track-list : dj-promo, dmx crew, 23, Gary Martin, Dave Clarke, Baby Ford, Joey Beltram, Ken Ishii, Steve Frisco, GG Galaxy, Deadly Avenger, Roland the Bastard...
I was originally gonna post this straight from a download and go OFF 2!!!! But I thought that would've been mean to get ppl excited like that. It would have fooled me.... no lie to be found!
Key art for C-SMASH VRS, the upcoming PSVR2 successor to the 2001 SEGA Naomi cult arcade game Cosmic Smash, whose Dreamcast port I played obsessively in 2002. The game is being developed by RapidEyeMovers, under the direction of Jörg Titel, who is collaborating with a talented group of creators, including renowned musicians Ken Ishii and Danalogue, as well visual designers Cory Schmitz an Arkotype. The teaser trailer shows how the team has been at pains to maintain the visual signature of the original game, at the same time expanding its single-player concept by introducing co-op and versus modes.
While the last years have yielded many surprising revivals of some of SEGA's most beloved intellectual properties through collaborations with smaller independent studios, the very notion of a new Cosmic Smash is redefines the word unanticipated. We have witnessed how Sony's appetite for filling the original PSVR system software library shelves enabled riskier ventures to be financed or endorsed. Undoubtedly, the team at REM recognized this as a unique opportunity to fulfil their long-held ambition. If the game is to remain exclusive to VR, it is questionable how much excitement it will elicit among devotees of the original; not only as a result of the steep admission cost, but the known fact that VR is still something of an unappealing foreign territory in the eyes of most traditional players.
Koji Morimoto / Ken Ishii / "Extra" Music Video / Animation / 1995
Koji Morimoto is animator who cofounded Studio 4°C in 1986. Shortly after opening his design studio he was credited as assistant to chief animator for his work on Katsuhiro Otomo's film Akira(1988) and would go on to work with Satoshi Kon on another Otomo film called Memories(1995). That same year Morimoto was tapped for the art direction role of then up and coming DJ Ken Ishii's LP Jelly Tones(1995) on R&S Records. The art direction and subsequent music video for "Extra" utilized similar sci-fi and cyberpunk visual motifs as Morimoto's previous work with Otomo. The music video for "Extra" was extremely well received and would go on to win MTV's "Best Dance Music Video of the Year" for 1996.
Jelly Tones took the world by storm in the mid 90s and led to the DJ being one of the first world renowned Japanese Techno musicians. While existing in a pure Techno space Jelly Tones' sound has been characterized as a warm, futuristic, and optimistic style that captures Tokyo's atmosphere.