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Wanted to take a moment during your festive frolicking to quickly mention something.
The LMC team has always been a gaggle of friends who do stuff together for funsies. Not many of the guys have any specific roles – only I have that really. When it comes to streams, podcasts, even on our Discord channel. You’ll see some of us every week, some of us once a month and others only rarely and that’s like a little treat. Basically the team gives as much or as little to the site as they are comfortable with.
Golf With Your Friends‘s ‘Bipper in Chief’It has been some considerable time since anyone has ‘moved on’, but I’m sorry to say that Nibal (formally known as Mr. Vanato) has decided to step down from the actual team. Our own Agent of Chaos, his shenanigans on our Twitch streams are legendary. But over the last couple of years Nibal also stepped up behind the scenes in a way I have been very grateful about. Not just editing LMC Cast but being the point in terms of organising recording sessions and getting folks organised. It’s been a fantastic weight off my mind, frankly.
In fact I’m so happy with the way LMC Cast has being run, it’s caused an inadvertent (good) headache in terms of what to do by way of balancing it and Radio Redux. Should one go? Should they merge in some way? I’ve been debating that for several months and I’m still unsure of what to do. With change likely on the way, Nibal has decided to bow out with it. But it seems certain that whatever happens, the future for our podcast/s will be shaped specifically by the show formatting and style that he has had a big hand in developing.
I’m sure it’s not the last we’ll see of him on LMC stuff either. There might be odd cameo here and there, and it’s not like he’s leaving our community. But I wanted to wish him the best in whatever he focuses his creative powers on next. He remains a very important friend to myself and the site and his contributions have been far more important over the years than even he perhaps realises.
Many thanks again mate.
Kevin
Well, here it is. The last Wescin Rocks Records project for the year, there’s still a few more collections that will come out down the line, but this is it for 2023. This one in particular is rather different as it hits a bunch of video games that you really wouldn’t expect to get the lo-fi / downtempo / hip-hop chill treatment. Heck some of these have all but been forgotten.
As you might have surmised from the title, the connection to this collection is that these are all games that I’ve specifically worked on, to varying degrees, in my previous games industry life. Unfortunately the non-SEGA ones didn’t make the cut, but if I ever get to Volume 2 I’ll definitely shove at least Heroes of Ruin in there. Although that guy was Ehehewkay and not AAUK… but that’s probably splitting hairs.
THE TRACKS:1) “Drift Into The Darkness” for OutRun Online ArcadeAlso Outrun 2006 and Outrun 2 as well I guess, but I didn’t work on those so OutRun Online Arcade it is.
Taking influence from ‘Night Flight’, a.k.a the track I’ve been saying for the last decade deserves more respect, for what an absolute banger it is. Drift Into The Darkness, takes OutRun a synthy, haunting direction. You can feel the street lights flicking over the car as you cruise the roads at night.
2) “Don’t Mention The Octopus” for Phantasy Star 0When it comes to the Phantasy Star series I’ve worked on a few games, but none more enjoyable than the mostly forgotten Phantasy Star 0 on the Nintendo DS.
This delicate track shows some love to the theme of Sarisa, a kind and gentle Newman who ends up joining your party as your atypical healer-sort. While very innocent she’s got a bit of spice to her too, and will soon tell you what she thinks of you if pushed. But she’s generally a calm influence. Unfortunately for Sarisa, the thing she’s most famous for is a scene in the game where she gets up close and personal with some enemy tentacles.
Now you know where the track name comes from.
3) “We All Float Here” for Sonic & The Secret RingsFor a series where its music is much praised, even when a game is thought to be utter rubbish, the music normally is deemed the best thing. Secret Rings is one Sonic game where people really sleep on the soundtrack. It’s pretty unique with some bonkers songs and rock out moments. Of those, ‘Unawakening Float‘ – what a name, right? – is one of my favourites. The intense music as the singer dramatically bellows Must I float away? / Will I ever wake?
Given they lyrics, we took the melody from the intro and leant into the dreamy aspect. You can end up anywhere in dreams, so let them take you where you need to go. Just watch out for any red balloons.
4) “Large Magellanic Cloud” for Infinite SpaceRemember the Platinum Games series of great releases in partnership with SEGA? We got ourselves the likes of Bayonetta, VANQUISH, MADWORLD and… can you remember the fourth one? No?
No…
That’s kind of the problem for Infinite Space. It got rather outshined by literally everything else around it. Another Nintendo DS title, this time an RPG set in the far-flung future where humanity has colonised the stars – even the satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. So yes, ‘the LMC’ is actually relevant to the plot!
There’s missing siblings, father angst, anime haircuts and alien plots aplenty in this game about a young boy who wants to be a space captain. Building up a fleet of ships which you then have to use in tactical battles. It’s different, but actually really enjoyable.
Which is why it’s a pity that just after you really start to get going you get your legs cut out from under you thanks to UNWINNABLE PLOT DEVELOPMENTS. Reducing you back down to a zero and, honestly when I played it I just couldn’t get going again after that. Everything suddenly was unwinnable.
This track takes inspiration from two pieces of music from the game: ‘Space Tranquil Pair’ and ‘Chelsea‘. Both of which are very atmospheric and indicative of ‘you are in space’, unsurprisingly. The end result is a light, chill hip-hop track that has a sense of being part of something much bigger.
5) “Rock ‘n Rotor” for L.A. MachinegunsWait Kevin, isn’t L.A. Machineguns an arcade game? Why yes! But you forget it was ported to the Nintendo Wii in a double-pack with Gunblade NY – and guess who worked on that?
Influenced by ‘Water Raid’, we go from night cafe jazz to flying over the coast and then back to the cafe to round off the night. Plus there’s a little nod to the arcade past thrown in at the beginning – not by me, I might add but the musician I was working with really wanted that in there. I wasn’t convinced at first, but it grew on me quickly.
6) “Drinkin'” for The House of the Dead: OVERKILLHOTD: Overkill has so many great tracks it was tricky to pick one. Ultimately I decided to save ‘Dim Sum For Papa’ for another day and I frankly wasn’t brave enough to even begin explaining The Brothel Creepers’ ‘One Night In Bayou’ to someone. Instead we have this, which is actually one of the oldest tracks we’ve produced, being one of the ‘test’ projects I sent to some musicians to see how working with them would go.
What we have here is the theme (I guess) of Varla Gunns, ‘Torn Out Twisted’… twisted. The way I described it to them was “You’re in a club’s bar, the noise is too loud and you can’t really hear what anyone is saying. You see a girl and try to have a non-verbal conversation.”
7) “A Tiger Drop In The Ocean” for Yakuza 4Our first Like A Dragon track! About time…
This one’s also pretty heavy on synths. Taking boss fight track ‘Smile Venomously’ and turning it into something you might hear in the background as you take in the sights of one of the seedier corners of Kamurocho. It’s also got a cameo from Navi in there for some reason.
8) “Escape Notice” for Sonic UnleashedThis is my escape. I’m running through this world
And I’m not looking back
Back to Sonic we go and Sonic Unleashed. My goodness, Sonic Unleashed. The soundtrack to the game also known as Sonic World Adventure is one of if not the best and most well-rounded soundtracks to any game. Not just those featuring the blue speedy one.
Taking its queues from main theme ‘Endless Possibility’ we get a piano reinterpretation of the elements to that song, but the result is still a very different and relaxing beast.
9) “Just The Job” for Sonic & SEGA All-Stars RacingBit of a leftfield choice for this title, because ultimately a lot of the music is related to other franchises just given a bit of a light spin (if any). That essentially leaves doing something with either main theme ‘So Much More…’ or doing something with the incidental music.
In this case we’ve taken the music from the Mission Menu and made it into something more tranquil. You’ve still got the ripple effect that is indicative of the menu theme, but I likened the result to watching the clouds go by.
As for ‘So Much More…’? You’ll have to wait for another day.
