Vinyl Fantasy 7 Released, Cease-and-Desisted, But Still Floating Around

I love Team Teamwork. These guys hit the scene last year with “The Ocarina of Rhyme,” a mash-up project taking hip-hop artists (indie and mainstream) and putting them against The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I even wrote about this album last year, and whined that there was no “Gerudo Valley” track (they’ve since remedied that by adding a bonus track with Busta Rhymes).

At the end of January, Team Teamwork released their second VGM+rap mash-up: “Vinyl Fantasy 7.” And that’s exactly what it sounds like. Same concept as Ocarina of Rhyme, but using Final Fantasy VII as the source material. Awesome.

Now, Team Teamwork had an account with the wonderful site Bandcamp, and all their albums were there. As of February 1st, Team Teamwork’s site was going down, then back up. On February 3rd, Team Teamwork received an official cease and desist: from whom, we aren’t sure. Tim Jacques (the man for whom “Team Teamwork” is a moniker) received the cease-and-desist via Bandcamp, who didn’t specify precisely who pointed the finger in the first place. Ultimately, Jacques pulled down his Bandcamp account voluntarily to avoid legal troubles.

So if you want to find Vinyl Fantasy 7, you’ll have to scour the Internet to see who’s still sharing it. If you’re into mash-ups, you’re going to love this album. MOP’s “Ante Up” put against the standard battle theme, Ghostface Killah’s “Save Me Dear” put against “You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet” (City of the Ancients), all sorts of good stuff. Generally, the technique is to speed up or slow down the FFVII music to fit the tempo of the hip-hop artist. But the added beats alone make these arrangements worth listening to, even if this isn’t the kind of music you’re into. They got JENOVA, Gold Saucer, Mideel, and of course One-Winged Angel. You don’t want to miss this.

Once you get ahold of this album, tell us what you think of it. What are your favorite tracks? What other FFVII tracks could benefit from becoming looped tracks for hip-hop mash-ups?

[via Wired]