Last week I talked about Tetsukazu Nakanishi, and his productions for the PlayStation video game Ace Combat 3. Testukazu has produced many tracks for the Namco productions team, one of his most recent work was for Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, the latest entry in the series which I had the chance to play last year during the first lockdown.

It turns out I had inadvertently followed his trail last year when I dug in the PSX soundtracks to be able to play an entire set just out of PSX original soundtracks (unfortunately not recorded). I focused my attention on Namco games as I was already aware of their amazing sound team. Released in 1996, Rage Racer - a predecessor to Ridge Racer 4 which we also discussed last week - particularly caught my attention. The soundtrack is clearly more geared towards rave sounds than its successor, straight up jungle and old school acid techno. My favorite track is (coincidentally?) produced by Testukazu Nakanishi: Lighting Luge.

Tetsukazu Nakanishi - Lighting Luge (1996)

This is a high energy jungle track, magnificently produced, and probably very fitting to a racing game, although I must admit I never played Rage Racer myself. What is sure is that it does fit the 90’s very well, screamingly so if you ask me ahah. Enjoy!