Otsuka..................”It’s Videogame Music! Part 2”

In the last issue of No Fidelity I outlined a list of killer video game soundtracks that are so strong they can stand as their own albums, independent from the games they came from. In the process of writing it, I had come up with several games, most of which weren’t able to make it to the fnal article for space reasons. I still really wanted to write about some of them, so I decided to anyway. The following soundtracks are three of the strongest albums that didn’t make the frst cut, but by no means are they any less worthy of your attention.

Jim Guthrie is a Montreal-based musician most famous for scoring critically accaimed iPad game Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP and widely well-received documentary Indie Game: The Movie. But fuck that shit, despite being just under a modest 15 minutes long, Corporeal is far and away the best work that Guthrie has ever done. Corporeal hails from 2012’s Playstation Network game Sound Shapes, an innovative platforming game in which every aspect of each level’s soundtrack corresponds to a different obstacle, enemy, or piece of scenery. Coins add loops and notes to the soundtrack as you collect them, making every playthrough an interesting, interactive way to experience the game’s music. Guthrie designed these sounds with this mechanic specifcally in mind, but Corporeal more than holds its own as a static, pre-recorded album. Corporeal is a 4-track concept EP “exploring how music can free us from the corporate machine… if it doesn’t crush us frst.” Indeed, upon starting it up, we’re greeted with mundane and mechanical marimba-like synths, heavy, industrial drum patterns, and brooding spy-movie guitar riffs in “Personnel” appropriately oppressive, but certainly the grooviest oppression I’ve ever heard. “Research and Development” and “Purgatory” pick up the pace by bringing in jazzier, downtempo and hip-hop tinged drum loops and darker, heavier synth bass lines, with wispy, almost mournful leads before the EP comes full circle in “Event Horizon.” Beginning with a synth riff from the previous track, Guthrie slowly builds on themes and riffs from the previous two tracks, bringing back the bass and synth stabs from “Research and Development” and drums inspired by “Purgatory.” About halfway through, the distinctive sound of the kick (seriously the drum programming and production on this is rad as hell) from “Personnel” returns, before that delicious spy guitar and thick bass progression explode back into the mix in what is honestly probably one of the most musically satisfying moments I’ve heard on any album—familiar enough to be recognizable, but mixed up enough to not sound lazy. Corporeal might just be an EP length-wise, but its unique brand of trip-hop is defnitely not to be missed.

Those familiar with the series may scoff at my choice here - after all, the next game in the Sim City franchise, Sim City 4, is widely regarded as the best in the series in every regard, including music. I mean, come on, Sim City 4 has a full orchestra! What does 3000 have? Some shitty synth strings? While it is true that all of the instruments on 12 the Sim City 3000 soundtrack, including the “real” ones, are all actually synthesized, it is this fact that I believe actually makes its soundtrack CD even more worth your time. All it takes is one listen to “Magic City” - a beautiful orchestral arrangement featuring a pulsing, almost Philip Glass-esque bed of strings underneath a plaintive woodwind section - to complete-

ly forget that holy shit you mean these aren’t real instruments?? And then there’s the jazz numbers at the end of the album, with cool (as in, opposed to “hot”) jams like “South Bridge” and “Updown Town.” Yeah, the groovy walking bass lines and Brubeck-y piano riffs are catchy as all hell, but where they really shine is in the solos - seriously, you’re never going to convince me that the 5/4 piano comping and quick grace notes and fast runs in the trumpet solo on “Central Park Sunday” were not played by a real live person - that kind of technical skill and human emotion just can’t be emulated by a computer, can it? But it clearly can, as Jerry Martin proves, making Sim City 3000’s soundtrack a true testament to the marvels of modern musical synthesis technology and Martin’s ability to create such convincing sounds with it - arguably a skill rivaling actually playing them on real instruments in the frst place. Impressiveness of the synths aside, Sim City 3000’s soundtrack is of course, full of just really good music. It’s an eclectic blend of ambient synthesizer pieces in the vein of early Moby and maybe a more subdued Squarepusher, late Philip Glass and Steve Reich-esque minimalist pieces, and some slick cool jazz and broadway instrumentals to round off the whole “city” theme. Jerry Martin clearly knows what he’s doing waith that fancy midi keyboard of his, and as long as you don’t mind that none of the instruments are real, any discerning jazz and/or minimalist music fan defnitely won’t be disappointed with this one. Oh and the electronic numbers are cool too, I guess.

Minecraft has taken the world by storm in the years that it’s been out, and if you haven’t heard of it by now I’ll assume you’re not actually reading this because you’ve been living under an actual rock for the past fve years. The game is constantly lauded for its seemingly limitless creative potential, but the amount of creative input that went into the game should not be ignored either. Minecraft’s simple low-res textures and blocky graphics are iconic and charmingly pretty, and its music is nothing short of beautiful. Minecraft is all about creation and immersion, and its soundtrack follows suit, washing over you with calm, swirling synth pads and melodies that walk a beautiful line between repetitive and simply complex, such as on tracks like “Oxygène” and “Équinoxe.” Simple additional fourishes in the lead lines and additional layers of voices make it quite similar to Brian Eno’s ambient works, each piece feeling seemingly endless, perfect ambience while still remaining interesting enough to completely captivate a listener’s attention, should they choose to. Electronic elements aside, the soundtrack also has a large number of “classical” pieces as well, like the absolutely gorgeous “Mice on Venus,” which features a sparse, almost hauntingly bittersweet piano melody, played once through clean before being joined with just the right amount of synthesized bass, bubbly synth arps, and warm fute fourishes. Others, like the titular “Minecraft” are deeper in their classical roots, opting for lush layers of sustained synth string sections under simple, bell-piano themes. Like Sim City 3000, Minecraft’s soundtrack makes extensive use of synthesized instruments as well - however here the beauty lies in the way poorly compressed samples get that wonderfully hissy, muffed sound, almost deliberately calling attention to its synthetic nature. This lets the “real” instruments mesh better with more upbeat, chiptune-infuenced pieces, such as “Cat,” while still allowing them to, with the right amount of reverb, maintain an element of elegant, gorgeous beauty on “orchestral” tracks like “Sweden.” In this way the “real” instruments almost become completely new instruments, using their real-world counterparts as jumping-off points for new sounds. While Volume Alpha is missing a few of my favorite tracks from the game (Volume Beta has already come out and is apparently even better), it is by far one of the strongest arguments I’ve ever been able to fnd for the legitimacy of music in video games, and the closest I’ve ever gotten to a soundtrack that could truly stand alone as an independent album. Seriously, the only reason I would have ever guessed this was from a video game is because of the title. Please do yourself a favor and check out Volume Alpha (and Volume Beta, too, I have no doubt it’s just as fantastic) if you haven’t already. It’ll be a great way to keep yourself relaxed through fnals and it makes a wonderful wintertime soundtrack.