Akira Yamako - The Hero of Silent Hill

After working as a freelance music composer, Akira Yamaoka joined Konami on September 21, 1993. He is best known for composing all of the music and sound effects for the Silent Hill video game series (excluding Silent Hill: Play Novel for the Game Boy Advance and "Esperandote" in Silent Hill, composed by Rika Muranaka). Since Silent Hill 3, he has taken on a more prominent role as the series' producer while also composing music.

Yamaoka's music has strong melancholy undertones and is often associated with dark ambient, industrial, trip-hop, and rock genres. Since Silent Hill 3, he's been collaborating on vocal compositions with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and Joe Romersa. Much of his work from previous titles was compiled for Christophe Gans' Silent Hill movie adaptation in 2006.

In 2005, he performed his music from Silent Hill 2 live at Leipzig's third Symphonic Game Music Concert. Yamaoka also accompanied the orchestra with an electric seven-string guitar while performing music from Silent Hill at the world premiere of Play! A Video Game Symphony in Chicago, Illinois, in 2006. He also composed music for KONAMI's Bemani series, which included Silent Hill tracks.

His first original album, iFUTURELIST, was released in January 2006. He also wrote the theme of 101%, the main show of the French TV channel No life.