The past few years have seen a resurgence in musical formats associated with days gone by – vinyl, cassette tape, CD –but German artist Remute has gone one better with the impending release of a full-length album on a Nintendo 64 cartridge.
Following on from the release of albums on Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, PC Engine and Gameboy, Remute’s latest long player, R64, features 15 tracks ranging from 90s-era rave to catchy electro pop.
As the official press release puts it, “No tricks – this is not an embedded MP3-player, terribly compressed WAV-files or other cheating: as with all previous Remute cartridge albums the sound on this cartridge gets generated and played back in realtime by the console and it’s all happening within meagre 8 Megabytes of storage space.”
Remute teamed up with Nintendo 64 developer Rasky on the concept, who has also put together a 3D-visual experience to accompany the music.
The cartridges are region-free and will fit and play on all models of the Nintendo 64 console. It’s also the first commercial release for the Nintendo 64 console in more than 20 years.
R64 is the first part of a new Remute album trilogy, with the second and third parts, Unity (for the Gameboy Advance) and Generations (for the Sega Dreamcast) set to follow later in 2022.
The album, which costs €39.99, will be released on 25 March, and can the pre-ordered on Remute’s Bandcamp page, remute.bandcamp.com/album/r64.
Nintendo 64 cartridges incoming.
— remute (@remute) February 3, 2022
Production is running, stacking 'em up.
'R64' to be released by end of March.
Get yours before they're gone… pic.twitter.com/bD2uXeFDZ7