Soichi Terada: Apes In The Net Vinyl out!

Apes In The Net, a six-track EP fea­tur­ing music com­posed for the pop­u­lar PlaySta­tion 1 series Ape Escape, sets the record straight. It not only show­cas­es Terada’s qual­i­ty as a com­pos­er and pro­duc­er, but also his ver­sa­til­i­ty. Like much of Terada’s work on the Ape Escape series, the tracks fea­tured don’t explore deep, New York and New Jer­sey influ­enced house sounds, but rather his less­er-cel­e­brat­ed love of jun­gle and drum & bass – a sound he ful­ly explored on 1996 album Sumo Jungle.

The six tracks on show, which were orig­i­nal­ly record­ed in the ​‘90s but recon­struct­ed and remas­tered for Japan-only CD and dig­i­tal releas­es over a decade ago, mix ele­ments of Terada’s famil­iar deep house style – think warm­ing chords and pads, mem­o­rable melodies, and emo­tive musi­cal motifs – with blis­ter­ing D&B break­beats, 16-bit synth sounds, elec­tron­ic bleeps and unde­ni­ably weighty basslines. They’ve stood the test of time and arguably sound just as fresh now as they did at the turn of the millennium. 

There are plen­ty of oth­er delights to be found across the EP, too, from the bustling, race-to-the-fin­ish breath­less­ness of D&B/bleep tech­no fusion work­out ​‘Spec­tors Fac­to­ry In’, and the rum­bling sub-bass, creepy pads and sus­pense­ful melodies of ​‘Haunt­ed House’, to the bom­bas­tic, all-out-assault on the sens­es that is ​‘Coast­er’, the set’s most ​“purist” jun­gle work­out – albeit one that also doffs a cap to the pul­sat­ing world of big room techno.

Apes In The Net, then, cel­e­brates Soichi Ter­a­da​’s mas­tery as a video games com­pos­er and ear­ly Japan­ese junglist. Props are well and tru­ly overdue.