It seems like every other video game soundtrack these days is looking to analog synthesizers and the sounds of their ’80s heyday to help set the mood. You’ve even got musicians retroactively synthing up classic scores, like Luminist’s incredible remake of the Metroid soundtrack. Following in those footsteps is Switched On SNES, a new project from musician Will Patterson that seeks to reorchestrate iconic 16-bit music using analog synthesizers and drum machines. The first album in his series is a doozy: The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past.
The bombast of Nintendo’s classic fantasy epic isn’t as natural a fit for this treatment as Metroid, but Patterson nailed some of these tracks and transforms them into dreamy, blissed-out tunes. Unsurprisingly, it’s the more austere songs that work best, like the cascading arpeggios of the series’ fairy theme, known on the official Link To The Past soundtrack as “Beginning Of The Journey,” and a track Patterson calls “Crystal,” which is better known as “Meeting The Maidens.”
You can buy the nine-song collection for $5, which is odd considering this is ostensibly a fan project, but the album’s Bandcamp page does note that “royalties from sales will go towards the composer Koji Kondo/Nintendo.” Should the series continue as planned, Patterson has his sights set on the likes of Secret Of Mana, EarthBound, and Donkey Kong Country.
[via Original Sound Version]