Composer and producer Julian Wass has an understanding of the importance of video game music sampling. From the early days of grime where sampled Playstation soundtracks and effects were put to warehouse beats, to Wass's “Cloud Skatin” Xenogears cut up for Main Attrakionz and Danny Brown; it would only make sense that Julian curate a hip-hop instrumental tribute to electronic RPG composer Yasunori Mitsuda. Julian Wass premeires his beat cut, “Wounded”, originally from Mitsuda's “The Wounded Shall Advance Into The Light” off the Xenogears: Original Soundtrack. On a compilation that includes Friendzone, KeyboardKid206, ギラ BLADES, Paladins, Ryan Hemsworth, ZachG and more; Wass shows that Yasunori's digitized sound scores were designed for places and worlds larger and more visceral than those finite spaces that exist between controller and screen.
The MIDI synth choir from the digital-fictional Cathedral of Nisan from Xenogears gets sped up with 808 tricks, and plenty of drum beat twerks and kicks. According to Wass' version of “Wounded”, this church setting casts the game's protagonist Fei Fong Wong in a cloudier sanctuary of the synthesizer. Standing in a new light, the games metaphysics provide new layers of mystiques and arrangement machineries that can appeal and reach bass and beat-heads with little interest in 90s console RPG digitales.
Here the church choral tones are adorned with accompanying synths deserved of an emcee's touch like an acryclic flow to an electronic canvas. Mitsuda's digital organ and faux choir are the central base where Wass builds a new song from the 32-bit soundscore to the point where the original sample dissappears all together to give you just under half a minute of his trunk rattling reworking. From the electronic gaming chamber music made with an urban spin, the argument for video game music contributing to the new ambient synthesis school can be heard and appreciated here in a new evoltionary form.
MITSUDA: Tribute to Yasunori Mitsuda is available now from Lefse.
