Aftermath

@simonvolpert@twitter.com 2015-03-29 18:12:28:

This track was conceived as a potential idea for the backing track for the pre-Kickstarter teaser video for Jupiter Hell.³

Fortunately for the latter, a much better backing track was composed, thus rendering my concept obsolete. Still, good ideas have difficulty dying for good, and soon enough i heard in my mind what the end product might sound if the concept was built upon.

The composition did not go without incident:

Does one have to become a sound technician to get the right guitar sound from his softstudio? I want to make music, not design waveforms!

Eventually, this was sorted, and i did end up designing a sound effect anyway, as well as making greater use of sound effects in general.

The release was delayed due to a serious bug in the studio software, lying practically ready in the projects directory, but once the issue was resolved, the release happened practically on the same day.

This was also the first time i painfully realized (though, of course, the idea itself was not new to me) that some of my efforts are completely lost when listening to my music on crappy laptop speakers. A second revision of the track was released shortly after to address this issue, using the opportunity to examine if any other tracks suffer from the same problem.

02 - Blood Shall Be Shed (7:28)

Released 2015-03-09.

This track was suggested by Kornel Kisielewicz for one of his smaller games, Berserk! "a game of tactical bloodshed" (the domain for the game went down at some point and never came back up afterwards). The IRC conversation went:

(2012-03-31 18:58:08) epyon: Simon-v: you think you could do a piece for berserk? doesn't have to be very original

(2012-03-31 19:00:07) Game_Hunter: I guess if Simon's gonna make a Berserk song, just ONE song, he oughta make it very loopable and listenable.

(2012-03-31 19:03:55) Simon-v: It's going to be HARD. I'm not sure i'll be able to pull it off.

(2012-03-31 19:05:03) Simon-v: I don't even know what it sounds like.

Admitteldy, up to the point, i've only played the game once or twice and have never gotten around to reading the manga or watching the series on which the game is based. Still, giving a listen to the series' soundtrack (to see if anything suitable already existed) convinced me that what i was seeing on the screen while playing was not being done sufficient justice. Indeed, any amount of demon slaying in open spaces that paints the ground red deserves a heroic orchestral arrangement, doesn't it?

Well, this is the result.

The composition process was long and troubled, practically stopping for years to make way to the development of the DoomRL album and real life. Still, it appears that Kornel never really stopped hoping that it would happen someday, for which i am grateful.

Much like the battle in the game, the track starts relatively slow and quiet, then gradually builds up towards a medium-scale hurricane.

A "patched" version was released a few months later, addressing a mastering issue that only manifested when listening to the track on low-quality earphones.

03 - Dark (5:22)

Released 2014-12-29.

@simonvolpert@twitter.com 2015-02-27 07:57:09:

Originally, this track was intended for AliensRL,⁴ another game from ChaosForge.

AliensRL is not DoomRL. It has a different dynamic. In DoomRL you run around guns-a-blazing and can reasonably hope to be able to wipe out everything that is foolish enough to stand in your way. In AliensRL, you are alone, up against overwhelming force that will have no difficulty to wipe the floor with you many times over, a swarm that will utterly demolish you if you attract too much attention. Your main tactics are evasion and stealth, as you try to gather just about enough weapons, ammo and items to survive the next few fights.

In AliensRL, the game wants you to be paranoid. My idea was to help a little.

The style of the music reflects this dynamic. It is slow, dark, ambient, with sounds and noises sprinkled here and there. I knew i am doing something right when the following happened:

Prolonged listening to the track i'm working on is giving me auditory hallucinations. Perfect!

Then, life happened, and the project got put on hold. I only returned to it when a switch in the music production software provoked me to examine my drafts again; And, sure enough, with a few tweaks here and there, the track seemed good enough to be released on its own.

04 - Fear (3:56)

Released 2020-12-19.

@epyoncf@twitter.com 2020-12-20 05:22:30:

Originally, this track was intended as the track for the Spider's Lair special level of DoomRL, but, for reasons too boring to list here, was never finished.

I always knew what this track should sound like, but could never figure out how to actually reach this sounding. It took years upon years of listening to various kinds of music before all parts finally clicked into place.

Like the target level, it starts with a strong, aggressive intro (representing finding yourself in a hall surrounded by mechanical spiders), then fades into a more reserved, but still menacing two-verse and chorus pattern (representing taking cover behind a wall to pick your targets one by one, with the spiders occasionally teleporting behind you). All in all, i feel the track does the level justice, especially if played on repeat.

Kornel approved.

Holy shit, he's back....

The composer for all the original DoomRL tracks suddenly came back from the shadows. Does that mean we should do an unexpected DoomRL release?

05 - Console Rush (3:39)

Released 2022-05-28.

I missed making music, that's all i can say.

This track is inspired by the "CalSec" special levels of Jupiter Hell. It has me experimenting with the drum patterns, something i was always struggling with. The "chorus" sections use a chaotic sequence of bells and cymbals, creating an impression of numerous mechanical footsteps. The orchestral parts are restricted to the final section of the track, the one where you reach the terminal and frantically type in the shutdown commands, ducking under the machinegun fire from the security bots. Once i got the track's basic structure right, it was pretty much done, and i proceeded to throw away all unused draft chunks, leaving only what was strictly necessary.

While the result might not be one of my strongest works to date, it's still pretty solid.

A second version was eventually released to address a few issues that have been bothering me since the initial release, as well as to give the aforementioned final, orchestral section a bit more volume.

06 - Watching the Electronic Sky (6:01)

Released 2023-03-18.

This track was originally intended to be something between the Geoscape theme from the original X-Com and the UNATCO theme from the original Deus Ex, but two minutes in, it unexpectedly developed a character and a personality of its own and started resisting any attempts to bend or mess with its internal consistency.

The track is a fully electronic piece, upbeat, but unhurried, a perfect fit for long nights of watching the radars, waiting for something to happen, and fearing that it does.

The spectrum analyzer output for this track is pleasant to look at as well.

07 - Space Junk (9:20)

Released 2024-01-03.