The greatest dance music game score of all time? Could be

Soichi Terada – Apes In The Net soundtrack (Far East Recording)

We find ourselves in a world on the brink of destruction at the hands of monkeys, an army sent by the white-haired Specter after he suddenly gained intelligence upon discovering and putting on a Pipo helmet. Instantly gaining extreme intelligence, malice came next. He released all the monkeys from the park they were living in, stormed the lab the helmet was made in and stole a time machine to begin a plan of world domination. Our hero, Spike, must go through time and capture the escaped monkeys with his net before it’s too late – though history is doomed to repeat itself.

‘Ape Escape’ is a little-known series in Europe, with the only mainstream presence being a minigame in ‘Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater’, but the impact in Japan was large enough to be compared alongside international sensations like ‘Super Mario 64’, ‘Donkey Kong Country’ and ‘Banjo-Kazooie’. The 90s and 2000s were the peak of mascot platformers, and ‘Ape Escape’ knocked it out of the park not just in gameplay and atmosphere terms, but also in music. Producer and composer Soichi Terada was the man picked for the job after the team at Japan Studio heard ‘Sumo Jungle’, the title track from his 1995 album under Far East Recording. It’s a high-energy, raucous slice of jungle that combines Terada’s love of “Asian tropes”, as he put it, with jungle and, later, house hallmarks.

On to the music itself, which would dynamically change with the way you were playing the game – if you took a stealthy approach, for example, the track would mellow out and drums would soften into silence, which is a technique used to this very day. Apes On The Net is a selection of just six tracks from the franchise’s history, reconstructed and remastered in this compilation vinyl, a rare pressing outside of Japan for Terada’s videogame compositions.

The curiously misspelt opening track ‘Spectors Factory (Inside)’ – sharing the name mix-up with ‘Spectors Castle’ – is an instant industrial thumper. Romping through metallic and punchy percussion, guitar stings compete against chiptune beeps and boops in this fast-paced tech-house cut, reminiscent of Sega’s compositions for ‘Space Harrier’. At 168 bpm, this track is somehow the slowest, compared to the 178 bpm closing song, ‘Time Station.’ The gentle cowbell beat with sampled whistles and glamorous, sparse guitar runs served as the hub world music (a.k.a. the song you would’ve heard on loop in the background when your mum called you over for dinner.)

D&b fans also get to eat here, with the neurofunk-adjacent ‘Haunted House’. Its chopped pads against an ethereal synth ambience evoke old-school Noisia and Bad Company and the work of Critical Music, and it still sounds fresh. Terada’s influences sprawl wide, and so does his inspiration – ‘Neon White’ fans will definitely hear the inspiration from Machine Girl’s OST, as well as Monkey Ball’s sensational soundtrack. ‘Ape Escape’ was so successful because it captured the moment so perfectly when it hit shelves – one of many reasons it’s considered one of the best platformers ever.

KC Faulkner