Banjo-Kazooie’s composer has released a full album of remixed music
Grant Kirkhope’s Banjo-Kazooie Rejiggyed is available to stream now
The composer of Banjo-Kazooie has released a new remix album offering modern takes on its soundtrack.
Grant Kirkhope‘s score for the original Nintendo 64 release was critically acclaimed for its typically Rare-esque jaunty nature.
Now Kirkhope has revisited his 1998 soundtrack with his new album, Banjo Kazooie Rejiggyed.
The 10-track album includes reimagined takes on such themes as Spiral Mountain, Mumbo’s Mountain, Treasure Trove Cove and Freezeezy Peak.
The album can currently be found on Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music and Apple Music.
Kirkhope had previously composed new Banjo-Kazooie music as part of the characters’ addition as DLC fighters in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
The game’s director Masahiro Sakurai spoke of his satisfaction with the result of his collaboration with Kirkhope, his first with a Western composer on the series.
Writing on Twitter, Smash Bros. creator Sakurai said he was initially worried about whether he’d be able to clearly communicate what he wanted due to the language barrier, but that in the end the collaboration was a success.
Kirkhope is now one of the first Western composers to not only create music for Smash Bros, but also Super Mario, in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.
Banjo-Kazooie is one of the games set to appear in Nintendo Switch Online’s N64 library.
Nintendo confirmed that Banjo-Kazooie would be released as part of a future wave of N64 titles, alongside the likes of Paper Mario and F-Zero X.
Banjo-Kazooie’s original developer Rare said in a statement: “It’s a pleasure to be ushering the bear and bird onto Nintendo’s latest console, offering another modern way (alongside Xbox Game Pass and Rare Replay) to savour its many collectibles and googly eyes.”
The addition of Banjo to Nintendo’s Switch Online library could indicate that further Rare games might come to the service in the future, although none have been announced.
Xbox has dabbled in collaborating with Nintendo over the past few years. It published the first Ori game for Nintendo’s platform in September 2019, followed by its sequel last year, as well as another former Xbox One exclusive, Cuphead.
Xbox also collaborated with Nintendo to bring Banjo-Kazooie and Minecraft characters to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
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