iam8bit have just announced that they will be releasing Motoaki Furukawa’s soundtrack to the 1991 arcade game Sunset Riders on vinyl. The release comes out in commemoration of the game’s 25th anniversary.
The release comes on a “clear smoke” 10″ record in a jacket with brand new artwork by Drew Wise. The jacket comes with die-cut bullet holes to match the game’s Western theme.
Preorders have opened now and the release, which is limited to 1000 copies, is scheduled to go out in Q2 2017.
We’ve known about this for a while and I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the most anticipated releases to be announced this year – and now we can preorder it. Yes, the soundtrack to Hideo Kojima’s Snatcher is getting a vinyl release.
The release will be a 2LP pressed on 140g colored vinyl and features the Sega CD version of the soundtrack which is composed by Konami Kukeiha Club. It comes in a gatefold jacket with artwork by Ian Wilding. Also included are two prints of original game art from Konami’s archives.
Four different color variants will be available in total with some being exclusive to certain distributors (see below). The variants are on orange/white/red tri-color (Ship To Shore exclusive), green-in-grey (Ship To Shore exclusive), ultra clear (retail), and red translucent with black splatter (The Yetee exclusive).
The release is priced at $35 and is scheduled to release in Q1 2017. It can be preordered from the following sites:
The soundtrack, which is composed by the Konami Kukeiha Club, have never been released outside Japan before and is famous for its use of the VRC7 chip, which improved the quality of sound and music in the game.
The release comes on a single LP and will be available in three different color variants:
– Clear with purple streaks (exclusive to Ship To Shore’s store)
– Clear with blue streaks (exclusive to The Yetee’s store)
– Purple marbled (retail version available through Ship To Shore, Light In The Attic, and One Way Static)
The album will also feature brand new artwork by Drew Wise and feature liner notes from USgamer’s Jeremy Parish.
So far it’s just been announced that the first release will be Castlevania, which will be available at the San Diego Comic-Con in July. This likely means that a release for the general public will be available online shortly after (which is what they did with their The Last Of Us release).
But this is not today’s only announcement. iam8bit also announced that they will be releasing Petri Alanko’s Quantum Break soundtrack on vinyl. The release will be on 180g white with colored splatter vinyl and will feature new artwork by Christina Mrozik.
The release is limited to 3000 copies and is set for a Q3 2016 release.
Yesterday Mondo launched their latest mixtape with teaser tracks from their upcoming releases on Soundbutt and it opened with the Prologue from the Castlevania soundtrack by Kinuyo Yamashita and Satoe Terashima. They later confirmed in a comment on Twitter that they will indeed be releasing the soundtrack!
So far that’s all the news there is, but this is big news as this have been one of the most requested OSTs to receive the vinyl treatment and one that’s previously been unofficially released.
As some may be aware, Ship To Shore PhonoCo. went to Japan a few weeks back and since they returned they’ve been dropping hints on what they’ve been up to.
To begin with they announced a partnership with Japanese game company Taito spanning several releases from Taito’s catalog of classics.
They haven’t officially announced any titles from these releases yet, but I’ve been in touch with them and have been allowed to let you guys know a bit more about these upcoming Taito releases.
First of all I can announce that they’re currently working on 3 releases and the plan is to continue the Taito partnership with more releases after those.
Secondly, I can say that they will do at least one compilation release and that you can expect music from Bubble Bobble, Night Striker, PuLiRuLa, and Gun Frontier. I know of one more title, but you’ll have to wait for an announcement from Ship To Shore themselves to learn more about that.
Finally, they have told me that all the music will be sourced from files that come directly from Taito’s archives. They let me listen to a few samples and I can safely say that you have every reason to be excited about these releases! It should also be noted that these first 3 releases will be arcade soundtracks and not arranged music.
But Ship To Shore have even more licensed Japanese titles lined up! Yesterday it turned out that they didn’t just meet up with Taito – they met with Konami as well and have shown images from two Konami releases that they will be giving the vinyl treatment along with the text “Coming soon”.
The first game they teased is the 1991 space RPG Lagrange Point, whose soundtrack was composed by Akio Dobashi, Noriyuki Takahashi, Katsuhiko Suzuki, and Atsushi Fujio. The game is the only one to ever release with Konami’s special VRC7 sound generator integrated circuit, which allowed for an impressive increase in sound and music quality. It was teased with an image of a lagrange point as well as these in-game screenshots:
The second game they teased is the 1988 cyberpunk adventure Snatcher (written and directed by the legendary Hideo Kojima) whose music was composed by the Konami Kukeiha Club. The game was teased with this game animation:
For the Konami releases Ship To Shore have tweeted that they will not be vinyl reissues of existing CD releases, but rather new releases in their own right, so it will be interesting to see the tracklists when more details are revealed.
So far no release dates or estimates have been mentioned, but if Ship To Shore’s Twitter-activity is anything to go by, then I think we can expect more news very soon. Stay tuned for more updates!
