Club PlayStation - Psygnosis Special

Indulge me once more as we once again take a trip to Sean Seanson's channel. I've posted a couple of his 'Club Playstation' mixtapes in the past, I have a real affinity for them as in hindsight the PS1 was my first exposure to a good amount of electronic music, something I've come to appreciate more in hindsight. There's been some big hitters spread over Sean's previous entries - Ridge Racer Type 4's soulful mix of House, the pulse pounding techno of the Ghost In The Shell adaption and of course, Soichi Terada's Drum & Bass OST from primate platformer Ape Escape. But there's been one studio that arguably is the most iconic when it comes to soundtracks of this era, and that is Psygnosis.

Psygnosis had been around a long time already by the time the PS1 era rolled around, having worked on the Amiga and the like back in the 80's, their publisher logo adorning many a sleeve, the font making the whole thing look like the cover of a power metal album.

You may perhaps know them best for Wipeout, a franchise that seemed to be laser guided to target the 90's market. From the Asian-inspired graphic design from The Designer's Republic to the soundtrack featuring titans of the electronic music world of the time spread across 3 games, it was destined to become a classic. Combine with the Rollcage duology having a sizeable amount of Drum & Bass (the second game even having an official album released by Moving Shadow). Between the two series you have more than enough mix material already, and I haven't even mentioned some of the titles Sean covers here. So enough chat, let's dive in shall we?



The end result is probably my favourite intro of all of the Club Playstation mixes so far - the transition from the intro into CoLD SToRAGE's Cairodrome is deliciously 90's (and by the way, CS has remastered and uploaded all his contributions to the Wipeout OSTs to Bandcamp), from there it's a whirlwind tour of all things Psygnosis both licenced and original. Major highlights throughout, the Rollcage Stage II OST is the best of the best of Moving Shadow at the time - the Wipeout choices are select but it's hard not to have any choice be top notch when your soundtrack has The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Leftfield, Photek and even Daft Punk to name a few. Of course as with all of Sean's mixes so far there's a light shone on others you might not be as familiar with, I know I've found some tunes (and by proxy, some games!) to check out here, and I hope you will too.

That'll be a wrap for today, I should be back in a few days with the retro review I started penning a little while ago, assuming that the tracks are all able to be previewed when it actually releases but if not I'll find a workaround. Until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF