| Hi there! This will probably be my last newsletter of 2025 (if you're new here, welcome)! I'm happy to share that I am releasing some new music tonight! This is a special release to coincide with "Bandcamp Friday." For those unfamiliar with the occasion:
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"Bandcamp Fridays began in March of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when the shuttering of venues led to a loss of vital tour revenue for artists. Since then, Bandcamp Fridays—on which we waive our revenue share and pass the funds directly to artists & labels—has resulted in millions of fans paying over $120 million directly to labels and musicians they love. In addition to helping artists pay the rent, or fund album recordings and tours, Bandcamp Fridays have also become a beacon for artists and record labels looking to raise awareness for causes or raise money for charities. The final Bandcamp Friday of 2025 will be this Friday, December 5th." |
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It warms my heart to finally share this soundtrack with the help of Cloudrise Pictures Ltd. We decided to release this music (which was actually originally recorded in 2018) as a digital release to cap off the year—and also offer it as a CD package (which contains some cool liner notes and behind-the-scenes photos). If you are curious about the film, it is the first iteration of a series of animated movies made by Denver Jackson at Cloudrise Pictures. The most recent film (The Worlds Divide) is what we won the most recent awards (Leo Award and CASMA Award) for the soundtrack. That movie is set in the same "universe" as this one! So this is kind of where it all started. We've been working together for years now and you can learn more about the movies I've been scoring with the studio here at the Cloudrise Studios page. As for the digital soundtrack and CD: both are available to purchase via Bandcamp. |
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The soundtrack was quite an undertaking at the time and though I've progressed in skill and ability to work with players/scope of projects over the past 7 years... I really like how this one sounds. We were working with a choir and a chamber-sized ensemble and the soundtrack came out very interesting to me... big (in a small way). Also at the time, this was one of the biggest projects to-date that I had the pleasure of working on with David, so it was a really rewarding experience. |
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The recording process took us up and down Vancouver Island and we even ended up recording the choir (see above) at UVic's Philip T. Young Recital Hall. Victoria's Vox Humana Chamber Choir—conducted by Brian Wismath—was a real treat to work with. And the second pic is from the now-defunct Electric City Sound in Saanich. Here in Vancouver, we had the pleasure of working with the amazing Caleb and Brian Chan, and of course the talented Charlie Lui on dizi flute (which adds a lot of personality to the score). He's been on nearly every soundtrack I've done for the past 7 years! This is available as a digital purchase, or if you want something physical to hold in your hands, you can order a limited edition on CD, it's a pre-order that is intended to ship out next month in January 2026. |
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Some recent highlights, in case you misssed it: |
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IGN Reveals Wild Blue Skies gameplay |
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I composed music for a video game! It's called Wild Blue Skies, and it's now available to "wishlist" on Steam here. As I've mentioned, It's been a childhood dream of mine to create the entire OST (Original Soundtrack) for a video game. I've contributed to video game soundtracks before, but this is my first end-to-end scoring experience for a game. After scoring movies, animation, and releasing studio albums... I was so stoked to get into the "non-linear" music-making involved in video game scoring. And the cool part is, this game was made by a neat studio in Kyoto, Japan, called "Chuhai Labs" run by some oldschool game development heads. And it's published by Humble Games! It's all very exciting. I don't know the release date yet, but it will be coming to PC and XBOX relatively soon I believe. IGN has an exclusive premiere of gameplay footage. Which includes a hefty amount of music from me! There is a level track, boss theme, and victory fanfare for you to feast your ears on in this preview (below): |
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CLICK TO WATCH THE GAMEPLAY REVEAL TRAILER HERE: |
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Proud to share we WON Best Original Score for a Narrative Feature Film for The Worlds Divide! This is a fairly new awards category, the "Canadian Screen Music Awards." It's been brought to life with the help of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada and SOCAN, both of which I'm a member, so I'm happy to see some recognition in the national scene. David and I attended the ceremony in Toronto at the historic El Mocambo theatre. It was a pretty great night (we didn't expect to win and we were pleasantly surprised). |
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Thanks for reading All the best, Marc (aka R23X aka VHS Stills, creator of Video-20XX) marc.junker.ca/ |
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Copyright © 2025 Marc Junker PO BOX 46907 STATION D VANCOUVER, BC V6J 5M4 CANADA |
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