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The spooky season is here! …or so it is whispered in the darkest corners of the pumpkin-spice infused hipster coffee shops. We will attempt to synergize with that vibe by bringing to you the scariest stuff we can in the most hipster way we can: video game music on vinyl records–horror edition. Well, as much as we can, if you include obsessive anime girls and tongue-in-cheek skeletal film noir. We’re pulling out all the candy corns and sugar peanuts and making this a FULL-SIZE CANDY BAR EXPERIENCE… news and three features, and a bunch more music than you can handle, three tracks each!
We’re joined by Cassie Baralis of Ship to Shore Media to discuss music of some of the ostensibly scary games we love. We begin with Anthony’s choice of a great entry in its own iconic series, Resident Evil 2, pressed to wax by Laced Records. We explore some of the key areas in the game, the idea of “nemesis” monsters and the tropes of the series, and listen to one of the more… distinct…. tracks from the release. Cassie then takes us into Japanese visual novel territory with Doki Doki Literature Club from iam8bit. Spoiler warning, we do about a 70% good job of giving away the plot points, but we leave enough intact that you should still play it. We explore the genre-fluency of composer Dan Salvato and look at the ways he has twisted it and left some really good clues and throwbacks in the compositions that gel with the plot. And our unprecedented THIRD PICK comes from Jeremy: Grim Fandango from iam8bit. Jeremy takes us on a journey through Latin America and discusses the cultural and pop-cultural experiences that meld together into Tim Schafer’s 20-year-old adventure. If you ever wanted to hear an exhaustive list of the referential inputs into Grim Fandango… well this is a decent effort.
And now, if you still linger in the land of the living, go forth and put the willies into the world with your devotion to video games, music, vinyl records, and video game music on vinyl records! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHHHH!
PS Did we mention Cassie drops a secret track for an unannounced Ship to Shore release in this episode? What could it beeeee???
Outro: “Ada’s Theme” – Resident Evil 2
Twitter – @vg_grooves, @walnutsoap, @jeremy_lamont, @ajohnagnello
Instagram: Cassie Baralis
Ship to Shore Media (Website / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter)
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