10) “In Memory of Whip Select” for STORMRISESTORMRISE was fun to work on, if only because everything was being done out of the Australian based arm of Creative Assembly and the result was a heck of a ride as you wondered just what the heck was going on. But as much as I joke about STORMRISE, I still maintain there’s a heck of a good game in there. At least in terms of the story. I was invested in that game right up until the point it became an unwieldy mess to control.
Speaking of which, the title is named after Whip Select. The much vaunted control scheme that would allow unparalleled control over your soldiers as you dealt with the verticality of the terrain. The original music wasn’t anything to write home about, and it took a long time to get something suitable. The source was the track ‘Thor’, although this changed several times.
The AAUK Collection: Volume 1 is available now on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and many other places. You can also find it as part of the Instagram/Facebook and TikTok/TikTok Music/Resso/Luna music libraries.
It’s a tad awkward really. Wescin Rocks Records projects are set to slow down, but is still something that’ll be popping up every now and then. But between then and now is about four different albums/EPs/collections that are already done. Purely thanks to a quirk of timing. The last one we had was the first volume of Sonic Wrecks: Black/Red. A little collection celebrating things in the musical key of ‘hedgehog’ and now we have Volume 2 to continue things on.
As with the previous volume, this collection isn’t all the super popular tracks from the best loved games. Where’s the fun in that? Instead we’ve got another ten lo-fi / downtempo / whatever-you-want-to-call-it tracks from all over the Sonic series. Including a couple of curveballs as I always tend to do.
THE TRACKS:1) “Cobalt Nights” for Sonic CDIt was never my desire to do a dedicated collection of bad guy tracks. But for Volume 2 I did want the challenge of taking on several themes that were a little darker than most. Really turning them around.
Now let’s park that discussion for a minute because when it came to Sonic CD I went straight to Metallic Madness: Good Future. Yes, I may have leant in to a meme for once – but in my defence, it was likely always going to be Metallic Madness. My knowledge of Sonic CD has never been particularly strong. So when going through the tracks I was surprised to find that Good Future was (for me) one of those ‘Oh this is THAT track I’ve always liked – but didn’t know what it was!’. For “Cobalt Nights” it takes the ‘night out’ feel of the original and transforms it into more of a ‘late night coffee looking at the stars’ feel. It’s straight out of your 2AM lo-fi music collections and I love it.
2) “Known Unknowns” for Sonic Free RidersWe head over to a game which has, in recent months thanks to fan involvement, gotten a new lease of life. Kinect-only game Sonic Free Riders. A game that I will go to my grave insisting is an actual miracle, considering the development time. It’s always deserved more love, and so too does the cracking theme song for “Free”, although in the case of this project we looked at one of the earlier Betas of the track I’ve had on my iPod for the last decade and that is a bit rawer and the superior version in my opinion.
“Known Unknowns” is a light and trippy loop I equated to remembering the good times of an adventure the day after.
3) “I’ll Always Protect You” for Shadow The HedgehogWhilst there’s a lot of love for the vocal tracks (or should I say ‘trax’) from Shadow The Hedgehog for some reason there’s not much love for the rest of the soundtrack. Oh yes, people will be able to namecheck some, like Digital Circuit, Cryptic Castle, Mad Matrix, Cosmic Fall or Westopolis. But much like our broody protagonist there’s some pieces in that soundtrack that are pretty reflective and almost sorrowful. Honestly, check out Gun Fortress sometime.
Given the Sonic Wrecks branding, there’s naturally at least one Shadow track in each of the three volumes. For Volume 2, the focus is on Lost Impact, a level which is an extended flashback for Shadow to when things began to go so drastically wrong on the Space Colony ARK. Musically I’ve always taken this to be a combination of the two states of Shadow. The reflection of the past that is thinking something isn’t right and the slither of awareness from the present. Desperately wanting to change things as you slowly move closer to Maria’s ultimate and sad fate. (Hence “I’ll Always Protect You”.) There’s both curiosity and melancholy to it.
“I’ll Always Protect You” is a slower, even more deliberate follow-up. Taking the mood and setting to a sombre and reflective place.
4) “Ebb and Flow” for Sonic Advance 3Pretty much all the GBA Sonic titles suffer a little on the soundtrack side just because of the hardware. So I thought it would be nice to get some Advance series representation.
What we have here is a little bit of a cheat, as it’s the Boss Theme which is a series staple. However, in working with the artist on this track I was insistent the adaption/conversion came from the original GBA version. Without any context as to how others may have adapted it or its ‘original’ form. So the end result is truly taken from the form and spirit of Advance 3. Slow with a hint of regret, plus a couple of change-ups.
5) “Loss/Despair” for Sonic Adventure 2“All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me, will feel my loss and despair!” – It’s Biolizard time, bay-beeeee!
”Supporting Me’ for Biolizard is an absolute jam, but if you listen to it outside of the guitar it’s somewhat otherworldy. With distortion, discordance, lyrics you can hardly hear and tonal changes. Everything you need for a smackdown involving a hybrid science experiment taking down the even-more alien prototype to… the same experiment. I guess? You just don’t know where it’s going, or if it knows itself.
“Loss/Despair” leans into that ‘otherworldliness’ a little more. Like you’re watching the night abut everything is like it’s a long exposure photo effect. Listen and you might see what I mean.
6)”Her Word Speaks Only Truth” for Sonic & The Black KnightYou’ll notice a lot of Sonic & The Black Knight tracks on this and future collections. Again, such an amazing soundtrack and we actually got a proper theme for Blaze the Cat at last thanks to it. The totally original “Sir Percival, Knight Of The Grail” – and it’s a whole 39 seconds long. Are you freaking kidding me?
Well this wasn’t going to stand. So, we got on the case with this one. Took that Spanish guitar sound, made it a dreamy synth and made a proper track out of it.
Seriously, it’s been nearly 15 years. Can we please get this theme back and properly utilised?
7) “Duty Bound” for Sonic Adventure 2I really like the treasure hunting in Sonic Adventure 2. I’ve honestly never figured out why people are so opposed to it other than it’s not running fast everywhere. Which, to a degree of course it still is. Is it the having to engage the brain? The precision of certain dig spo-oh, it’s totally that, isn’t it?
We had a Rouge track on the last volume, and what you’ve got here has its origins in one of the best Knuckles tracks off of the Knuckles level: ‘Kick The Rock’ for Wild Canyon. But by way of an airy, chilled out piano.
“Duty Bound” as a name is a deliberate double meaning incidentally; Knuckles being both off to do his duty and trapped by his duty. It’s one of the character threads that’s come back in recent years I’m pleased to say. Being touched on heavily in Frontiers. Ultimately Knuckles is an orphan, the last of his kind, and in many ways alone. He doesn’t begrudge his fate that guarding the Master Emerald is his sworn duty. He is shown to find enjoyment in exploring Angel Island and finding out new things about his history. Which also ties nicely in with his treasure hunter reputation – nice one, Mr. Flynn. But at the same time it also clearly weighs heavily on him. There’s a reason Knuckles is the focus on the cover for Volume 2.
Where was I?
Oh yes.
“Duty Bound” went through three different versions with four (yes, that’s right) different musicians because it just wouldn’t land correctly. Always something sounded off about it. One of the other versions was actually not bad at all and you may hear it another day, but it was missing something of the spirit that made it Wild Canyon. I think we got there in the end.
8) “Jackal And Hyde” for Sonic ForcesMan the Sonic Forces soundtrack is so good. Whatever you think of the game, and although I’ve not played it (nor do I have the weird distain for it that some have) I respect the choice of leaning into both vocals and a really different sound. Something that’s clearly been followed up on with Frontiers. We’ll be coming back to it as well for a future project that’s not even Volume 3!
This though is the toughest test. Could we take the rage-filled theme of Infinite, with elements of trap and dubstep, and change it into something kinda lo-fi/chill? Well yeah. The musician we partnered with on this blew me away, taking it in some really unexpected directions. The result being an amazing track.
It’s also not weak.
Just to confirm.
