Hiroki Kikuta and Hidehisa Sasaki have worked hard on putting together a two album compilation of progressive rock, jazz fusion and video game music for their AngelicFortress and AngelicFortress: Double Helix series.
Word went out recently that both albums are available right now for purchase from over on Bandcamp for $9.99 each.
Hiroki Kikuta explained in the press release that this was opportunity for him and Sasaki to mix a lot of different genres together to create a collection of songs that spoke to them as they grew up on video games and video game music, saying…
“I was exposed to an endless catalog of awesome progressive rock and jazz fusion albums throughout high school,”
“It had the biggest impact on the formulation of my view of the musical world. Now I want to mix up these genres with modern day videogame music. ANGELICFORTRESS is an exciting experiment in musical history. I also want to develop an attitude of thankfulness to people who support music in general, so all of these tracks can be thought of as a thank you offering.”
The music reminds me so much of the old isometric JRPG days from the SNES along with SNK’s awesome arcade music for King of Fighters games. “Dark Schizophrenia” and “Mission Field” especially sound like the sort of stuff you would expect from an urban-set stage in KOF 97. Take a listen to some of the samples from the album with the teaser below.
If the sounds seem familiar to you it’s because Hiroki Kikuta worked on some of Squaresoft’s classics like Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu III, the often time underrated sequel to Secret of Mana.
Kikuta is currently working on Lab Zero’s Indivisible, the crowdfunded platforming RPG that the team picked up after finishing their work on Skull Girls.
You can pick up both albums right now, assuming you like what Kikuta and crew have put together. He plans on expanding the band for the third album, AngelicFortress Trismegistus.
You can get Angelicfortress for $9.99 or AngelicFortress Double Helix for $9.99. The first was inspired by the likes of Yes, and Pink Floyd while the latter was inspired by Herbie Hancock and other artists like Dave Grusin.
