Tuesday 15 March 2022

Continue?

Hey all, just a quick one to tide you over for today, Sean Seanson is back at it again with another 'Club Playstation' Mixtape, beautiful slices of era ephemera in which Sean does his utmost to take a deep dive into that Playstation sound, I covered the first volume a little while ago. There is no singular genre that takes the crown - across the three volumes we've dabbled in House, Techno and of course, Drum & Bass. Volume 3 continues that trend, with once again some choice deep cuts from the library. Highlights include tracks from Square's street racing RPG Racing Lagoon - I've posted a couple from that OST here before actually, the whole thing is a super stylish experience and the OST is a deliciously 90's mixture of jazzy breaks and House grooves.

It opens with yet another cult classic advert for the console, this time the 'I have lived' one. It's got a certain charm to it, and is also much less surreal than Chris Cunningham's Mental Wealth one from last time (I've skipped over it for the embed below, but it's definitely worth a look). From there it's a whirlwind tour of the little grey box's library - kicking off with some vintage FromSoftware in the form of Armored Core, a series with plenty of great soundtrack entries. Fans of current FromSoft games will find themselves in similar territory with the choral accompaniment, but unlike in your Souls-like games, there's a thudding 4/4 backing it up!


Fast forward to 14:48 or so if you want to get to my favourite section, three back to back slices of primo jazzy D&B style stuff. If you're at all a fan of Moving Shadow's output as I am, you will find a lot to like here. And that's a massive part of the appeal of these mixes for me, Sean's pulled some right corkers out for this one, I'd never even heard of Aironauts before this mix! The tune in question that Sean's chosen comes out sounding like a blend of the E-Z Rollers work, the rolling jungle of tracks like RS2000 mixed with the jazzier parts of Weekend World , quality stuff.

From there the South Yokohama theme from Racing Lagoon takes us in a cooler, more Gran Turismo-esque direction. A great intro to the soundtrack, seek out the whole thing if you like that one - it's pretty beefy at a massive 2CDs and 62 tracks. Cap that all off with a little bit from Sheep Dog 'n' Wolf (as Sean recently covered on his channel) and that whole section is just a treat to listen to. Not to repeat myself but once again that only highlights Sean's selections - who'd have thought there was a great piece of D&B tucked away in a Looney Tunes game of all things? Such is the wonder of the PS1 era!

And of course, what would a Club PS mixtape be without the token licensed song? This time it's Sasha with Xpander - a popular tune in its own right regardless, but I'm willing to bet it's hard wired to Wip3out in more than a few folk's heads. There's still so much more to delve into as well, I've been slightly tempted to try my hand at it myself in all honesty. If Sean is reading this and taking recommendations - the soundtracks to Need For Speed III and IV have some real gems on, and the soundtrack to Tomorrow Never Dies has some pretty chill stuff on there, maybe a bit too chill for the club vibe but certainly worth checking out!

That'll be all for now, I'll be back soon enough with more but I hope you get as much fun out of this mix as I did, and be sure to check out Sean's channel for more of them - and some interesting deep dives into the world of the Playstation (and as of recently, the Dreamcast too!). Until then, as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

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