9) “Ghost of a Chance” for Sonic HeroesMystic Mansion is one of those tracks I actually feel sorry for.
Eternally overlooked at spooky season thanks to “A Ghost Pumpkin’s Soup” or the 2019 remix of… “A Ghost Pumpkin’s Soup”. Also, whenever you speak to someone about the level they always seem to get it mixed up in their memories with the aforementioned Cryptic Castle. Which is a great pity, as the theme is probably the spookiest Sonic track. It also shouldn’t work when you consider the various tonal changes and use of clock tower chimes, Theremin-style warbling. A combination of both restrained and thumping bass beats. Plus periods of Jun Senoue just going off on one with his guitar.
The creepy piano and synth is back with “Ghost of a Chance” as we didn’t want to lose that. Trying to balancing haunting sounds with still that downtempo feel.
Speaking of ‘haunting’, however…
10) “A Real Kodak Moment” for Sonic: Night of the WerehogHere’s that leftfield choice you were waiting for. With the (early) music of Sonic: Night of the Werehog now long up on the website and of course YouTube, I wanted to give that a bit of an acknowledgement by taking one of the tracks and including it. The track in question is the ending credits theme which we ended up calling “Say Cheese!”.
“A Real Kodak Moment” moves away from the big band-style sections. Concnetrating instead on what I will call the ‘twinkly’ segments. Switching things around, putting them through some classic lo-fi beat effects and repeats. While admittedly not truly what I was looking for, we’ve ended up with something that almost feels a bit like a remixed 70s TV show theme at points. Which is kind of novel.
Sonic Wrecks: Black/Red – Volume 2 is available now on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, YouTube Music and many other places. You can also find it as part of the Instagram/Facebook and TikTok/TikTok Music/Resso/Luna music libraries. Volume 1 is available in the exact same places, as is the rest of the Wescin Rocks Records discography.
Next release: Christmas!
Hello everyone and, if you’re seeing this, welcome to the new home of Last Minute Continue.
For a long time now, LMC has really had to hold back on pushing forward with a number of website projects. This was due to a strange quirk with the hosting – we had unlimited space, and unlimited bandwidth, but there was a hard limit to the number of actual files we could have.
Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. But LMC is, let’s face it, quite an old site. Sonic Wrecks started in 2004, so next year will make us an ‘official’ two decades of being around the place. Even with 260,000 files (or something like that) as a limit, 20 years worth of files adds up. Throw in that WordPress themes love to create a bunch of resizes when you upload images, and that number is going upwards rapidly. And when you realise that happens for every video and podcast upload with the individual thumbnail/album art and suddenly we’ve got problems and concerns! There’s 240+ episodes of Radio Redux. If the theme creates 10 additional resizes that’s over 2640 in images plus an additional 240 files for the podcast itself. You can see how that number starts shrinking like crazy.
Basically we’ve had to balance things on an increasingly thinning knife-edge for at least the last two years. We knew we’d have to move eventually, it was a question of buying time until we’d have the ability to buy some space.
We’ve had to put off a whole heap of things. Not being able to fully address TSSZ’s post archive and all the images that would entail is one particular annoyance. Caching wasn’t possible, so the site was really, REALLY slow and we couldn’t do anything about it. Backing things up? Well, asking the old site to do anything too strenuous had it falling over, clasping it’s metal chest and screaming it was having a heart attack.
Thankfully we now have our own server space, set up by our good friend GuardEzio. We’ve got space, caching, it’s more optimised and the site runs faster, Not quite as fast as we’d like due to a weird thing with the theme, but much faster than it was. There’s still work to do, as not all the settings came over from the old site. But it’s opened the door to a bunch of things and most importantly I won’t have to worry about changing stuff around for the next 7-8 years with any luck.
There’s still a bug with the SSL which is causing some issues on things like the podcast feeds being recognised, meaning those aren’t updating at the moment, but we’re working on that one.
PodcastsIn celebration, you can find not just the LMC Cast shows from the most recent recording session, which had only been put up in a ‘temporary’ fashion previously. But all the missing Radio Redux shows of the past month or so, none of which had yet been added to the old LMC.com. Even Guest Control – which has now dropped the Radio Redux from the album name – has two new additions. It may take a few days for Apple, Spotify etc to recognise the update.
Lovers of the podcast archive will be pleased to know that not only am I at work on new additions to the line-up. I’ve given the Turbo Drive Live podcast archive a serious boost in content as well with 24 episodes, covering the remaining episodes from 2010 and several months of 2011. You can expect more episodes and more shows added over time.
Let’s PlaysI’ve started uploading some of chunkier let’s plays from Turbo Drive Live as unedited VODs (minus a few that sessions that needed fixing/recovery) over on the Last Minute Continue: EXTRA YouTube channel.
You’ve now got as part of the site’s let’s play archive the COMPLETE playthroughs of the following games:
– The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Master Mode (23 Sessions)
– Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (17 Sessions)
– L.A. Noire (17 Sessions)
– Okami (21 Sessions)
– Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (14 Sessions)
– The Evil Within – Platinum Pursuit (20 Sessions)
That last one of course means that the Platinum Pursuits series has gotten a big tasty update with and you can expect another one in October. (Hint hint). Another series that has been waiting in the wings for an update is Crowd Control, and that’s now public. But we’ve also got another Turbo Drive Live sub-series added to the pile with Fighter Fridays; for these sessions Turbo takes on a variety of beat ’em ups, brawlers and multiplayer cross-combat titles.
This means we’ve now got (or will have) the following titles in the playlist library:
– Splatoon
– Dead or Alive 5– Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
– Arcana Hearts 3– Street Fighter 30th Anniversary
– Burnout Paradise
– BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle
– Dragon Ball FighterZ
There’s also Ultra Street Fighter II. Ehich considering all the variants for SFII I’m just going to collect under ‘Street Fighter II’.
Turbo’s ‘Miku Jukebox’ sessions (x4) have been added too:
– Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F
– Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd
– Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone
– Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X
Also…Behind the scenes I’ve also taken the opportunity to tweak some things, and prepare for some future updates. Turboween is fully scheduled out for this year. There’s a few more TSSZ posts that have made the transition, too. Plus with a new ability to actually do stuff en masse, I’ve also sorted some prep work for… Well, the remaining THOUSANDS of other posts. I’m even hoping to enlist some proper help on that front now that we don’t have to hold back..
So all in all, things are looking much better. They should hopefully be better for you and a hell of a lot less stressful for me. As long as there’s not, say, a new Wescin Rocks Records album or something. Then everything will be just fine.
Now that we’re over half way through the year, it’s time for another Wescin Rocks Records album, and it’s one that’s been referenced from the beginning. The former ‘Special Project W1’ is, in fact, a Sonic The Hedgehog collection.
Naturally, it’s us, so not only are we paying tribute to our roots by naming it after Sonic Wrecks. Not only are we calling it Black/Red. (Remember back in the day where that was a criticism of this site by the fanbase? That it “wasn’t blue”.) Not only are we confirming that it is the first volume – with the second coming later this year. But we have a very eclectic selection of source material, that doesn’t exactly lend itself to lo-fi / downtempo / chilled hip-hop (mentally delete as appropriate). I wanted this to be reflective of the Sonic Wrecks name, and also be more encompassing than what a ‘regular’ collection by anyone else might be. Basically, anything under the series umbrella was fair game.
So let’s see what we’ve got this time out with the breakdown.
THE TRACKS:1) “Tikality” for Sonic AdventureEveryone knows I love me some Tikal.
This was actually the first track that ever came back and was signed off for Wescin Rocks Records. A project I send as a test to see if one of our musical partners ‘got it’. They did and then some.
A funky, almost staccato at points, fusion of Tikal’s Theme with Mystic Ruin, this really took things in another direction with speed changes and flicking between deep beats and a jungle temple atmosphere.
2) “Young Turqs” for Sonic Triple TroubleOf course some musical themes permeate throughout the series and this is definitely one of them. But this track was crafted, by someone who didn’t know that expressly for Great Turquoise from Sonic Triple Trouble.
