Those familiar with the WipEout franchise on Sony PlayStation will generally agree that the music forms a large part of the overall experience.
Back in 1995, the original WipEout game was one of the first to champion the inclusion of licensed commercial music, with tracks from Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital. Bolstering this line up, we saw the debut of ‘CoLD SToRAGE’ who provided eight of the eleven music tracks. Under this nom-de-plume, in-house Psygnosis (Sony Liverpool) musician Tim Wright went on to provide music for several other games including ‘Crazy Ivan’, ‘Tellurian Defence’ and ‘WipEout 2097’. Wright departed Sony in 1997, but his strong association with the franchise saw him brought back on board in 2005 to pen music for the PSP’s ‘WipEout Pure’.
With the recent launch of PS Vita and flagship title ‘WipEout 2048’ Wright was encouraged by his fan base to create more music in-the-style for them to enjoy while playing the new title.
Wright says;
“I was really excited to discover that there was a new WipEout coming out after all this time, and even more so as it was a launch title for the incredible PlayStation Vita! Almost immediately this news was released I began receiving e-mails, tweets and Facebook messages asking me if I would be providing music for the game. I believe a number of people contacted Sony, and a few die-hard fans even set up a good natured Facebook page that campaigned for my inclusion.
For whatever reason this sadly never happened, but there was a strong enough groundswell of support that I felt it was worthwhile creating some new music. I started working on material late last year, and then last month I decided to dust off some of the original tracks I composed and attempt a few re-mixes, or to be accurate re-inventions, as I no longer had access to the files, samples and synthesizers I used to create the originals.
The first re-mix I’ve tackled is a track called ‘CANADA’ from ‘WipEout 2097’ ( WipEout XL ) which came out in 1996 on the PSOne. Feedback so far has been amazing, with many people telling me it give them ‘chills’ and re-awakens great memories for them. I have to say, how could any musician ask for more than that?”
Wright is busy finishing off his unofficial WipEout 2048 inspired album, and we should see it released within the month of March 2012.
The Extended Play Single “CANADA two zero four eight” is released today and features two re-mixes and exclusive artwork.
Wright’s music is available from; http://coldstorage.bandcamp.com/
