Alterna Citizen Program M-00: Init (System Noise)

Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: iTunes/Apple Music, Amazon

Info

Been putting this one off for a minute because it’s literally ten hours of music, but I guess I gotta do it eventually. Here’s a sci-fi action-adventure game by South Korean studio SHIFT UP that I don’t know too much about besides something about butts I guess. The majority of the soundtrack was done by three composers who were part of the dev, Youngjee Lee, Hyunmin Cho (Benicx), and Shinyeop Choi (seibin)^[1], though they were joined by several other composers and songwriters who contributed to the dev’s previous games or were otherwise notably active in the Korean VGM space and two composers from Japanese company MONACA, Oliver Good and Keita Inoue.

Given the game is an epic post-apocalyptic combat adventure, the first half of the soundtrack is surprisingly sedate. It’s largely electronic of course, with a fair amount of heavy tracks for presumably tense situations, but the primary direction for the area themes seems to have been chill, lo-fi music with plenty of acoustic guitar and ethereal vocals; it might remind you a bit of NieR in how that’s fused with the synthetic sound production, though a little more EDMy and pop/funky. In the second half that doesn’t go away entirely, but it gets a bit more electronic and actiony as a whole, presumably because that’s when the stakes start rising or something. The soundtrack is also peppered with a fair amount of synthetic ambient tunes and other styles: more straightforward orchestral, jazzy pieces, epic cinematic orchestral+electronic music, and so on.

The electronic sound production is really good! I was a bit less impressed by the bombastic tracks, which I felt played it very basic and standard to the genres in terms of what they do sonically, but there’s a lot of cool sound design and effects usage in not just the ambient and EDM tracks but the chill songs too. It’s not just limited to one or two composers, I think just about all of the major contributors kicked ass in that field a fair enough of that time, so there’s a lot to love in this soundtrack if that kinda thing is up your alley.

Compositionally I’m a little less hot on it, in that it mostly doesn’t get too farfetched in its chord progressions or the random unnecessary nonsense I crave. Some of the tracks do have some occasionally nice chords in them, generally the songs more than the instrumental pieces. The ambient vibes and other atmospheric work are on point though, I like the overall sound world a lot, so I still found it to be a fun listen.

Recommended tracks:

• “City Underground Sector (Battle)” (Youngjee Lee) has maybe the dirtiest bassline in the soundtrack

• “Sink Hole” (ko.yo) has some nice ambient guitar noodling

• “Collapsed Rail Bridge” (Hyunmin Cho) has a nice ambient percussive groove

• “Rotten Labyrinth” (Hyunmin Cho) is getting a little more actively electronic now; I like the swung polymetric figure that develops at 0:32 (it’s probably most obvious at 0:56)

• “Great Desert” (Oliver Good, vo. Miyo Takashiro) is one of those NieR-y vocals

• “Abyss Levoire” (Keita Inoue) feels like it’s always on the verge of busting out into a pure dance track but never actually does; that big BWONK sound the track leads off with is incredibly satisfying

• “Eidos IX” (seibin) busts out the funny chords at 2:13

• “Watch Out!” (Hyunmin Cho) was one of the heavier tracks that I enjoyed the most, not too fancy but the section from 0:16 to 0:27 has some nice sounds in it

• “Prestige Lounge (Battle)” (Hyunmin Cho & seibin) goes Asia Mode; the vocal style and some of the chord changes remind me a little of Saori Kobayashi, which I always want composers to do

• “Nest” (Youngjee Lee) reminds me a little texturally and compositionally of Thommaz Kauffmann’s excellent soundtrack to Dandara

• “The Song of the Traveler” (Mothervibes, arr. Mothervibes & Eungmin Cho, vo. Sunnie) is some fun bossa nova with vibraphone in it