Super Rainwave Podcast

Tom and Nat invite guest Rob onto the show to discuss car racing games! Rob, the founder of Rainwave, adds a lot of nice details about racing games that he's played. We stick to car racing, not playing any kart racing games or other types of racing games.Download MP3 Tracklist coming soon.

You beat the game! As you celebrate, music plays as the staff rolls. Many times these songs are calm and happy, though exceptions abound. This episode features many such selections, as we celebrate the best music to close out games.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

After a 6 month hiatus, the Super Rainwave Podcast is back! This is our second Free Play episode, which means a great selection of songs from a variety of systems.We have at least one more episode that should be coming out in the next month, so stay tuned!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

We celebrate the 20th anniversary of Donkey Kong Country by listening to tracks from throughout the DKC series. Tom and Nat are joined by Jon Funk, the resident statistician/mad scientist of the Rainwave forums, who picks some excellent tracks. Tom and Nat admit some potentially unpopular opinions about DKC's music, yet we all ended up enjoying the music that was played!Note: Jon's mic was unfortunately muffled, making his voice sometimes hard to hear.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

Like a boss! This episode's music, that is. We listen to a lot of rock and orchestral tracks from boss levels, with soaring guitars and epic strings. There are some surprises in here as well, tracks that don't fit the boss music stereotype at all.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

In episode 16 we focus on Cave Story, the wonderful indie game created and composed by Daisuke Amaya, who goes by the pseudonym Pixel. This game has a gem of a chiptune soundtrack that has inspired many remixes and rearrangements.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

For episode 14, Tom and Nat focus on game that have never had sequels and aren't parts of series. Since this eliminates many of the well-known video game soundtracks, we get to hear a variety of music with unique sound qualities. Some of the tracks in this episode come from old games that will likely never get sequels, and others are from more recent games that have no sequel yet, though could in the future!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

Since this episode ends in a 5, Tom and Nat revisit the focus of Original + Remix! This episode features great songs from soundtracks along with awesome remixes or arrangements, giving us a chance to see how the remixers worked with the source music in their remixes.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

We focus on vocal music for episode 13! This includes a wide variety of tracks, some cheesy, some donuty. Vocals in VGM can be a divisive topic, so hopefully this will be enjoyable to the vocals lovers and enlightening to the vocals haters!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

The SQ Albums are a series of official arrangement albums created by Square Enix arranging many different games that they developed. This series includes a set of chiptune-focused arrangement albums, as well as other albums with various themes. Tom and Nat enjoy picking tracks from the SQ Albums, including a few expected games such as Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, as well as some lesser known games such as Live-a-Live and Threads of Fate.BTW, thanks for being understanding that we have missed a few of our every-other-week-on-Wednesdays releases, since we've been busy with summer vacations, etc. We hope to get back into a groove as fall hits!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

In this episode we concentrate solely on soundtrack songs from the Commodore 64, one of the main home computers of the 80's and early 90's. We hear a lot of tracks from Western composers who were largely influenced by the electronic music popular in Europe at the time. If you aren't familiar with the C64 and its SID sound chip, definitely give this a listen -- lots of good music came out of this era!I should have given a shout-out to Stone Oakvalley's Authentic SID Collection, where you can get most of the tracks we played this episode as MP3s.Oh, and sorry this episode is a week late. We try to stick to every other Wednesday, but sometimes life gets in the way!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

For our tenth episode we go for a free play, where we play whatever we like without having a theme. Tom ends up playing a lot of 9-bit songs, and Nat plays a huge variety including an 80s pop balad from a soundtrack and some eclectic remixes. We also have fun answering our first listener mail!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

This episode features one of Tom's favorite game genres, point-and-click adventures. The music this week is a bit more ambient than usual, but still enjoyable as usual. Lots of Lucas Arts games are featured, as well as many Western composers.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

Our focus this episode is on jazz music, from big band to Latin to jazz combos. We end up playing a lot of songs prominently featuring saxophones.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

We welcome special guest Kevin (SOcean255) onto the show. Kevin has managed Rainwave's Covers radio station for years. We decide on a Covers-related topic, and focus on a single album of VGM covers: Spectrum of Mana. This album is a fan-arranged album covering songs from the SNES game Secret of Mana, which was originally composed by Hiroki Kikuta. This episode features a lot of live instrumentation and prog rock.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

The series Castlevania is the focus this week. One of Konami's flagship series since the 80's, Castlevania games have always had great music, and have inspired many good remixes.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

Tom and Nat play original songs from game soundtracks alongside their remixes. This side-by-side comparison allows us to see what the remixer was trying to do with the source material. Lots of good tracks here, both from the originals and the remixes!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

We listen to the best soundtracks and remixes in puzzle games. This episode features music from many different genres, including funky organ solos, 80s glam rock, and symphonic orchestrations.Download MP3  Tracklist (full info here):

This episode takes video game music away from its electronic roots to focus on music played by acoustic instruments. We find variety, with not only acoustic guitar but also piano, organ, and other instrumentation.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

The focus this week is on games released in the year 1993,  from classics and lesser known games alike. We manage to play songs from 10 different systems in our 12 tracks!Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):

The first episode! Tom and Nat found it fitting to play songs from the first levels of games, since this is the first level of this podcast.Download MP3 Tracklist (full info here):