One of the fun aspects of labels that feature releases which can vary wildly in style is that you never know what you’re going to get from batch to batch. Field Hymns is one such (great) label, and this here tape is an example of the myriad musics that grace their roster. The admittedly great and completely false backstory behind Detainee’s Vital Organs is that Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode was commissioned in 1991 to develop a soundtrack for Capcom, they of Contra, Mega Man, Street Fighter, etc. fame. Pretty certain that Fletcher never composed a note of DM’s catalog, but hey, I like the tale anyway. It does give an idea of what’s going down on this cassette of nearly 23 minutes. Opener “Speed Demon” is a hard-edged, melodic piece of slightly higher than 8-bit IDM. The sinister cool vibe carries across most tracks, and “Basement Party” introduces some suitably off-kilter computer tuned vocals. “California” has an oddly touching refrain of “California is under the sea/I wish you were here with me forever” delivered in a Lynchian style, and possesses a warm yet icy quality. There’s more than a fair bit of pitch shifting going on over the course of the eight tracks, and the production and arrangements are just sophisticated enough to distance Detainee from other Eighties’ wannabe video game soundtrackers; There’s not just a bunch of arpeggios thrown together with a John Carpenter bassline. The last two tracks are different versions of “Speed Demon” and “California” and are altered so they seem like they share their own alien DNA but have hidden bonus level potential. If you enjoy Giant Claw’s fabulously crazy video-prog symphonies, you would most likely revel in the more menacing, slightly less manic but just as fun world of Vital Organs, where Detainee lives comfortably in a nonexistent video dimension of side-scrolling power moves, street thugs and end bosses. The tape comes with a download as well so you can synch it up to some Streets Of Rage 2.
