Sonoludic Episode 1

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Hey! That’s no typo! Mike here with a new, exciting, podcast for you! Welcome to Sonoludic, the Chronoludic Game Music Podcast. This ‘cast will pick up the slack every month in between the regular Chronoludic podcasts, so you’ll get a new podcast every two weeks. The concept is thus: Game music is wonderful, varied, and full of hidden gems and passageways to music beyond games themselves, and it deserves to be celebrated. So I, Mike, will guide you through a few choice cuts, and tell you the stories behind the tracks in our favourite games (be they obscure, popular, old, or new). It’s also not just about celebrating the industry, every month I will feature a fan-made remix of a classic track, or something else in the community that I find interesting.

Unlike the regular Chronoludic podcast this is much shorter, and only features a little bit of talking (comparatively), but let’s get on with the shownotes. I promise they’re informative…

Track 1: “Cave Story Moon Rhapsody” by Doug Perry (a remix of Moonsong by Amaya Daisuke) from Cave Story.

Track 2: “The Glasshouse With Butterfly” by Tomáš Dvořák from Machinarium.

Tomáš Dvořák (AKA Floex) is the Czech composer for the Amanita Designs games Machinarium, and Samorost 2. He also released an album under his Floex moniker called Pocustone. His work is available on itunes.

Tomáš Dvořák

Track 3: “The Reclamation” by Jessica Curry (composer for Dear Esther and Korsakovia) from her outdoor installation Fields Were The Essence of the Song.

Jessica Curry is the Brighton-based composer who, outside her usual artistic works, contributes to the output of thechineseroom with Dan Pinchbeck. Her website refers to her as a composer for “virtual worlds and unusual real-life spaces”, and this is certainly true with her latest work Perpetual Light: Requiem for an Unscorched Earth – a choral work performed in disused nuclear bunkers. She also works in film, installation work, and interactive media. Her most famous work (in regards to games) is her work on the popular Source Mod Dear Esther, which is currently being remade by Mirror’s Edge level designer Robert Briscoe. The music is being re-orchestrated for the re-release.

Jessica Curry and Dan Pinchbeck at Indiecade 2009

Track 4: “Be With You” by Magnet from Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.

Even Johansen (AKA Magnet) is a Norwegian musician who has released two full length albums, and the EP for Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. His sound is a unusual mix of heart-felt singer-songwriter brooding songs, with quite vibrant arrangements.

Track 5: “The Last Movement” by Michael Nyman from Enemy Zero

I hardly need to introduce Michael Nyman, I feel, but out of necessity he is one of the world’s prominent minimalist composers who, despite a huge body of work, is known primarily for his film soundtracks. Notably Jane Campion’s The Piano, and a long association with Peter Greenaway with films such as A Zed and Two Noughts and Prospero’s Books. Is also known for composing the scores for Michael Winterbottom’s Wonderland, the film Gattaca, and the film The Ogre starring John Malkovich as a simple man who turns children toward the Nazi party in the belief he is protecting them – the score of which Nyman reworked for Enemy Zero. He also dabbles in photography and filmmaking.

Michael Nyman in his iconic glasses.

Track 6: “Are You Coming Home? Love MOM” by Kyle Gabler from World of Goo.

Kyle Gabler is, of course, not just the composer of World of Goo – he is one half of 2DBoy with Ron Carmel, and define themselves as soldiers on the front line of the indie game revolution. Stirring stuff.