Artist: Austin Wintory Album: Journey Release: 2012/04/10 Genres: #orchestra ---------------------------------------------------------------- Wikipedia Bandcamp · SoundCloud · Last.fm ---------------------------------------------------------------- BIO Jenova Chen (creator of Journey) discussed looking for a central musical idea that would span the entire game, which ultimately took the form of the score's first track, "Nascence," recorded in April 2009. Wintory credited the inspiration of hearing Chen discuss the project for how quickly the first musical ideas clicked in his mind. According to Wintory, the primalness of Thatgamecompany's games, which are heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, appeal to a broad audience through the story of mankind rather than a more esoteric story. He did not consider the abstract storytelling of Journey as more or less difficult to score than other projects, only different. he also described the experience of scoring in an abstract, parallel way as taken to a new level by Journey.

Most of the soundtrack revolves around a group of solists (cello, bass/alto flute, harp, viola and serpent), plus a string orchestra (the Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra) and various sound effects. Wintory approached the soundtrack as "essentially a cello concerto." Cellist Tina Guo, who worked with Wintory on several scores, has been praised by Wintory as "a cellist of the highest caliber" and was the first person Wintory thought of for the soundtrack on the day he first spoke with Thatgamecompany founder Jenova Chen about the game. In April 2011, Wintory wrote "Woven Variations," a miniature cello concerto for Guo inspired by Journey's score, which the two performed together in Los Angeles.

Wintory controlled the musical direction of the game based on his ideas, which were then "collaboratively massaged with Thatgamecompany." Journey was Wintory's longest stint developing music for a project, with the game's development lasting over 3 years. He felt the extended development time allowed him the freedom to place music into the game, yet sit on the ideas and receive detailed feedback from Thatgamecompany developers on the emotions they were looking for. By directly working with Thatgamecompany to implement his audio as he wrote it, and playing the game alongside Thatgamecompany staff, Wintory had access to the game's complete experience and could make fully informed adjustments.

The game and its music were generally developed in sequential order, resulting in Wintory's oldest written pieces arriving in the game's beginning. As the development phase of the project expanded, Wintory looked back on older pieces, and felt he changed greatly as a person and a composer. While Wintory made some changes to older pieces, he generally resisted reworking music written 1 1/2 to 2 years prior, feeling the need to preserve much of the naievete and innocence of the earlier work as its own kind of "emotional arc". ---------------------------------------------------------------- TRACKLIST

  01. Nascence
  02. The Call
  03. First Confluence
  04. Second Confluence
  05. Threshold
  06. Third Confluence
  07. The Road of Trials
  08. Fourth Confluence
  09. Temptations
  10. Descent
  11. Fifth Confluence
  12. Atonement
  13. Final Confluence
  14. The Crossing
  15. Reclamation
  16. Nadir
  17. Apotheosis
  18. I Was Born For This