There’s a great throw-away line in the press notes for Lord Raja’s upcoming EP Amadeus which makes reference to the producer learning his trade by messing around with Fruity Loops when he was six. Apocryphal or not, this story helps to explain “Streets of Rage,” one of two Raja/AceMo collaborations on the new record, and a blast of unmitigated nostalgia. But nostalgia for what? The track sounds most like an tribute to some imaginary era of music, something you maybe remember hearing once as a kid but can’t quite place, borrowing more from a feeling of the past than any one style (though the beat gave me light “Rockit” deja vu). Naïve in the best way, “Streets of Rage” is filled with the potential of a childlike imagination, experimenting out of total curiosity, looking for a level of fun and “play” that lives up to all 16bits of its title.
Stream “Streets of Rage” below. Amadeus dropped May 19 on Ghostly.