Zoned

As I was working on one of my Favorite Tunes post, I came across this album. The cover made it look like a soundtrack that came straight out of the 1980s. Naturally, my interest was peaked, so I took a look. Man, am I ever glad I did.

Zoned is a Sonic the Hedgehog based arranged album. If you like funk then you're in for a major treat because this album is heavily rooted in it along with electronica of the '80s variety. As a big lover of that era, I certainly approve of the direction of this album, but then, this is the usual style of Opus Science Collective (OSC), the ones behind this bad boy. This is the first I've heard of these guys and while I'm really late to the party on this one (it was released in December of 2016), I'll be keeping an eye on future projects from them.

The music featured on Zoned covers the Classic era of Sonic games. Of course, Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2 and 3 get love, but I gotta give OSC major credit for paying tribute to Sonic's 8-bit games. Sonic Chaos, and the 8-bit versions of Sonic 1 and 2 get arrangements on this album. Sonic Chaos' Turquoise Hill Zone even leads the charge at being track number 2. Throughout the album are bits from various interviews sprinkled in from the people such as Masato Nakamura. It doesn't interfear with the music as much as you might think and it lends itself well to the type of music.

Zoned is a name your price download so you can throw some money at them or get it for free. If you're unsure about downloading this one, as always you can listen to each track on Bandcamp before going through with a download. This one is worth taking up a tiny portion of space on your computer, though, so just download it already.

Zoned