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SOUND LIBRARIES www.postmagazine.com 23 POST MAY/JUNE 2022 ALIBI MUSIC DROPS 'EPIC HIP HOP 4' LOS ANGELES — Alibi Music (www.ali- bimusic.com) is continuing to deliver on one of its most sought-after album series with the release of "Epic Hip Hop 4," which is now available for licensing. The new album from the production music library's flagship series ontains 11 tracks produced by James Murray, including nine co-written with composer Ben Hayden, and two co-written with Alibi's own Sam Wale. "Epic Hip Hop 4" also features vocals from fi e different artists, including Jessica Williams, The Audible Doctor, Easy McCoy, L.Rucus and Samuel Park. This is Alibi's fir t "Epic Hip Hop" release to include female vocals, with Williams (aka Jay Starr) bringing a new energy and edge to the album. "As always, we've tried to build on what worked best from the previous albums while also taking inspiration from new and current trends, both in main- stream and underground hip hop, as well as the world of trailer music," explains composer Sam Wale, who is also Alibi's VP, production. "As music technology continues to evolve, it further enables us to keep pushing these genres to their limits and beyond, creating bigger and bolder productions than ever." Alibi produced the fir t "Epic Hip Hop" album in 2018, experimenting with the hybrid of the two genres. "Back then, 'normal' epic hip hop was around, but the super amped-up, trailer-ized version we created was slightly ahead of the curve, which has made this series very popular," notes Alibi composer, James Murray. "The musical concept of this newest album was to focus on modern vocals, hard-hitting hip-hop beats and room-shaking 808 bass lines, which evolve into epic hybrid orchestral backends. This makes it perfect for fast cars, Avengers-style super- heroes, Super Bowl-level sports events and everything in between." Music from previous "Epic Hip Hop" albums has been featured in the trailer for Netflix s Formula 1: Drive to Survive, the promo for Aquaman and the Iron Crown Collection event trailer for EA's Apex Legends, among others. FIGURE AND GROOVE SEES HIGH-PROFILE PLACEMENTS NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES — The Figure and Groove (figu eandgroove.com) library has secured a number of placements recently, across a variety of media platforms. The music library contrib- uted to several national TV spots, including Pizza Hut's Spicy Lovers campaign, which aired during this year's Super Bowl. A ZipRecruiter commercial, promoting new services, also features the company's music. The trailer for the multiple Academy Award-winning film Dune utilized sound effects from Figure and Groove's "AuraEFX" collection, and Epic Games licensed music from the company's "Revolution" catalog of trailer music for use in their videos. In related news, the limited series The Girl from Plainville, which streams on Hulu, features multiple cuts from the Figure and Groove vocals catalog of independent artists, called "Artist Friendly." Figure and Groove also offers original music services and was recently commissioned to cre- ate the NCAA College Football Playoff N tional Championship theme, as well as scores to Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom and Cesar Milan's — Better Human Better Dog series, both of which stream on Disney+. STEPHEN ARNOLD MUSIC RECOGNIZED FOR PRODUCTION LIBRARY DALLAS — McKinney, TX-based Stephen Arnold Music (https://stephenar- noldmusic.com) enjoyed a strong showing at the annual NewscastStudio Broadcast Production Awards, winning nine awards, including honors for The Vault, the company's production music library. The Vault won top honors in the "Theme" production music category for its track "Positive Start," which is used by Fox News' morning show The Faulkner Focus, hosted by Harris Faulkner. The company also won in the "Entertainment" category for "The Evening," which comes from The Soulkillers' album "All My Love." The album is part of Stephen Arnold Music's "The Artist Collection," and "The Evening" track is described as "highly con- tagious and groovy electric guitar, with confident male ocals." The Vault's "Modern Mallets" was honored with the award for "Production Music Album for Storytelling." The album blends organic chromatic percus- sion instruments, like marimba, kalimba, steel tongue and celesta, with swell- ing synth pads. The tracks start neutral and use cyclical melody patterns that serve as building blocks. Beyond its library work, Stephen Arnold Music was honored for "Best Overall Use of Music" for custom music the studio created for Al Jazeera Arabic's 25th Anniversary rebrand. Other honors came for custom music it created for CNN's flagship morning p ogram New Day, Nexstar Media Group's NewsNation, Las Vegas station KTNV and New York City station WPIX.