If you don’t get the title reference, there’s a great Rod Stewart track called Young Turks that GTA: San Andreas fans who tuned into K-DST will definitely recall.
Light piano with a gentle beat and the occasional record scratch ‘course correction’. It’s a great representation and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere down the years, Sonic Triple Trouble is the game that initially made me a Sonic fan. So I definitely wanted that represented.
3) “A Canvas To Paint On” for Sonic ColoursWescin Rocks Records works with a number of different musicians, remixers and producers from all over the world. This one was created in partnership with a musician from Kazakhstan. It went through a number of tweaks and minor alterations to get it just right, and frankly it all got a bit tempestuous at the end as they adjusted everything but the section I’d asked for.
But the end result is lovely. Transforming Planet Wisp: Act 2 (as Act 2’s don’t get nearly as much love historically) into a dreamy, floaty, glide through the sky.
4) “Take It As Gospel” for Sonic RushIt’s a real crime that we’ve not had a fully realised, high fidelity version of Raisin’ Me Up. I know some will say that the sample fuzziness and low fidelity – even on the soundtrack version – is part of the charm. But damn it, what an awesome track to not hear fully realised. Why wasn’t THIS in the Sonic Symphony show with a full on gospel choir?
I said the end result should be “looking back wistful, but hopeful” and the combination of the slow beat, simple piano melody for the lyrics and an almost childlike undercurrent made it just that. Definitely something you can close your eyes and drift to sleep with.
5) “By Any Means Necessary” for Sonic HeroesA very subtly moody track this one. Highly atmospheric. I described it later as ‘your heartbeat and your train of thought are aware of each other’.
Considering what was on offer from Sonic Heroes, which is usually quite bubbly with a bit of a heavier guitar twang there was plenty that could be chosen. But it’s because of that guitar that choosing a track became quite difficult here.
Again though, I wanted to move away from the obvious like Seaside Hill. So if I tell you this is based off of ‘This Machine’ for Team Dark would you believe me? Because it is.
6) “Rexxon Inspection” for Virtual SonicHere’s your curveball track! Not Sonic Spinball, but based specifically Return to Toxic Caves from the album Virtual Sonic. I know those things are practically the same, but we all know the Virtual Sonic tracks are far superior. I so wanted to do Metal Sonic from that, and I probably will get it done someday but it’s really too twisty with too much whiny guitar for what I wanted to do with this one. Twisting around RtTT, however? That allowed us to get super heavy on the funky beat and play around a lot more.
(Incidentally, The Rexxon is the sea monster-like beast at the bottom of Toxic Caves.)
7) “Be Easy” for Sonic UnleashedAnother grouping of tracks that deserve more attention are the night tracks from Sonic Unleashed. And Empire City: Night stood out immediately; you can absolutely hear yourself walking through the park or down the streets, as the light reflects off the damp concrete sidewalk.
It was also a natural fit for one American contributor, who had a very similar background in terms of playing and appreciating the original. I knew they’d appreciate the opportunity to take this jazzy and slightly bluesy track a little bit further, and on this occasion taking further was also simplifying the sound a little. It’s a deliberate choice and such a good one.
8) “Definition of Self” for Shadow The HedgehogI mean, it was inevitable right? If we’re naming the thing after Sonic Wrecks and it’s called Black/Red, we’ve gotta have something from the game starring Sonic’s angsty rival.
This one also went through a few iterations but was always the most tricky of the bunch of selected tracks. Actually a few choices came up when going through the soundtrack, as whilst there’s quite a few fast and furious tracks there’s also a number which are quite atmospheric and reflective.
What we’ve got here though is a slowly building, almost spooky version of the main theme of the game I Am… (All of Me). More chiller than chill, it’s still something you can work to, but the feel of it a little more creeping than the others. I particularly like the occasional ‘plinks’ of water drops.
This rather naturally leads into a slighter darker mood with the next track.
9) “My Blood, Your Code” for Sonic FrontiersConsider this one a slight concession by me to everyone’s current favourite, but I’m still not remotely interested in actually playing Frontiers. It’s never grabbed me as something I want to play. That said I do appreciate the story, which I naturally caught up on. The Sage-Eggman dynamic is interesting. DAMN interesting. It’s the most character development the primary antagonist and the series’ second most important character has gotten in a decade plus.
I was struck by what is really a tragedy slowly unrolling in two directions – the past and what occurred, and the seeming inevitability of what will. The inspiration for this one is Ares Island 4th Movement – but it’s deliberately been taken in a slower direction with a sound somewhere between Arabic and middle eastern. It’s heavy and there’s just a little bit of creeping menace. You can still chill and vibe to it, but there’s a definite weight. Of history and of choice.
10) “A Voluptuous Spy” for Sonic Adventure 2Ladies, gentlemen and non-binary pals: let me introduce this album’s problem child.
The tenth and final track takes us on a trip to Sonic Adventure 2, allowing us to successfully bookend the album with Adventure tracks. Rouge’s tracks definitely deserve more love in the fandom, so with that and the musical style they already had I naturally thought of these – starting with Fly In The Freedom, and naming the track in honour of TDL and LMC regular Voluptuous Spy (or JewelThief back in the early days).
The directional brief for this was that it needed to be slower, sexier and a little bit dirtier (in a good way) – or as I put it, that it should feel and sound like “it’s late at night, you see a sultry looking girl in a bar, she knows you’re into her and the game begins” – despite constant back and forth absolutely no one could get this right. Even WRR‘s regular partners were stripping out the light flourishes and taking it in all the wrong places. ‘A bar was that? Excellent. Here’s how the track sounds like if you were being blasted by it in a club where you can’t hear yourself think’.
Luckily one of our Brazilian partners took this on, reworked it much more in line with the original vision, ran it through an additional production partner get some hints of the vocals in there. Normally we don’t do the vocals, but in this instance a lot of the actual structure of the track hangs off the vocals themselves. Without some semblance of them it just sounded wrong so there’s a couple of hints and a melody line to match the missing stuff.
The end result though? Amazing.
You can already get Sonic Wrecks: Black/Red – Volume 1 on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, YouTube Music and many other places. You can also find it as part of the Instagram/Facebook and TikTok/TikTok Music/Resso/Luna music libraries.
Quick note that if you’re seeing this, this is officially the ‘old’ Last Minute Continue. We’re moving to somewhere faster and more for just us. When this is replaced by something else you’ll know things have worked. This may take a couple of weeks as it’s a bit fiddly, but other than automated pulls from […]
I can’t begin to tell you how may projects from Wescin Rocks Records are nearing completion but suffice to say it’s actually a fair few. So far, along with the reworked Radio Redux theme, our focus has been the Last Minute Chill series of albums. Which features lo-fi/hip-hop music relating to all the games we’ve played on Twitch over the last decade plus. So far we’ve released two volumes and there are more on the way, with an even more eclectic selection of games that the first two discs.
However, the process resulted in an interesting addition to our line-up when one of the musicians I worked with didn’t get the source material due to a website error. Not knowing what to do they made three entirely original beats to fill the gap. We eventually sorted things out and I acquired the beats so they weren’t inconvenienced and on listening to them came to the idea that they all had very different feels, that you could easily picture them as different seasons.
Hence the idea for Seasons – a four track EP of original beats was born.
Recently I tasked another musician to create an original autumnal sounding beat and thus our line-up became complete. It was only released yesterday and has been a pretty quick turnaround, so is only confirmed to be up on Spotify by my distributor for now. But I have seen it is on Apple Music too, at least.
THE TRACKS:1) “Vernal”As always I can never leave well enough alone when it comes to track names and they’ve naturally got meanings beyond the word.
“The word vernal entered English in the sixteenth century, tracing all the way back to the Latin word ver, meaning spring. Use the adjective vernal to describe something that occurs in springtime or is related to springtime.” – Vocabulary.com
2) “Komorebi”A Japanese word I absolutely love that refers to the effect of sunbeams shining through trees.
