This release focuses on the music of Sonic Frontiers, the 2022 open-world Sonic the Hedgehog game that was well-received upon release, and was seen as a return to form for open-world Sonic titles. The ten tracks here are curated from the 150(!) song soundtrack of Sonic Frontiers, and home in on a dreamy, mellow vibe – it also includes some vocal-led tracks to mix things up and add emotional resonance.
Originally released on the Sega Mega Drive back in 1994, as part of the 30-year celebrations, Wayo Records have released this deluxe 2-disc vinyl set, with audio captured as purely as possible for absolute authenticity.
Known as Beyond Oasis in North American markets, the game was Ancient’s take on the Zelda formula, and tells the story of Prince Ali, who has found a golden armlet and must travel the land of Oasis, visiting four spirits in order to gain the eventual powers and abilities to defeat a rising evil who has located the corresponding silver armlet.
The music for The Story of Thor was composed by the mighty Yuzo Koshiro, someone that Wayo Records have previously worked with in their release of ActRaiser, and I’m sure is a luminary that our readers here will be very much aware of from his incredible resume of solid gold on the 16-bit machines. Heck, we named our son after one of his characters!
🔗Video Game LoFi: Kirby | Besso0 & GlitchxCity | Curaga Records
We are once again in the cosy arms of another in the Curaga Records LoFi series, this time centred around the music of the Kirby games, specifically; Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022), Kirby’s Adventure (1993), Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe (2014), Kirby’s return to Dreamland (2011), Kirby Air Ride (2003), Kirby’s Epic Yarn (2010), Kirby Super Star (1996), and Kirby’s Dream Collection (2012), together - representing almost thirty years’ worth of music from the world of the lovable pink puffball across various systems, from SNES to Switch.
The last time I came across Mark Sparling’s music was back in 2021 when I reviewed A Short Hike, Mark Sparling composed the – quite idiosyncratic – soundtrack, which was released through Stumpy Frog Records, and acted as one of my first forays into the word of VGM vinyl.
The artwork alone of Cursed to Golf makes a huge impression, created by Crisppyboat, it’s a great Claymation-style image of the golfer protagonist smashing his ball towards the viewer as various Claymation interpretations of in-game characters and scenarios surround him.
Rich with pastel colours, and devoid of any text, the whole front cover is purely dedicated to this striking image, as is the reverse, which acts as a continuation of the image, showing a trophy atop a pillar in a graveyard, the cartoonish spookiness of the game absolutely nailed here in a totally different – and very cool art style.
It’s been almost a year since the last Vinyl Fantasies post, it’s been extremely busy here at GF HQ, and in that time we’ve covered some incredible records, which I’d like to shine a light on here.
As usual, the list is in no particular order, if the record was previously covered in a full article, a link will be included should you wish to know more.
Hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed listening!
Metroid Zero Mission was one of the first games I ever played as a kid (on the Gameboy Advance!) and it sparked my love for video games and by extension, video game music—Kraid's theme was the first song I ever learned on piano nearly 15 years ago. My personal favourite song on the album would have to be the Metroid Prime Theme. Although it initially wasn't my favourite composition out of the bunch compared to the more iconic songs like Samus's Theme, the direction I ended up taking it paired with trying different production techniques turned it into something vastly different in sound and feel from the original which I personally enjoyed.
In my previous remixing endeavours, my focus was achieving a lofi sound and tonality while preserving what was great about the original composition. For this project I still maintained that, but my focus shifted towards establishing a groove that could be improvised upon. As a result, this album ventures into several other genres, from chillwave to bossa nova what I can best describe as… lofi disco house? Writing essentially new compositions that incorporated different elements of the Metroid games' important themes was the goal here, a sort of process I picked up from my collaborator (and boss, and homie) Save Point. During the production of this album I developed new standards for what I personally wanted from lofi, and I certainly broadened my definition of what that term can mean. It was an incredibly fun process and it's always an honor to release music alongside the homies and peers at Curaga. Lofi fans and video game nerds alike, thanks for supporting my music.
The nascent (well, to me at least!) ‘cosy’ genre revels in acting as a digital hug to its fans, and the music of Coffee Talk excels at this. It also arrived at a great time for me personally, as it was quite a stressful time related to family illness, and I’d had trouble settling on something to listen to as I worked, in my then-current state of mind my usual podcasts seemed irritating, familiar music grated on me, and I lacked the energy to seek out fresh sounds.
And so, when Coffee Talk Ep.2 arrived, it was a balm to my ears and mind, turning out to be exactly what I needed.
Originally released for the Dreamcast in 2000 and eventually ported to the PS2 (and beyond), Game Arts’ Grandia II was a more mature affair than the 1997 prequel, and featured a lot of the returning original staff – including Noriyuki Iwadare, the composer of all three main Grandia games. The game told the story of Ryudo, a mercenary of wobbly morals who gets tasked with a seemingly simple escort mission that evolves into a grand(ia) adventure.
Britt caught up with Save Point and Patrick McBride, who were kind enough to answer some burning questions on how the album came to be, shine some light on their creative process – and tell us what the future holds.
