Sound Test

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Sound Test

SOUND TEST on 104.3 WAYO-FM brings out the finest from Video Game Music, Chiptunes, and the Demoscene

25/10/2025

It's that time of the year again where I take all of my wackiness towards screaming YOU NEED TO DONATE TO WAYO-FM!!!

We're getting to our tenth year (wow!) and it's not possible without you. I'm entirely grateful for the support from my community to keep me infodumping on video games (and their music obviously) year after year. This means you, fellow listener, need to go to https://donate.wayofm.org and DONATE! DONATE!!!

To kick things off, you know Rockstar? The Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption machine? Remember when they made games besides those? You don't? It's foggy for me, too. Before all that, they were basically the Lemmings machine, alongside other wildly innovative and weird games that I'm taking the time to infodump this week.

Thank you for supporting WAYO 104.3 FM all this time and see you tonight at 10:00 PM on... you guess it! See you soon!

18/10/2025

In the spirit of the minimal, surreal journey that is Myst, I will simply say I am covering the music of the entire Myst saga, including Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. I will also add that Mia Farrow once said that Myst is the greatest game of all time.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

11/10/2025

I originally planned on doing a fun, autumnal acoustic lineup for tonight's show, featuring mostly video game soundtracks with any sort of laid back guitar. Then it got new agey with folk elements (think Windham Hill, there's my deep cut). Now it's just a very relaxing but all over the place assortment of video game music for the fall spirit. I honestly had fun putting this together and I hope you all enjoy it.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM! K.K. Slider is the only image that really captures the mood of my mind at the moment.

27/09/2025

Just doing a solid, straightforward Chiptune set this week. New Anamanaguchi and Zabutom, alongside other essential gems to the genre. Sometimes I get so knee deep into the video game soundtracks that going back to regular Chiptune ends up being a blast.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM! Image is from 8brickdmg doing some knob twiddling live.

20/09/2025

It's been a minute since I've covered Zuntata, but does a singular "in-house" band for a game company need additional airplay? Definitely. Honestly, nobody gets weirder and more prolific. There's enough arrangement material to last me a lifetime and it gives me an opportunity to play one of my favorite VGM tracks of all time. The only problem is that it's about sixteen minutes. This is my treat for a looooooong week.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

13/09/2025

I recently picked back up Matrix Software's dreamy Alundra after far too long, and it absolutely rules. The stellar soundtrack by legendary anime composer Kohei Tanaka pushes up the presentation value to such a high degree for me. Plus it has a lot of the classic top-down The Legend of Zelda charm in its game play that keeps me hooked. It's also gets REALLY dark.

The immediate response for my thought process is its origins as a "spiritual successor" to Landstalker for the Sega Genesis. Which, in turn, had a spin-off called Lady Stalker... And then a loose sequel as Dark Savior... and then Alundra has a direct sequel... and, uh, Time Stalkers. There's a lot! That really pushed me into thinking this would be a fun set of games to play music from altogether for tonight.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

06/09/2025

Can you believe I'm doing a show tonight at the same time that Hollow Knight: Silksong is not only a real game but it's actually out? A real thing that people can't joke about that "will it ever come out?" I'm also shocked at myself.

Hollow Knight took indie gaming by storm, and the whole world fell in love with this tiny bug in a big, beautiful world. It's part of a larger genre of called Metroidvania, a loosely defined string of games that carry similar characteristics of level design, exploration, and acquiring upgrades that not only increase the character's power and mobility, but unlock new areas to explore.

Instead of just coasting through Hollow Knight's soundtrack, I'll play a ton of other games from the genre: Blasphemous, Guacamelee, and, of course, Metroid and Castlevania. A large garden variety of beeps.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM before I do nothing for the rest of the weekend except play this game!!

30/08/2025

The Sega Sound Team, otherwise known as S.S.T. Band, is one of the coolest in-house set of musicians for anything game related PERIOD. Featuring all of my favorites, including Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Katsuhiro Hayashi, this is the dream team of jazz fusion musicians performing their music not only in a real studio, but LIVE. It's such a treat going through their catalog for tonight's show.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

23/08/2025

Blast off and strike against the evil Bydo Empire!... and other fun things from Irem.

Unlike other recent companies I've covered, Irem still exists, but largely in another common form: too produce pachinko machines and to license out their games. Boy, did they make games.

Moon Patrol, Kung Fu Master, and, of course, the iconic SHMUP series R-Type are arcade staples, but is also known for its Xexex like title X-Multiply. This is another instance of former employees leaving to make their own stake in the industry, notably the Nazca Corporation, which gave us the massively fun Metal Slug series.

It's another fun retrospective set tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

16/08/2025

Jaleco, similar to the Data East show, is yet another developer/publisher company with a time in the spotlight, but, honestly, it's even more of a crate dig in overall trivia and knowledge. City Connection remains an awkward classic, and Earth Defense Force (no relationship to the hyperbolic series of the same name) is a very fun SHMUP. However, many games just feel "okay" in terms of play quality, despite anyone's personal nostalgia. The music, however, is utterly fantastic, and is definitely a great addition to this show.

See you tonight for a Jaleco set tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

09/08/2025

Typically my demoscene / tracker sets come about because I scouted some VERY good ones. This time I found Galway = God by Jogeir Liljedahl, and both Martin Galway and Liljedahl are staples of the genre, but this was a seven minute behemoth of a tribute. It's awesome to hear a track like this all the way from 1997!

All this and more on tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

02/08/2025

"Presented by Data East" is a phrase heard on many of not only many games I grew up playing, but also pinball, too!

This company is one of many that churned out many memorable titles such as Joe & Mac, Night Slashers, Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja, and the arcade classic Burger Time. Perhaps a great example of modestly successful games still mentioned today, but had their time in the 80s and 90s, only to be met with the fate of many: bankruptcy with licensing rights handed out like hot cakes. It's always sad to come across so many game companies like this, but the music is always top notch for this show, and it's a great way for me to revisit these games.

See you tonight at 10:00 PM on 104.3 WAYO-FM!

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