'Synth Fighters' Will Hadouken You Right Back To The '90s

The Internet

Cardiff-based indie label Thirtieth Floor Records trade in all things retro electronica, synth-pop and progressive electronic tunes, but they're eking out a nice little niche for themselves as next-level curators of throwback concept projects too.

Recently, the collective put together Synths Of Rage, a tribute compilation to classic fighting game Streets Of Rage, and the response was evidently sufficiently positive to bring about a spiritual sequel of sorts with the label's new release Synth Fighters, an homage to the music of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and Super Street Fighter II.

Of course, being a product of the 16-bit generation - the first iteration of the sequel to 1987's Street Fighter hit shelves in 1992 after a year of success in arcades - Street Fighter II's soundtrack was already a pretty synth-heavy prospect, but Thirtieth Floor have nonetheless managed, through their eclectic array of electronic whizzes, to simultaneously give the songs of Street Fighter II (and its volume-two successors) a fresh sense of life while being gleefully retro by design.

Featured artists on the album include Syntax (Player Select), Kaleido Drive (Ryu), Alpharisc (Ken), Von Hertzog (Dhalsim), The Dust Collective (Guile), The Warhorse (Vega), Occam's Laser (M. Bison), Stilz (Fei Long) and many more. Have a listen to Kaleido Drive's Ryu below, and get among the rest of the Synth Warriors album on Bandcamp.