Outrun

Getting all the minor complaints out of the way, Kavinsky's 2013 album Outrun is a limited listen with a handful of highlights that were made available previously, but such is life for the fast and futuristic. The grand concept here isn't that grand after all, as French house producer Vincent Belorgay's project/character Kavinsky crashed his Testarossa in 1986, and then reappeared as a zombie in 2006 in order to make electro and show off his racing skills in animé-like videos. Apparently, Giorgio Moroder, Sega video game soundtracks, and the original TRON soundtrack were all the cassettes available to the pre-zombie Kavinsky. Outrun — named after Sega's Golden Joystick Award-winning game which just happened to feature a Ferrari Testarossa — is filled with the bleeps and tempos one might find in an '80s B-grade action film where macho and mullets still thrill the ladies, and guitar solos are thrown on top when a little extra scream is needed. The Daft Punk-deep punch of the bass and the Justice-like thwak of the snares give away that this is post-millennium and designed for modern woofers, plus when a woozy Havoc shows up for some cloud-based rapping on "Suburbia," it's Mobb Deep starring in Miami Vice thanks to a wonderful time machine mix-up. Still, the main reasons to drop a quarter into this video game on wax (or digital download) are the sexy robot song "Nightcall" (which was featured prominently in the film Drive), the dubsteppy victory theme "Protovision," and the assurance that no matter what cool bits of the present are employed, the fetishizing of that 16-bit swagger will remain solid and inspired. Mario brothers might find it tiresome and cheeseball, but bad dudes, street fighters, and metal gearheads will think of it as their dream soundtrack.