RoboRob is a noted producer of dancy electronic music. Kingdom Hearts is a beloved video game series filled with fluid, soulful music. Combine the two and you get Kingdom Heartbeats, a remix album featuring electronic takes on some of Kingdom Hearts’ best tunes. It even starts with a remix of “Simple and Clean.” If Kingdom Hearts proved anything, it’s that one can never have too many “Simple and Clean” remixes.
Kingdom Heartbeats is the latest licensed digital remix album from the prolific Materia Collective. In the name of this collective, RoboRob teamed up with several artists and producers to collect 10 lush electronic tracks. Seriously contributing to this lushness is singer Tofuku, who lends her lovely voice to new versions of both “Simple and Clean” from the first Kingdom Hearts and the Kingdom Hearts III anthem, “Face My Fears.” She does Utada Hikaru justice.
The album officially launches tomorrow across most digital music services, with a $10 digital edition, $20 CD, or a lovely $35 white vinyl version up for preorder on Bandcamp. The Bandcamp page also has three preview songs, including both “Face My Fears” and the aforementioned “Simple and Clean” redux. It does not, however, have the following version of Kingdom Hearts II track “Tension Rising.” That’s just for us.
If that doesn’t have you up on your feet and dancing, either you do not like it or are, like me, paralyzed from the chest down.