“Looking at its etymology, komorebi is a simple and straightforward word. There are three key components that reveal its definition: 木 (ko), 漏れ (more), and 日 (bi). The first is the kanji for “tree,” 漏れ is the stem of the verb moreru, which means to leak out or come through, and 日 is the kanji for day or sunlight. String everything together and you get the usual rough translation of komorebi: “to the sunlight shining through the trees.”” – TokyoWeekender.com
3) “Abendrot”Was originally going to be called Embers but that looked pretty out of place with the other three. Abendrot is a German word meaning ‘afterglow’ and referring directly to the red colour of the sky around the time of sunset.
4) “Subnivean”For winter we go all Latin for a word more used in scientific circles.
“The word “subnivean” comes from the Latin words for under (“sub”) and snow (“nives”) and refers to the open, shallow layer that usually forms under deep, layered snow.” – Michigan State University
Time is an interesting thing, isn’t it? We never seem to have enough of it. Recently this seems to have been very much on my mind.
When you’re younger that’s okay, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Dip into your thirties and, ooh, things have suddenly got a bit more serious. Now I’m in my forties (only just, mind you) I’ve discovered that everything just stepped up again. Not only that but you’re suddenly aware of time’s hand on your shoulder. There’s always comings and goings, partings in life but how I feel about those has changed too.
As I mentioned on Twitter back in April I’ve been thinking about Last Minute Continue, where its future lies and where that future intersects with my own.
LMC is, quite simply, the thing that keeps me sane. I edit videos and podcasts and things to relax. But I’m definitely going to have to start winding down some of what I do and shuttering stuff I’d hoped to do in the future in favour of focusing on key things going forward. The reason for that is pretty simple: I’ve just not got the time or energy any more. So let me meander through this in my achy, tired state and just get things out there.
There’s a few factors here.
The new job I took on in October last year is big. There’s a lot of responsibility. I’m doing stuff at a higher level than I’ve ever done. It only took 15 years but there’s respect and investment in ME. Heck I was at a full on film shoot the other day directing content.
I also got COVID, but let’s look at the positives.
On Tuesday I’m due up at 4am-ish to get a 6am plane to fly overseas to be part of a company-wide meeting, and then I’m flying back at 9PM. No rest for the wicked – and no livestream either. But that makes sense, it has to take priority.
Health wise I’m also dealing with some stuff, beyond the ongoing pain problems I’ve gotten very good at masking down the years. I’m still suffering the effects of the gastro-intestinal illness that hospitalised me a couple of years back and did a real number on my already damaged internals. (Hey, remember when I was literally operating on glucose drinks and painkillers for about 6 months to try and keep things together for THAT company? Yeahhh that came at a cost.) The effects are numerous and one of these days I may even get a follow-up to find out what I CAN actually eat safely.
Combine this with a throat and lung seemingly constantly full of horrible mucus and I am pretty much always exhausted. You can imagine COVID did not help the respiratory issue a hell of a lot.
Still, if I am able to get those issues, and the weight I’ve put on in part from the first problem, sorted. I should be pretty good. A full on health check earlier this year revealed I’m in surprisingly good nick apart from that. My blood pressure is ‘text book’, apparently. Which I note only to utterly astound those of you that know me.
I still do an awful lot around here, often unseen as readers of #kevinsworkshop on our Discord server could tell you. But the days of ol’ Kev burning the candle at both ends and the middle too are long gone. So it’s time to start making some decisions.
Back when I tweeted my thoughts I’d not edited a video in three weeks. Something that bugged me tremendously. I’ve since managed to get myself back into the habit and I can build up the schedule again. But that was partly due to needing two weeks off and COVID screwing my sleep cycle with 12 hour sleeps.
Even though we have a big team, traditionally it has been nearly all me in terms of sorting updates. In the last year that’s all rather changed thankfully. We’ve got ShadowFox doing an extra Twitch stream on every other Monday. Titans Creed sorting out individual long form series for YouTube (seriously, check out him and Turbo doing Brand Warfare – it’s a hoot) and Nibal sorting out LMC Cast has been a godsend. Others are helping out in their own way too when they can.
LMC is a collective of friends. I never want it to be anyone’s priority over ‘real life’. I will, I hope, find some new blood to assist down the line and maybe get some folks for archival and technical stuff too.
So what should be the priority for me? Well, honestly, it’s the stuff that makes me happy.
I was quite happy to put my heart and soul into the archive side. But some of the interactions and comments I’ve seen relating to it have soured me greatly on it. Who’d have thought me rescuing things from a skip a decade plus ago means that I ‘owe’ random people things. In one case I was told that I was should hand everything over to them as I was ‘clearly not deserving’ of it. Tell you what kid: next time, you get in the fucking skip.
I don’t need nor am I obligated to do it. So, once I finally have time to sort out the Unleashed Whip video (yes, yes, I know… ) and we finalise the releases of the rescued Beta builds that’s me drawing a line under it.
Positive news on the rescue stuff later, by the way.
In terms of SEGA/Sonic I’m also drawing a line. Over the years I’ve turned up to stuff and supported community meets and efforts where I could. I was going to go to one last meetup for the old community to support it as I’ve tended to do in the years since, but am not now for reasons. So that’s that.
I have a tendency to feel beholden to and protective of the ‘old stuff’. Caring well past any time I’d be expected to.
The people matter. The friends matter. The rest… not so much any more. 2024 will mark two decades of the site existing from the earliestSonic Wrecks comic and I’ve done my time.
This is not to say I’m closing the door on SEGA/Sonic things. I want to get back to writing SW and LMC comics but have not had a chance for ages. So there’s that.
Our work with RadioSEGA will continue, but I’ll definitely need to either roll Radio Redux into LMC Cast or LMC Cast into Radio Redux. My plan for an ‘easier’ Radio Redux fell apart after two shows due to work. Either way one should probably be put to bed so we can concentrate on the other as a group.
Speaking of music Wescin Rocks Records is a fun little side-project, which is definitely staying around and will eventually slow down to an annual thing. Expect new releases across the rest of the year. A new EP of original tracks, Seasons, is out now!
The TSSZ Archive project I’ve chipped away at when I can but will probably need someone dedicated to it – and I have ideas for that.
And Twitch streams will probably alternate on weeks between 2 and 3 sessions. I really enjoy them so I’ll try and keep time for those.
So happiness over obligation is the way forward. Be that self-imposed or implied by others.
Time to take it a bit easier. Then again this is me, so let’s see how it goes, eh?
We’re now in 2023, and it’s crazy how fast things have gone. It was only a little while ago that we welcomed the release of Volume 1, and now here is Last Minute Chill: Volume 2. Back for more o-fi and chilled hip-hop shenannigans. The next (and final) part of our ten year celebration of Twitch livestreaming, which began under the Sonic Wrecks moniker. Heck, we’re rapidly closing in on a decade of being LMC as well. That’s to come next year though.
As always with me, there’s a heap of projects underway at various stages of completion. However, this is the end of the #10YearsOnTwitch stuff.
We aren’t done with Wescin Rocks Records. Not by a long shot. I mean if the Chill albums are all about celebrating the games we’ve streamed, what about the games outside of that? The games we love. What about revisiting some of the games for some other tracks? You’ll be pleased to know there is now a roadmap for future releases throughout the year, with more than a few surprises.
I’m not telling you what’s coming up next, but there’s some not very subtle clues in there.
Now, all being well, as of today you can get Last Minute Chill: Volume 2 from all the same places you can get the first volume. So, iTunes and Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, etc. It’s also listed on the Meta social platforms, as well as TikTok, and Soundtrack by Twitch.
Shall we get on to a breakdown of the tracks?
THE TRACKS:1) “Mr Vger’s Blue Sky Thinking” for Sonic AdventureMuch like Volume 1, we begin with some Sonic – but Sonic Adventure this time. Another one of those super-early let’s plays for us.
