Liverpudlian producer Kokiri, aka Kevin Williams, is on a roll. His chunky, booming, pristine house has seen him garner radio and club support from the likes of Annie Mac, Zane Lowe, Pete Tong, Danny Howard, MistaJam, Trevor Nelson, Twin B, Cameo and Monki — and with tracks as fluidly wonderful as the soon-to-be-released, Kim English sampling "Turn Back Time (Retrospect)" it's not hard to see why he's so in demand.
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Like most young men, Williams has a passion for whittling his free time away with video games. "I feel as though they [video games] have definitely had an impact on my music as I'm always drawing inspiration from a lot of the old games I used to play," Williams tells me. "Whenever I can't think of any ideas, I'll go onto YouTube, listen to soundtracks and see if they can inspire me. A lot of old 16bit games focus on structures and having really catchy melodies to keep the music interesting, so whenever I'm producing I'm always trying to do this with whatever I write."Williams is 24 and I'm only ever so slightly older, so it's not surprising that our first gaming passion is one that's shared: Super Mario World on the SNES. "Even now to this day it's still one of my favourite games to play," he says. If you've ever spent a few hours in my company you've probably heard me say something similar. Still, this isn't about me, and video games aren't to everyone's taste, so I asked Williams if he thinks that adults playing with joysticks is a good use of time. "I think so yes, it's similar to watching a film, you become engrossed in every bit of detail with playing games and from personal experiences I always seem to become inspired with my music from playing games, so yeah I feel games are sensible as they can be a source of of fun, enjoyment and inspiration."We asked Williams to put the controller down and head to his keyboard to drop us a few notes on his five favourite video game soundtracks of all time. Here's what he came back with.
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1. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time (N64, 1998)If anybody is to ever ask me what the most influential piece of music to me is, then my answer will always be the soundtrack to this game. Every single LOZ soundtrack has been amazing but personally none has ever been as good as the soundtrack to Ocarina of Time. Every single piece of music from within the game fits each scene perfectly and whenever I listen to it, it just takes me right back to being 9 years old and switching from playing the game religiously to trying to learn all of the Ocarina songs on my Yamaha keyboard (it had an 'Ocarina' preset on it so it seemed fitting at the time ha!).2. Journey (PS3, 2012)There isn't much I can write about this soundtrack apart from how absolutely amazing it is! This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard for a game soundtrack and it fits the game so perfectly too.3. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sega Mega Drive, 1992)When I was younger I was OBSESSED with both Ocarina Of Time and this. I used to spend so much time after school stuffing my face with Fruit Salad and Black Jack sweets from my lucky bag and playing this — I would see if running fast enough myself could permanently get rid of Tails, but it never worked.4. Red Dead Redemption (PS3/Xbox 360, 2010)This was another one of those games (similar to Journey) where I'd be happy just running around the different parts just enjoying the soundtrack. This soundtrack actually inspired me a few years ago to try and write my own piece of cowboy/country and western music which was titled "Marston" — for reasons obvious to anybody who has ever played this game.
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5. Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)Before I had a Gameboy and lived on Pokemon Red, this was my first turn based RPG I ever played, I used to see turn-based games as beneficial as they allowed me to do other things (such as eating) without having to turn the game off so I still got to listen to the amazing battle music."Turn Back Time (Retrospect)" is out on June 14 via Ministry of Sound Recordings.Follow Kokiri on Facebook // SoundCloud // TwitterWant more features, news and tracks? Like THUMP on Facebook.