Last month, during the Nintendo Switch Presentation 2017, Nintendo revealed Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a “sequel” to the acclaimed Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii. We don’t know much about the game, though we do know who is composing the music for it:

Yasunori Mitsuda

ACE (Tomori Kudo, CHiCO)

Kenji Hiramatsu

Manami Kiyota

It’s pretty much the same team as Xenoblade Chronicles, minus Yoko Shimomura.

And this week, we found out that Anúna, the famous choral ensemble from Ireland is providing the vocals for some of the tracks from the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 soundtrack. In a message posted on Facebook, Yasunori Mitsuda (one of the composers) reveals that Anúna is providing the vocals for 4 pieces:

The task for this project was how I would blend my music with the sound of ANÚNA which I knew so well. My whole creativity and imagination were poured into 4 pieces, and I think I have managed to succeed in doing that. I just cannot wait to hear the mixed pieces.

As to why he chose to have Anúna provide vocals, it’s actually pretty simple… he’s a huge fan of the ensemble, and actually dreamed that, one day, his music would be sung by them:

My first encounter with ANÚNA was 22 years ago, at a record store in Ireland. The title of the piece was “Deep Dead Blue” – also the title of an album – composed by Elvis Costello. Its distinctive harmony sung just by the singers captivated my heart straight away. I thought this was no ordinary chorus group, as they had such a different sound world. Also being fascinated by Michael McGlynn’s voice from the 10th piece of the album “The Fisher King”, I dreamt that one day my music would be sung by them. And that finally came true after 22 years.

Here’s some pictures of the recording sessions:

Unreal recording experience with sound engineer Brian Masterson on composer Yasunori Mitsuda’s music for Nintendo Switch Xenoblade2! I swear, if I could do this every day, I would… Putting me in the mood for some recording and sharing of my own.

Andrea Delaney (from Anúna) also shared a message on Facebook:

It looks like the recording session was held on Monday (February 20th), which means development is progressing smoothly (recording of the music is usually done near the end, though it obviously varies depending on the project).

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Switch) comes out later this year, worldwide.

Via: MomoQca (NeoGAF)