We are not on this occasion being menaced by Tails the Pervert, as we were in that playthrough. Instead the opportunity was there to pay a little tribute to our good friend and colleague Vger. Engineer of greatness, extremely tall person and possessor of a massive wrench (allegedly). Vger once a upon a time ran (and technically still does run) the UK Sonic website Emerald Coast.
So naturally ‘Windy and Ripply’ for Emerald Coast was the inspiration here, in a dreamy, chilled out fashion.
2) “Urbane” for PAYDAY 2Knock knock.
Who’s there?
CRIME!
Dear friends… Considering how much the team loves PAYDAY 2, it seems very odd that we’ve only just got around to posting our streams on YouTube. This one was fast-tracked to be included here – but for the a long time it was in limbo. Outside of stealth, PAYDAY 2 is hardly the best game to go all “Chains Says Relax”.
That’s actually not a bad track name, now I think about it.
At one point in time it was going to be influenced by Mayhem In A Suit and called “Smart/Casual” – something I still might revisit. But it was Master Plan that was the eleventh hour influence here and it comes off really well. This track also takes the award for cleverest title. As not only is it written as ‘You Are Bane’ but the word Urbane can mean a man (usually) who is “fashionable and somewhat formal” – i.e. he wears a suit.
Perfect.
3) “I Know Exactly Who You Are” for DmCI absolutely fell in love with Kat’s Theme from DmC: Devil May Cry when I heard it. So I was very surprised to learn it’s one of ‘those’ tracks that never make it to the official soundtrack. It simply had to be utilised.
Kat is a particularly interesting character. Dealing with her own journey as Dante and Virgil are on theirs. Recovering from multiple forms of trauma that the game gives you enough info on to know they are particularly bad. I was legitimately outraged at the end when Virgil essentially discounts her as unimportant to his plans, and I do wish we’d been able to follow through with that iteration of the Devil May Cry story. Seriously, DmC is ridiculously underrated.
The remixer I worked with described the theme and the samples I also provided to utilise as “absolute fire”. Not quite what you want for a chill track, but, they immediately knew exactly what they wanted to do with it. I love this one, and it hurt having to hold it back until now. Please do enjoy it.
4) “Requiescat” for Assassin’s Creed IIIt’s actually impressive we got an AC2, because let’s be honest, Assassin’s Creed was DIRE. A boring slog of a game. Altaïr is a particularly unsympathetic character for a lot of it, and only becomes interesting in subsequent flashbacks. It says a lot when I really want to know more about him, only ten minutes before he dies of old age. Then Ezio Auditore da Firenze came along, and BAM everything changed. Assassin’s Creed II and it’s subsequent sequels are great fun to play and Ezio is everything Altair is not: engaging, sympathetic, he grows as a person and we’re there the whole way.
Technically we do have Brotherhood to also feature here at some point and you can bet Revelations is a future LMC stream. But when thinking about this track I wanted to encompass the entire journey. So it utilises not only – what else? – Ezio’s Family, but also throws in some Assassin’s Creed Embers in it too.
5) “Pork Bun Paradise” for Sleeping DogsA wise in-game NPC once said: “A man who never eats pork buns, is never a whole man!”
Sleeping Dogs, other than being an absolute miracle of a game by it existing at all, is another one that is super fun to play if you give it a chance. It’s also surprisingly violent. But the Hong Kong-based title also has a particularly killer main/menu theme.
On doing some research with the remixer to find out more we discovered it’s actually a modern remix of Dance of The Yi People, itself an over 50 year old rearrangement of a number of different folk music tunes. So this would be the third stage removed from the original source. That’s pretty impressive to be honest.
6) “Highway Hypnosis” for The CrewA number of us have a great love for Ubisoft’s original version of The Crew. True, it’s hardly the most rock solid of gaming experiences. the bugs are many you end up being stuck unable to complete missions far too often for my liking; but it also has an unexpected way of making you relax. Both Vger and I like to take great trips across (in-game) America, listening to the hauntingly beautiful sounds of the Sine Wave Digital radio station. In doing so we’ve found we can effectively become hypnotised by the process and the brain just goes into another mode. Driving only by perception at far greater skill than we would otherwise.
I once drove half of America at full throttle and didn’t even realise it.
There is an official name for this state of mind: highway hypnosis. Also known as white line fever, it’s an altered mental state in which a person can drive great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so.
Celestial Colors was picked as the inspiration here, and you can really feel the tires eating up the tarmac and the highway lights blurring overheard with speed.
7) “Don’t Be A Menace, Central” for XCOM 2If you had on your Volume 2 bingo card that I’d put in a reference to Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood… you’re a damn liar!
We’ve skipped over the first XCOM game and gone to XCOM 2 here with a mix of influences including Welcome To The Lab and Psi Network. It manages to be both dramatically epic and otherworldly, you’ll be nodding your head along to the beat I guarantee it.
8) “Terracotta Trail” for Sonic UnleashedIt’s Rooftop Run. I mean OF COURSE it’s Rooftop Run. That track was a Sonic series classic the second those violins kicked in. Here though it’s more a walk along the beach, tossing a frisbee around in the summer heat. You can see this totally being used for a teen’s holiday montage, and I mean that in a good way.
It’s a super chill track and one I hope you enjoy.
9) “Holiday #17” for Half-Life 2Half-Life 2 really doesn’t lend itself to either chilled hip-hop or lo-fi and this one was the real problem child of a track. After a few different attempts we ended up with Holiday #17, a slightly wistful classic lo-fi beat based off of Something Secret Steers Us.
The title incidentally is a reference to the Gordon Freeman of our let’s play who is none too pleased that his vacation is constantly being ruined by the plot going on around him.
10) “The Act Of Moving Forward” for The Stanley ParableOne upon a time there was a track about Stanley.
At one point this was going to be called The Ballad Of The Broom Cupboard but I’m still bitter that wasn’t a proper ending, so instead it’s called this.
We’ve deliberately taken the tone a little bit away from the general sound of the soundtrack, as with all the love in the world the core melody plays across pretty much all the tracks in some form or fashion. In this case however it uses the Adventure Line music (Following Stanley) as the inspiration here.
11) “With Your Name On It” for Zombie Army 4: Dead WarSomehow we’ve turned the dark beats of Zombie Army 4: Dead War into a slightly spooky beat to study to. I’m not even entirely sure how we’ve managed this one.
There was a lot of back and forth on it as we still wanted it to keep a real creepy element – a chill chiller. I eventually conceptualised it as taking The Longest Night and turning it into a dark and stormy night that keeps you awake, but one where you’re grateful to have the rain.
12) ” Your Sunshine Girl” for Yakuza 0 (Instrumental Version)Honestly, As You Like is a freaking amazing track. So much so, that when I heard it I was astounded it was being used as a sub-menu theme in a mini-game, of all things.
There’s so many elements to it that really leant itself to becoming a lo-fi track that this was a no-brainer in the end. There’s even a vocal version of this track knocking around somewhere which is why it is titled as it is, maybe that will see the light of day at some point…
13) “Kevin Actually Takes A Break” for Last Minute Continue on TwitchThere’s a few folks that will get a real kick out of this track name. This one’s a little different, coming from the Last Minute Chill: Volume 1 process. Unfortunately, not all projects end well. Here’s the gist of the conversation that led to its creation.
“I can’t do it. It’s not chill at all.”
“Well, no it’s not – but I’m asking you to make something around it. Go through, look at the melodies and beats and adapt those where you see something with promise. Use it as an influence and then craft something based around the mood I’ve given you. What about using the pattern at 1:20 through-“
“NO. This sample is not chill.”
“No it’s not now, but we’re working to adapt it to be chill. You can’t expect every remix request you get to be in the same genre already.”
“This sample is not chill. I’ll just do something original.”
“I didn’t ask you for that or pay for that, I’m-”
“No. It’s not chill. I’m not doing it. Take this instead. Find something else.”
And that my friends is how we gained this track.
