Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver
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Revisit the music of Pokémon Gold and Silver with Johto Legends

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Materia Collective release Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver, an orchestral interpretation of the classic Nintendo Game Boy game soundtrack.

Following on from its successful Kickstarter campaign, Braxton Burks’ glorious orchestral reworking of the music from Pokémon Gold and Silver is now available to purchase on CD and digital download, with a vinyl edition also available to pre-order.

We first reported on Johto Legends last year, and are pleased to say that the final product has been well worth the wait. It’s also a timely release, with Pokémon Gold and Silver arriving on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in late 2017, and Pokémon Crystal due for release next week.

Seattle-based composer and arranger Braxton Burks has previously produced two Pokémon tribute albums: Pokémon Reorchestrated: Kanto Symphony – which was a fully orchestrated re-imagining of the Pokémon Red and Blue soundtrack – and the Pokémon Reorchestrated: Double Team! anthology album.

Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver

Speaking about the new album, Burks said:

Johto Legends is a passion project I’ve wanted to fulfill since I was eleven years old. Almost every day after school, I’d get on the bus home and turn on my Game Boy Color, loaded with a copy of Pokémon Crystal Version. I spent countless hours headbutting trees in the Ilex Forest, exploring the remains of the Burned Tower, and tracking down the legendaries Entei, Raikou, and Suicune… but it was the game’s soundtrack that really pulled me in with its memorable 8-bit melodies, an eclectic mix of romantic harmonies and Japanese folk music – the perfect backdrop for the Johto region.

Sometimes I’d even imagine what the music would sound like if it were orchestrated by one of my idols, John Williams. ‘I wish I could do that,’ I thought. Well, I ended up carrying that dream to adulthood, fueled by my ongoing love affair with the Pokémon games that persists even to this day. I hope listeners will be able to recall their own nostalgic Pokémon journey – the battles, the towns, the routes and caves… and all the adventures in between.”

Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver is now available as digital download and CD from Bandcamp, to stream via Spotify, or to pre-order on vinyl from iam8bit.


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