If there's one thing that retro video games got right (which there is, along with 99 others) it's the music. No matter how realistic or technically advanced gaming gets, the gleaming, laser-rainbow soundtracks of Alex the Kid and Super Mario will probably never be surpassed, simply because they got it right in one go.
It's why artists like WAVE RACER—and the ever-growing school of up-and-comers in his wake—are splashing about in the nostalgic, 64-bit vibes you'd expect to find in the video game of the same name. After all, why fix what's not broken? This is pretty much what lies at the heart of the 'retro' sentiment: celebrating that which was truly excellent in its day, and whose excellence did not deteriorate in the countless days to follow.
As far as retro goes, there's no time more spectacular than the 80s.
Macgyver speeding away into the sunset on a jetski made from phone books and mullet hair; Johnny Depp going undercover in a varsity jacket to subvert a high-school drug rink; any scene from Baywatch ever. These are the kind of images that pixellate into the mind whilst listening to MITCH MURDER's 'Saturday': the synthy, electro-funk slice from the Swedish producer's upcoming album 'Interceptor'.
Tapping into the same well of video-game electronica as artists like TODD TERJE, 'Saturday' qualifies as ambient music in a way—insofar as it demands to be played in the background of almost every situation fathomable. It's all cheese and pearl-suited glitz; Sonic the Hedgehog donning a pastel-tone ski-suit; toothy smiles and triumphant thumbs up. Take a fluorescent ride into the untarnished past. It's a simple kind of euphoria.
'Interceptor' is slated for release on July 29, through the Jeffrees / Mad Decent label.
Words by Gavin Butler
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TODD TERJE 'DELOREAN DYNAMITE'
