 sephfire, sgx – No Such Thing As the Promised Land (Mako Reactor)

1-04 LuIzA – Materia Junkie (Under the Rotting Pizza ~ The Oppressed)

1-05 norg, SnappleMan – Full Frontal Assault (Let the Battles Begin!)

1-06 Another Soundscape – Too Much Fighting (Fanfare)

1-07 Daniel Baranowsky – Damn Those Turks! (Turks’ Theme)

1-08 Big Giant Circles, Liontamer, zircon – Adrenalyne Kyck (Hurry!)

1-09 zircon – Nomura Limit (Fight On!)

1-10 Xaleph – Son of Chaos (Shinra Company)

1-11 Sixto Sounds, zircon – Lunatic Moon (Red XIII’s Theme ~ Cosmo Canyon)

1-12 tefnek – motor crazycycle (Crazy Motorcycle)

CD 2- Dirge

2-01 djpretzel, Vigilante – Short Skirts (Tifa’s Theme)

2-02 Jeremy Robson – Valse Aeris (Flowers Blooming in the Church ~ Aerith’s Theme)

2-03 Hemophilliac – Embraced Empathy (Dear to the Heart)

2-04 Mustin – Serenity (Main Theme of FINAL FANTASY VII)

2-05 Dhsu – A Life Without Parole (Desert Wasteland)

2-06 Sixto Sounds, Suzumebachi, zircon – Scenes from a Memory (On That Day, Five Years Ago…)

2-07 Geoffrey Taucer, Tepid – Golden Fields (Farm Boy)

2-08 Trenthian – Crystal Sermon (The Prelude)

2-09 Rellik – Chasing the Storm (In Search of the Man in Black)

2-10 Tweek – Sephiroth’s Wake (Trail of Blood)

2-11 bLiNd – JENOVA Celestial (J-E-N-O-V-A)

2-12 Hy Bound – Mark of the Beatsmith (Mark of a Traitor)

CD 3- Advent

3-01 Red Tailed Fox – Suco de Melancia (Costa del Sol)

3-02 Shnabubula – Stone Eyes (The Great Warrior)

3-03 Pot Hocket – Daydreaming Again (Words Drowned by Fireworks)

3-04 Trenthian – Alien Exploration (Gold Saucer ~ Cid’s Theme)

3-05 Another Soundscape – Golden Feathers (Racing Chocobos – Place Your Bets!)

3-06 Red Tailed Fox, Shnabubula – Midnight at Club Corel (Mining Town)

3-07 FFmusic Dj – Ahead On Our Rave (On Our Way)

3-08 Darangen – Kweh! (Electric de Chocobo)

3-09 Jovette Rivera – The Crossroads (Cid’s Theme)

3-10 bLiNd, Leifo – Fading Entity (Listen to the Cries of the Planet)

3-11 Tweek – Frozen Landscape (Buried in Snow)

CD 4- Order

4-01 Pot Hocket – Sleep, My Sephy (Judgment Day)

4-02 Darangen – Collision (The North Cave)

4-03 Star Salzman – Airships Make Me Happy (The Highwind Takes to the Skies)

4-04 JigginJonT – Hydrophone Breakdown (Secret of the Deep Sea)

4-05 Fishy – Omnislash (Hurry Up!)

4-06 bustatunez, The Orichalcon – Rare Square (Countdown)

4-07 Steffan Andrews – Jenova Returns (J-E-N-O-V-A ~ Jenova Complete)

4-08 bLiNd – Beginning of the End (Birth of a God)

4-09 bLiNd, Fishy, pixietricks, Sixto Sounds, Steffan Andrews, Suzumebachi, tefnek – Black Wing Metamorphosis (One-Winged Angel)

4-10 Bladiator – The Golden Ivories of Gaia (Various Themes)

Amazon.co.jp has recently added several pre-orders for PSP sets that include a product code for FFVII. All the sets are the same, but have different colored PSPs.

- Mystic Silver (3000MS)
- Pearl White (3000PW)
- Piano Black (3000PB)
- Vibrant Blue (3000VB)
- Spirited Green (3000SG)
- Radiant Red (3000RR)
- Bright Yellow (3000BY)

The release date is August 7th, and the sets are priced at 19,800 yen (about 1000 yen more than a PSP on its own).

Source: Mezzo.net

The SE Product Blog has updated with the new creatures that will be featured in the upcoming new set of the FF Master Creatures Collection. Included are Bahamut SHIN from FFVII AC, Zalera from FFXII, Valefor from FFX, Tiamat from FF1, and The Brothers from FFVIII.

However…In a magazine scan promoting the set…another figure is shown blackened out, representing that its a secret chase figure in the set.

Its silhouette, looks familiar… Could it be Terra, riding Magitek armor, from FFVI?

Source: FF7AC Reunion

Source: FF7AC Reunion

The ACC Post Card Book

The book will contain 24 postcards in the Japanese B6 format with CG renders from the movie and it’ll be sold for 1260 Yen.
It can be bought from the Japanese Amazon store.

Source: Square-Enix, CetraConnection

Dimensions- Height: 38.2 cm, Width: 44.3 cm (22cm w/o the Masamune), Depth: 20 cm.

The figure will be available for shipping on 4/20/2009.

Source: FF7AC Reunion

And there’s also the boxshot of the normal and the bundled versions.

UPDATE:

In addition to this information – “Cloud Black PS3″ has just recently gone up for sale on Play-Asia For $649.00 (USD). As of 4/1/2009 (not an April Fool’s Joke) all of Play-Asia’s preorders for the Limited Edition PS3 have been filled. Good hunting if you’re still looking to get your hands on one!

Source: SQUARE-ENIX E-Store

- Cloud
- Sephiroth
- Lightning
- Snow
- Vanille
- Noctis
- Cactuar
- Moogle
- Tonberry
- Chocobo

Also…A look at the promo back cover of the regular edition of FFVII Advent Children Complete has been revealed. And on it…it says nothing really new…..Save for the talk of ’30 minutes’ of new scenes (rather than new and edited), and over 100 changes to the movie itself. So yeah, there you go!

Major thanks to hitoshura for translating this interesting bit of news!

Source:
The Light in Chaos

Named “Cloud Black”,  this limited edition will come with a 160 GB HDD and it will come with a copy of Advent Children Complete. Price will be 49,980 yen.

Also, the cover for Advent Children Complete has been revealed.

Update: It seems that the release of Advent Children Complete has been postponed,  since April 16th is the release date for all the three versions of ACC wich, besides the “Cloud Black” Limited Edition, also includes the Standard Version (4,900 yen) and  another one wich features  a FFXIII demo (5,900 yen).