Artist: Austin Wintory
Album: Journey
Release: 2012/04/10
Genres: #orchestra
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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 ThisThe Journey Soundtrack has the positive quality of still eliciting emotion from a person, even when separated from the experience of the media it is connected to. This is no small feat. Soundtracks have a delicate balancing act to perform in terms of making sure that the music makes sense in the context of the movie, TV show, or game, while also being memorable in its own right. This is not always done properly, and one almost always takes favor over the other. The songs in Journey, however, do both with aplomb. Each track carries a definite theme, and put together, the songs are a journey in and of themselves. The Skopje Radio Symphonic Orchestra effectively carries the emotional tone of a monomyth, from the call to adventure, represented (quite literally) in The Call, to the mastery of two worlds, represented by the track I Was Born For This, with beautiful lyrics by Lisbeth Scott.
The first few tracks are primarily the Confluences. The Confluences are a very interesting style of tracks. With each Confluence, there is a build-up in the instrumentals, signifying how near we are to the end of our Journey. Of particular note is the way the Third Confluence segues into The Road of Trials, my favorite track, simultaneously being tied to my favorite scene in the game. The Road of Trials is exhilarating, and its own miniature Journey. But my favorite transition comes from the switch from Nadir to Apotheosis, the penultimate track of the album. If you can't feel yourself drained by Nadir's harsh strings, only to be emotionally rejuvenated by the uplifting tone of Apotheosis, then I am afraid you have no heart.
The flute motif is the final notable aspect of the Journey soundtrack. It ties the album together nicely, a reminder of the origins of the journey's story, in a way. The Journey soundtrack is a great representation of the quintessential Hero's Journey in musical form. It is an emotional album, simultaneously quiet, while also being a passionate force. It will stay in my musical library for a long time to come.
This is the soundtrack to the videogame journey right? because i absolutely adore the game, i havent listened to the soundtrack yet but il probably get around to it in the next few days
No problem man, i really want this to take off again!
I was going to do College Dropout by Kanye West, but I figured I should do something with broader appeal to get people back into this before I start doing shit like that, haha. Anyways, I see the format is being poor at the moment, but Hubski is loading slowly for me, so I will have to fix it later. If you wish to stick with the discussion, I suggest sticking this post.