The Vinyl Destination

Update: "Eyes on the Prize" 12" vinyl is now available to buy online from Norman Records.

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Kinect Sports has a rap song, and that rap song should be described in technical terms as 'proper styles', according to our resident music critic Adam Park. You might remember from our recent vid-doc that we had the title song "Eyes on the Prize" recorded to vinyl, so here's the obligatory press release to go with it.

Adam has written for loads of music/lads' mags, fought a live kangaroo and been kidnapped in India, so he definitely knows what he's talking about – shame we don't…

   Twy-Fi
   Eyes On The Prize
   Uniko
   XDK001P

   Release date – November 15th 2010

   Tracklisting
   A1 – Twy-Fi – Eyes On The Prize (Original)
   A2 – Twy-Fi – Eyes On The Prize – Electro Mix (Simon Thornton)
   B1 – Twy-Fi – Eyes On The Prize – Big Beat Bonanza (Simon Thornton)
   B2 – Twy-Fi – Eyes On The Prize – New Wobble Dubstep (Taharka)

   Doctor Spin's 1992 cover of Tetris may not represent an aural highpoint within the canon of popular music, but its entry into the British charts proved there was an appetite to see game music exist beyond the accepted boundaries of syncopated button mashing. Fast forward eighteen years and the relationship between video games and music is now a symbiotic one; with Eyes On The Prize the latest tune to transcend its roots and become more than mere digital accompaniment. Dog eggs it ain't!

   Intended to distill the competitive joy of sporting achievement onto wax, Eyes on the Prize sees Twy-Fi (Robin Beanland) and Eat Good Records' Taharkha (Mark Waithe) layering an infectious hip-pop schematic (think Caribou) onto marble-mouthed rhymes (think Sway via Aesop Rock). Feel-good pop without the pejorative, Eyes On The Prize can be found adding pep to the Xbox 360's Kinect Sports – a revolutionary game experience where you are the controller. Let's get physical! 

   Elsewhere, Simon Thornton (long time Fatboy Slim collaborator) gives two new spins on the original. Starting on the A with an ominous electro reading, Thornton channels the likes of Âme, D'arcangelo and Brian Eno's Warp output to produce a sound which fizzes with tension and squally digitalis. For his second edition, Thornton induces a big beat nostalgia trip – albeit frayed at the edges with a dose of Sleigh Bells/Crystal Castles-style wrongness. Brimming with build-ups, this aural labyrinth bullies the original into a series of contortions which will leave you light-headed and reaching for the cough syrup.

   The finishing line is well and truly breached with Taharka's rumbling dubstep appropriation. Taking this decidedly British genre by the scruff of its neck, Taharka finishes what he started through depth-charge bass and car alarm theatrics. Eschewing the more po-faced shrugs which often pass for dubstep, the New Wobble mix favours a genealogy which includes the likes of Débruit, Benga and Joker.

Keep your eyes on our Twitter and Facebook groups in the coming weeks where we'll be giving away signed copies of the record.