News ► Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

[Oracle Spockanort]

Six years ago, Yoko Shimomura released Drammatica, an orchestral album featuring the best of her musical compositions for games like Kingdom Hearts, Front Mission, the Mana series, and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (now Final Fantasy XV). This year marks the composer's 25th anniversary of making phenomenal, iconic video game music and to celebrate she will be releasing a new best-of album, memória!

The 25th anniversary album will feature new arrangements of popular music from Kingdom Hearts, Seiken Densetsu: Legend of Mana, Live A Live, and more. 

The word "memória" means "memory" in Portuguese and her hopes for this album are to revive the memories of playing the games she's composed for by listening to this album.

"A commemoration for Yoko Shimomura, who somehow managed to survived in the world in the past quarter century," with the Best Album. (laughs)

I think this time I tied together various directions in various songs and in this sense, the album seems very complete to me.

By all means, please enjoy and be happy!

memória! will release March 26th 2014 for 3150 Yen ($30 USD) and you can pre-order the album right now from the Square Enix eStore, Amazon Japan, and the Sony Music Shop.

What are you all hoping to see on the album? Tell us in the comments below!

Also, don't forget to follow Kingdom Hearts Insider on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Google+ for all the latest Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts 3 news!

 

[Solo]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Does this mean a new arrangement of some of her existing pieces, like those in Drammatica? Oh my gosh, that would be truly awesome! I don't know why, but I'm already picturing the orchestrated version of Musique pour la Tristesse de Xion and / or Vector to the Heavens.

I'm so excited about this and I hope they are willing to ship to where I live.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

BTW you CAN order international from Amazon Japan. I just ordered mine for $40 USD (it's $10 for shipping) so no need to find an import site. Just make an Amazon JPN account and you're all good~

Does this mean a new arrangement of some of her existing pieces, like those in Drammatica? Oh my gosh, that would be truly awesome! I don't know why, but I'm already picturing the orchestrated version of Musique pour la Tristesse de Xion and / or Vector to the Heavens.

I'm so excited about this and I hope they are willing to ship to where I live.

Yes. Perhaps I should include that to make it clear xD

 

[Magnus]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Yes, yes, yes so much yes! Thank you! This news made my day. Huuuuge fan of her work. I have been waiting for a follow up to Drammatica ever since I got it! From her Kingdom Hearts compositions, I would love to hear some medleys of battle and field themes (like Enchanted Forest turning into The Rustling Forest, preferably with newly written sections for this arrangement, to make it less repetitive).

Would love to see the final boss theme from Radiant Historia on there too and maybe something from Parasite Eve!

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

FUN FACT: Drammatica was released March 26th 2008. memória! will be released March 26th 2014. Yay for coincidences~

Would love to see the final boss theme from Radiant Historia on there too and maybe something from Parasite Eve!

She's only concentrating on work she did for Square Enix, so no Radiant Historia (or Xenoblade or anything else like that :c)

 

[Magnus]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Aaw, bummer! At least there's still a possibility of something from Parasite Eve then! A lot of us fans felt like any music from that game in particular was greatly missed on the first album.

Imagine this with a real orchestra:

[video=youtube;2lf7lOQALgU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lf7lOQALgU[/video]

 

[limit]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

*rainbows on the inside*
Yoko Shimomura is hands down my fav composer. Very excited for this!!

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Aaw, bummer! At least there's still a possibility of something from Parasite Eve then! A lot of us fans felt like any music from that game in particular was greatly missed on the first album.

Imagine this with a real orchestra:

[video=youtube;2lf7lOQALgU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lf7lOQALgU[/video]

Oh that'd be gorgeous orchestrated! And maybe have Judith Siirila Paskowitz sing again.

I'd love to hear Theme of Aya orchestrated, personally.

 

[Solo]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Aaw, bummer! At least there's still a possibility of something from Parasite Eve then! A lot of us fans felt like any music from that game in particular was greatly missed on the first album.

Imagine this with a real orchestra:

[video=youtube;2lf7lOQALgU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lf7lOQALgU[/video]

Holy—that gave me goosebumps! Reminds me of the very first time I faced Melissa on the stage...

If there's going to be Parasite Eve, then I really would like to hear the orchestrated versions of the Ultimate Being medley and Maya battle theme, too. Imagine the epicness.

 

[yesmikan]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Am I crazy for wanting to hear (another) sneak peek of Final Fantasy XV? We got "Somnus" on 2008's "drammatica." Two best-of albums and no game they came from.

Would love some Parasite Eve though. One of my favorite Shimomura works.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Am I crazy for wanting to hear (another) sneak peek of Final Fantasy XV? We got "Somnus" on 2008's "drammatica." Two best-of albums and no game they came from.

Would love some Parasite Eve though. One of my favorite Shimomura works.

No you aren't crazy. I'm dying to get a chance to hear both the 2011 trailer track and the 2013 one.

 

[Rydgea]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Just have to reiterate the desire for Parasite Eve to be acknowledged this time around. I feel like it's some of her strongest work, and it got slighted on "The Very Best of" album.

I would also love some more obscure tracks to be rearranged. The hybrid track "Twinkle Twinkle Holidays", made up of KH's Neverland field theme and KH2FM's Christmas Town battle theme, was just sheer genius. I hope we can expect more of this creative experimentation.

 

[Launchpad]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

What about Mario RPG? She did work for that, right? That was a Square developed title.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

What about Mario RPG? She did work for that, right? That was a Square developed title.

Yah that's a tricky one. I'd guess a "no" because Nintendo.

 

[Gexus]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Drammatica really is one of the best soundtracks I've ever listened to. Yes please to anything. Be it new XV tracks, Xion's theme, the Xenoblade Chronicles intro theme, basically whatever.

 

[KHRULER]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

XD So excited!

 

[Lluvia]

Re: Yoko Shimomura's New Album "memória!" Will Feature Kingdom Hearts Music!

Looking forward Aqua, Terra and Ventus themes. Would be awesome if Shimomura manage to bring back Drammatica's goosebumps like did with Destati's arrangement
Sinfonia Drammatica - Destati - YouTube