I eventually got my way with a different track from a different game entirely and passed the first project on to someone else who produced something amazing. Since it’s an original track and we’ve been given it, we’ve been using it for several months on the LMC Twitch channel’s ‘Be Right Back’ screen. It doesn’t get used all that often, but it is there.
14) “The Crew Review” for LMC CastAs with Volume 1, the last two tracks are dedicated to I decided to wider LMC family projects, and considering we had Radio Redux last time it follows we should also show some love to LMC Cast‘s theme tune.
The theme itself has no official LMC name, but it is an edited version of the licenced track Videogame Rebel. The countdown is actually modified from Uhh KID the theme to Magic Kaito 1412, and the only reason THAT is used is because it featured in a Space Jam x Magic Kaito mashup that DoubleXXCross once made.
Confused? So am I. But thankfully we’ve got this now.
15) “Trouble’s BRU-ing” for Turbo Drive LiveWe end by returning to Turbo Drive Live, and since we had the stream end music then it makes sense we have the start music – Volcano Valley Zone Act 2 from Sonic 3D – this time out.
Welcome to Last Minute Chill: Volume 1! 2022 marked ten years Last Minute Continue has been streaming on Twitch. I was a little surprised (see: horrified) as to where all that time had actually gone. So, along with several other projects to celebrate #10YearsOnTwitch I started looking into what it would take to create something musical for that milestone.
After all, between our own soundtrack collections for lost tracks, joke karaoke contests and multiple podcasts, LMC has something of a musical history and a deep appreciation for creative endeavours like that.
Since I am no musician, and to my knowledge barring DoubleXXCross none of the team plays an instrument; (This is the point one of them turns around and tells me they’ve been playing the electric bassoon… or the bass cello, or something… for the past 20 years and are astounded I didn’t know.) I instead looked into the prospect of acting as a curator/producer, and getting a bunch of tracks created for us. This was a lonnnng process, from selecting games and tracks that would act as the inspiration through to finding people that could be worked with. Building up a little network in contacts and… y’know… paying them. I learning a lot about the process thanks to our partners at Distrokid, various online guides and some very handy advice provided by our old friend Bentley Jones. Cheers bud!
I got asked the other day by GreenViper to what degree that is, and to confirm both Volume 1 and Volume 2, are very internationally flavoured projects. If you look at all of them – both Chill volumes, the recent release of the new Radio Redux theme and ongoing works – you can count Thailand, the USA, Italy, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Indonesia, Bangladesh, France, Uruguay as being in the mix. The latter thanks to the amazing artwork for the album done by our own Suf. You can also slap the UK in there, as I did some post-production mixing/editing on a few of the tracks.
But we’re here! As of January 1st you can get your hands on Last Minute Chill: Volume 1 – published under Wescin Rocks Records – on iTunes and Apple Music and Amazon Music, you can stream it on Spotify and YouTube Music. It’s on Facebook and Instagram. It’s on TikTok, Resso, Luna… it’s everywhere! Even Soundtrack by Twitch, appropriately enough.
You can find a quick link to the three main stores here.
THE TRACKS:1) “Deep Down and Mellow” for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle The first track had to be for the first game, right?
One of the first test tracks I set that was subsequently knocked out of the park, this is proper chill with a nice head bop.
Being all hip-hop based musically, I was expecting that this would end up being one of Knuckles’ levels. But I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t expecting for that choice to be Aquatic Mine. But here we go.
2) “Object Of A Java’s Orientation” for Hatoful BoyfriendPigeon dating game Hatoful Boyfriend is one of those let’s plays that just lives in infamy among the LMC crew. As of writing, we’re just finishing off getting the last videos on YouTube from that original 2014 run after a gap of many years.
But who to focus on music wise? Poor sickly Ryota (voiced by an exasperated Donnie), perhaps the pudding-based insanity of Okosan? COOOOOO!
Actually, no. The focus ended up being the theme ‘If you die, it’s more cruel ~ By your hand’ for scooter-riding, free-spirited java sparrow Azami. Who, being so cool and in typical dating sim fashion, the main character rapidly develops a bit of a crush on.
It also allows this title, which is effectively a triple reference – and given my known love for wordplay the one I’m most pleased with myself about. Carve it into your soul, kid!
3) “L.N.G.C.” for Gunfire RebornIf you’re not in our Discord you miss out on a fair bit, you know? There’s watchalongs and extra streams and generally quite a lot of fun. One of the things that started to happen was a call out by one of us at the end of Turbo’s Twitch streams for a Discord session of L.N.G.C. – Late Night Gunfire Club.
We all love Gunfire Reborn, so it made sense for it to also get an inclusion on the album with a little love note to the main menu theme and its overall feel.
4) “Social JUSTICK Warrior” for Watch DogsThere was something about our Watch Dogs let’s play that worrying increased everyone’s love of physical violence. Aiden Pearce’s magical telescopic baton was entirely to blame for that. So it’s his theme that got the nod here; the reimagining process creating a slightly more troubled and even more contemplative track.
The stick of justice – or JUSTICK, as I termed it – was used gratuitously throughout the let’s play to the increasing joy of all concerned. Some of the services complained about the TM being in there late in the day so you probably won’t see it on most listings. But trust me, it’s definitely JUSTICK
There’s actually a second Watch Dogs track that’ll see the light of day at some point. I’d have picked that over this, in fact, were it not that this one somewhat more indicative of the game. Plus, I feared the wrath of Aiden’s JUSTICK.
5) “He Who Would Be Quipking” for Quiplash 2When you have 104 episodes of a game on your YouTube channel, you’ve gotta throw it in the mix. And what Jackbox Party Pack game have we played more than Quiplash 2?
Named for T.A. Black, who if not the one that coined the term for being the Quiplash champion was certainly the one of us that ran with it. Making it an ongoing topic and of discussion in any Jackbox session.
(Actually, I’ve no idea which of us used the phrase first.)
There are quite a few pieces of music for the game it turns out, so this track was created with the lobby music in mind.
6) “This Is Not Canon” for Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood2022 saw the end of LMC’s playthrough of this BioWare/SEGA RPG finally come to our YouTube channel. We finished it on Twitch nine years prior and somehow had been putting out episodes since 2014.
Another stream series full of memorable characters, including ‘Big Nukem’ and ‘Drunken Scottish Knuckles’. 16 weeks plus of it says we had to include it here, really.
Sonic Chronicles is one of those game where its music is actually from elsewhere in the series – but reworked, and… y’know… awful. (Which was how SEGA and BioWare wanted it for some mad reason.) So turning Chronicles‘ music back into something nice, was a specific challenge I set a couple of people as a final test before doing a more significant amount of tracks with them. Considering they didn’t know the original original, the result is pretty impressive.
We had a few choices in terms of levels, but the idea of expanding the Central City theme and it reflecting being an actually busy city came through as the best option.
And yes, the title is indeed a personal ‘up yours’ to anyone still going on about it’s canonicity. You were already told. Deal.
7) “A Breath Of Fresh Air (And Some Adventure)” for FirewatchFirewatch remains one of my favourite let’s plays and favourite games full stop. You get so into the interactions between Delilah and Henry and there are actually a bunch of options if you decide to go a little different route. Like refuse to talk to her at all. (Bit rude.)
But beyond that it’s just damn pretty and has some damn pretty music to boot. Said music is also very atmospheric, with the soundtrack amping up, as tension, fear and suspicion grow.
For this, which keeps in mind ‘Camp Approach’, the brief was to take it in the direction of “sunset on a hot and sticky night” and if you’ve played the game, you know things definitely get hot at the end of the track.
8) “Dusk Walkin'” for Saints Row 2On any of our Saints Row playthroughs, what would the notorious Boss of the Saints be without his right hand man, Dusk? So of course this track is named for him.
Set halfway between ‘Hands Up’ and that awesomely catchy menu theme. We’ve got a deliberate, deeper and far slower beat but one that gets you cruising in a hot car on the road to trouble.
There’s always a bit of danger in the air, and its drip is a deep purple.
