The Legend of Zelda series of video games are home to some of the most beautiful soundtracks written for the medium – hell, some of the most beautiful music written in the past 30 years.
Haunting, celestial, and most of all, memorable, the Zelda OST’s are genius. But they were always held back by their sonic medium: 16-bit PSG sound chips. The glitchy, low fidelity sounds that came from your TV or Game Boy were fun, but they were always somewhat trivial. Texan musician Will Patterson is changing that.
Bliss out to Switched On: A Link To The Past, a magical reimagining of the Legend 0f Zelda: A Link To The Past soundtrack on analog synths.
Switched On: A Link To The Past is a new project from Patterson that reimagines the 16-bit Link To The Past through the magical warmth of analog synths.
As FACT mag point out, the nine-track release does include iconic moments like the game’s opening theme, Kakariko Village, Fairy’s Theme and Crystal. Patterson also notes on his Bandcamp page that Koji Kondo and Nintendo will receive royalties from any sales.
Patterson plans to release more recreations of classic Nintendo games, as stated on his Bandcamp:
“Switched On SNES is a series of soundtracks played on analog synthesizers and drum machines. The goal of the project is to expose listeners to the musical masterpieces that have been overlooked – mostly because of the 16bit instrumentation.
Link to the Past is the first installment of soundtracks which will include: Secret of Mana, Earthbound, Donkey Kong Country, and others. Royalties from sales will go towards the composer Koji Kondo/Nintendo.”
Listen to Switched On: A Link To The Past below or here.
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