THE ANSWER – Armored Core Tribute Album

We’re almost a month late, but late’s better than never for getting the word out that The Answer, Mattias Häggström Gerdt’s amazing 100% fan-made tribute to Kota Hoshino’s musical work on Armored Core, has finally been released!

The Answer features unique takes on several of the most memorable Armored Core tracks such as Monkey Likes Daddy, Apex in the Circle, and Shining, while still retaining that distinctly Armored Core sound and feel.

The producer has quite a bit to say about his labor of love.

Armored Core. High speed mecha action. Few games make my adrenaline pump as hard as Armored Core. There is something magical about building your own machine to take on the world. The music in the games was always a big part of that for me.

I was introduced to the series with Armored Core 4 and it was through the music I felt I had to explore the rest of the series. What I discovered was an amazing repertoire ranging from techno to rock and even orchestral. Kota Hoshino’s music especially floored me as some of the most unique and appealing music I had heard in a video game. The amazing vocal lines, the no-nonsense rock, the club beats, the bombastic choirs, it all had an incredible personality while still working within the game. This was music I wanted to show my respect for, so I set out to create a tribute album.

After four months of sporadic work and a successful preview release at Comiket78, the album is now complete. 11 pieces of music arranging 15 tracks from the Armored Core series. All made in Propellerhead’s Reason and Record with a little help from a guitar, a bass and some great vocalist friends.

I’m incredibly proud of the end result. I hope you like this album as much as I liked creating it. Thank you for listening.

OCRemix has the rest of this scoop (and the download links as well).