Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: main soundtrack (iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon, Steam), extra tracks (iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon, Steam)
Info
This is an underwater action-adventure game developed by Capcom, a smaller-scale game about exploring and trying not to die and also climate change apparently. The music was composed by Chikara Aoshima, a drummer who, in his own words, has “a preference for quiet ambient and dreamy sounds.” I don’t know anything about him beyond what I’ve learned in the course of writing this, which is that he’s been a performing drummer in several bands of various genres, including prog and folk rock, and also he graduated from Berklee in 2011.
The soundtrack to this game was released digitally in two parts: a CD-length original soundtrack and then a half hour “Hidden Tracks” collection a few months later. The OST starts off as very peaceful, ambientish music with prominent percussion, definitely reflecting his stated preferences that I quoted in the last paragraph. But then there’s a much scarier dark ambient piece, which is immediately followed by a dizzying prog boss theme with rock organ and sound effects, and then a few tracks later there’s an extremely minimalism-bait mallet percussion piece, and I’m just like “wait what did I get myself into here.”
So yeah, this soundtrack rips. It sounds exactly like “what if a prog rock drummer wrote a chill underwater ambient electronic soundtrack,” which is a literal description of what it is so it checks out. Lots of percussion (mallet, hang, drumkit, and drum machine) mixed with a lot of synths and some occasional vocals, piano/keyboards, guitar, and sound effects into some really engrossing soundscapes, peppered with rhythmic complexity, minimalism, and some outright prog nonsense. Really great stuff!
I don’t know anything about in-game music usage so I don’t know if there’s any meaningful reason for the Hidden Tracks; I feel like probably they were just targeting the length of a CD for the original release and then released the leftover tracks later. There are four variations of songs on the main soundtrack, two vocals, and two miscellaneous weird tracks. The variations are slightly stripped-down versions or otherwise have some changes in instrumentation and mixing, not super essential but worth checking out, and the new tracks are all pretty nice.
Recommended tracks:
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“The Dark Dweller” is the dark ambient piece that knocked me out of my reverie from the start of the album
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“Eunice Aphroditois” is the prog track right after it that made me DM the friend who repeatedly recommended this soundtrack to me “wtf”
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“Trench -Jewelry Box-” mixes live drumkit with some weird filtered percussive sounds and I like the combo
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“Ancient Ruins” is a super sick minimalist mallet piece in a weird time signature
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“Beyond Hades” is also a bit minimalist, but with a lot more effects
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“The Decision -Chaos-” (vo. Adrienne Lewenhaupt) is like an avant-garde electronic jazz remix of a modernist concert piece
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“Hadalpelagic” is the darkest and most noise track in the game, which fits the place it’s named for
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“New World -Tsuki nu Kaisha-” (vo. Nora Mihle) is an a cappella arrangement of an Okinawan lullaby that gets canon-y at 1:38
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