Ship To Shore PhonoCo. are releasing the soundtrack to 1987 arcade action game The Ninjawarriors on vinyl for the first time since 1988.
The release will be a single LP available in two color variants – a red and blue “ninja” split colored variant (Ship To Shore exclusive), and a clear vinyl variant. It will be housed in a gatefold jacket with product artwork and features liner notes by composer Hisayoshi Ogura.
Ship To Shore PhonoCo. have opened up preorders for the vinyl soundtrack to the arcade shoot ’em up Darius II.
The release will be a single LP available in two variants – a red splatter colored vinyl variant (exclusive to Ship To Shore), and a clear vinyl variant. It will be housed in gatefold jacket with game art and will include liner notes by composer Hisayoshi Ogura and games journalist Anthony John Agnello.
A few days ago Ship To Shore PhonoCo. announced the third entry in their Arcade Classics series of Taito music by Zuntata. This new release will feature music from Bubble Bobble, Bubble Symphon, Gun Frontier, PuLiRuLa, and RayForce.
The release itself will be a single LP on clear vinyl with “Bub and Bob” blue and green splatter. It will be housed in a gatefold jacket and includes liner notes byJeremy Parish.
Ship To Shore PhonoCo. announced last year that Zuntata’s soundtrack to 1987 shoot-em-up Darius would be the second entry in their Taito Arcade Classics series.
The release will be a single LP housed in a gatefold jacket with liner notes by composer Hisayoshi Ogura and games write Anthony Agnello. The release will be available in two color variants – ‘Silver Hawk, Player 1’ red and ‘Silver Hawk, Player 2’ blue.
It had previously been announced that we’d be getting some Night Striker music on vinyl and it looks like this is the release for that. In addition, this compilation will also feature music from the games Metal Black and Elevator Action Returns.
There are no specifics on a tracklist (other than what can be seen on the mockup label) and it appears that a solid blue color variant will be available.
No specific news on a release date either, but the mockup image was followed by the words “Coming very, very soon”, so I suspect we’ll be hearing more soon. I’ll update this post when more is announced.
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!