9) “An El Vibrato Hammock” for West Of LoathingWhat do you mean I didn’t put this as track 11? That’s ridiculous – it’s not even funny! In all seriousness, the Kingdom of Loathing fan in me is horrified I put this as track 9 and I’m sorry.
How exactly do you take a western themed game’s very western soundtrack and give it a hip-hop/lo-fi twist? Like this! Made with ‘Sit Fer A Spell’ in mind, it’s definitely still got that twang and feel of riding through the plains on a horse but it’s also the trail lines of car lights zipping past on a highway as time passes for you.
Also please don’t sleep in a hammock made out of alien space metal? Pretty bad for your spine.
10) “Slow Street Seduction (Instrumental Version)” for Double Dragon NeonBe it Double Dragon Neon or the two River City Girls games, WayForward’s music for these titles really sets the mood.
As a big Double Dragon fan I absolutely adored playing Neon, and battling – “YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE…” – the devious Skullmageddon. Part of me really wanted to lo-fi up that amazing end credits song. But instead we focused on probably the best track in the game: ‘Mango Tango’.
The track name is very much the premise of this version: temptation. Seduction into the dark of the night and the promise of more. No, I’m not making any aspersions about Marian here. She’ll kick your ass. Or punch you in the dick after you fell off a cliff.
I chose to put out the pure instrumental here, in part for ease. Needless to say there is another version and it is also glorious.
11) “Mercurial” for TRON 2.0Again, another let’s play that I thoroughly enjoyed doing and a game that I love but most everyone else forgets about. TRON 2.0 was actually promoted from Volume 2 in a last second swap.
Whilst not the intensity of Daft Punk’s score for TRON Legacy and not as distinctive as the original film’s soundtrack. Which is uses as a blueprint. A lot of folk sleep on TRON 2.0‘s ambient take with a (then) modern twist. The track on Last Minute Chill takes cues from both the main menu theme and ‘Jet Meets Mercury’. (Or at least the music played when he does.) Doubling down on 2.0‘s otherworldly techno feel.
12) “Don’t Underestimate Runners Before Off” for Horse Racing SimulatorWho’d’ve thought we’d end up having so much fun with a freeware Atari ST game? If you’re not familiar with Horse Racing Simulator, welcome to nearly 100% of the human race. But we at LMC have sort of adopted the thing and the stories that has generated in the games we’ve had. From hail mary betting and amazing bluffs. To clone horses and a goose cult (don’t ask) – they’re are all so memorable.
The track, whose initials spell out the name of the legendarily hopeless horse Durbo (a horse name that was ALWAYS in the game, I might add..) spins out the original nameless tune from the races themselves. Somehow dragging its synthy tail into the brief window that was “a summer car ride vibe”.
13) “Chill Him Full Of Holes” for Dead By DaylightNamed for both Nibal and Titans Creed on our ‘kill your friends’ streams. (“Kill the Vanato, fill him full of holes!”) who’d have thought you could even make a chill lo-fi track for DBD? Certainly not anyone on the crew’s side, when they found out it was on the track list.
But this, which takes inspiration from ‘Survivors Theme’, not only does that but it takes a nightmare and turn it into a tropical sun kissed dream.
A lazy day on the beach… and not in the basement.
14) “Lo-fi The Titles” for Radio ReduxI decided the last two slots on Volume 1 would be the ‘bonus tracks’ of the album. Giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to some other elements of the LMC family.
It made sense that the first of these would be for long-running podcast Radio Redux. With the familiar theme being replaced for Season 10, and with an online tool generated lo-fi-esque version having been previously created. I felt it right the original titles were run one last time for a proper farewell tribute.
So here we go.
15) “Until Next Time (TDL Farewell)” for Turbo Drive LiveTurbo is an exceptionally important part of LMC. So you can imagine my frustration at the fact he doesn’t think he is. Turbo Drive Live in all it’s guises – both podcast and let’s play – calls LMC its home. We share a community. He will bitch and moan at this and say he doesn’t do anything for me as he has in the past. But he can sssh his silly beardy face, because I am very fortunate to call John Finlay my friend.
Now, on Twitch TDL uses two very specific tunes to open and close its streams. For Volume 1 we’re going to focus on the music used for the end of a broadcast, just before going to a raid. And if you’re thinking, “so does this mean the intro piece is on Volume 2?” Well… you’re right.
For long-time watchers of Turbo, the music in question is actually the ‘Staff Credits Theme’ from Sonic 3D. Specifically the Mega Drive/Genesis version of it. So we took that, and turned it into a slow, fading dream of a lo-fi track to the album on.
I really hope you enjoy the collection and they make their way into your playlist rotations. It was a lot of fun to do.
Volume 2 is out in February and I’ll bring you more information on that in the days and weeks ahead.
Celebrate the start of Radio Redux Season 10 with the new theme tune. Released on all major digital platforms.
It’s taken us a while to get here, but at 2022’s WinterFest Radio Redux returned properly after a ten month hiatus – minus the odd special. Back with an updated feel, but the same organised chaos you’ve come to expect of the show over the last 230+ episodes.
To celebrate this milestone, it was decided to finally enact a long dreamt plan. One to truly make the theme our own, with a brand new prog metal reimagining that really goes to town. To make it happen, we teamed up with amazing French musician Léo Estalles. Who both rearranged and plays the instruments on the track. The result being the ‘RRX Mix’ of Y’Know It Rocks; the first release from our Wescin Rocks Records label.
You can now get our track “Y’Know It Rocks: Theme of Radio Redux (RRX Mix)” on Apple Music, iTunes and Amazon Music. As well as stream it on the likes of Spotify, YouTube Music and more. In fact, it’s out on so many other platforms we don’t know where to start!
Radio Redux itself can be found on all major podcast platforms. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon/Audible or your favourite other service and don’t miss a show. The whole Radio Redux archive can also be found on our website. With new episodes premiering Sundays at 7PM (UK) on RadioSEGA as part of the ‘LMC Block’.
It’s a weird state of affairs when you start the year ‘owning’ a record label.
I say ‘owning’ as it’s a virtual entity, but it is very much a thing now. One I honestly wasn’t expecting to happen.
2022 was an important year for Last Minute Continue. As we celebrated a decade of LMC streaming on Twitch; our first ever stream (as Sonic Wrecks) taking place in September 2012. You can still find this let’s play of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle as part of our YouTube channel.
Throughout the year we not only revisited that first Twitch outing with a 12-hour charity livestream, we also released ten clip collection videos under the banner of #10YearsOnTwitch.
There was, however, one extra project that was announced as a part of that charity stream. This was revealed to be a collection of lo-fi/chilled hip-hop tracks. A musical celebration of the games we have streamed down the years. This, alongside a digital release of a brand new reworked metal version of the long standing Radio Redux theme, would see a digital release. To be made available on services such as Apple Music, Spotify, etc.
Long time Sonic Wrecks fans may recognise the name Wescin Rocks: an anagram of Sonic Wrecks and a longstanding plot thread. The Torchwood-inspired name and logo first appeared in the comic of the same name in 2008; the identity of the (still ongoing) resistance group.
You can’t say we don’t maximise the use of our stuff!
Wescin Rocks Records will serve as our music release platform for 2023 and beyond. What those efforts will be? Who knows. But there are plans for other non-LMC releases to come out, and a number of “Special Projects” also in the works.
For now though, enjoy what’s out there. The second lo-fi volume is set to release in early February 2023.
10 years later we head back to Sonic Adventure 2 to raise money for Doctors Without Borders.
Titans Creed and The British Andy are back for a multi-day stream all in the aid of charity, coming soon.
LMC's legendary radio show/podcast is resurrected one more time as RadioSEGA's Winterfest celebrates its fifth year with three days of videogame music and shows.
It's been a lot longer than he thought but Kevin's here with a new 'What's going on at LMC' vlog.
Over 1,200 of you voted on what Sonic game/instalment sequel you would make if given the chance.