After waiting patiently for almost two months, my most anticipated music purchase in a long time has finally arrived; Sekaiju no Meikyuu Piano To Gengakki No Namaensou Ni Yoru (Live Music by Piano and Strings: Sekaiju no MeiQ I & II Super Arrange Version), music from the game better known to English audiences as Etrian Odyssey, has finished ripping, and I am listening to its absolutely beautiful arrangements as I write, it (and Amarok) filling the room.

My love of Etrian Odyssey is well documented, so suffice it to say that if you are done hearing about my crush on this series, you can just stop reading now, but hopefully anyone with an appreciation for music can find something to love here.

Live Music by Piano and Strings is simply stunning. The album is thirteen lovely performances by a small ensemble (Chieko Amano, violin; Yuichiro Oonuki, piano; Minori Yamazaki, cello; Shuji Narikawa, guitar; Naoko Sato, percussion), which brings to life Norihiko Hibino’s arrangement of the Yuzo Koshiro compositions. Much more evenly than the recent Super Arrange Version of the second game, the album puts a very calming instrumental touch on the “retro” soundtrack, and the performances are noticeably emotive.

Nietzsche wrote that without music, life would be an error, and these are the class of albums that remind me, a gamer to the bone, of that fact — organic, live performances, nuanced in their composition, combining the theme of an original song with the love of an appreciative interpretation. For me, among video game albums, this is up there with Xenogears Light.

Someone was kind enough to upload one of the tracks, battle themes from the first and second games, made calming. I was sold on the album before I heard a note of it, but that preview made it a must-have, and now, as the album nears its end, I confidently say that it is one of my favorite albums. As I said when I was similarly (although more verbosely) gushing over Xenogears Light, these are the releases that prove video game music is, without a doubt, “real music,” and more ultimately, important as its own class of art.

Oh, and it comes with PDFs of the handwritten arrangements, sometimes appearing as little more than note scribbles and clues to the performers, which seems fitting in an ephemeral way. I find I can’t recommend any one track, but rather all of them. Every single one, in addition to standing on its own as a wonderful piece of music, serves another purpose — that being tickling my desire to play one of my favorite games all over again.

Over the past couple days, I have made a metric ton of changes to incorporeal.org and its services, many related to Apache and SSL. Notably, website access was probably a bit brittle over the past 24 hours. If anything seems out of the ordinary, please let me know.