when Yang Scott Wilkinson, the band's frontman previously known as British sea power, was first asked to work on the soundtrack for a video game, he was skeptical. “We didn't know much about the game, but it seems our manager Dave thinks there's something interesting about this Robert guy who made him a pleasant hound,” he says. It was Estonian novelist Robert Kruvitz, a member of a team just beginning an esoteric video game job about an alcoholic police officer trying to solve murders in a poor part of a war-torn country. The game is Disco Elysium and is now considered one of the best brain role-playing games of all time.
Kurvitz is Sea Power Superfan. If you choose a random scene from the game, some ocean power references will be available. Wilkinson tells me that Kluvitz is “full of fascinating and bubbly passion,” and that he knows the unsettling number of “strange details about our music.” Kluvitz had already embedded some of these “very vague” sea force references into the world of Disco Elysium before they met. Whether the band liked it or not, they were already caught up in this quirky Estonian world.
“[Disco Elysium] Wilkinson regrets. “It was weird, messed up, messed up, messed up, messed up, messed up… Kruvitz seemed to have made the usual myth.”
The game is about the perennial pull between fascism and communism. Police violence; the importance of communities in the face of state oppression. Alcoholism; homosexuality; the politics of poverty. And a real, small, pixel-sized hole. It directed the power of the ocean towards the ground. After all, the band was writing music about the slow and dangerous collapse of the planet as the ice shelves slipped into the sea. Orkney had a gloomy, reflective track about obscure waters. They waxed lyrically about the virtue of being an EU citizen (naturally pre-Brexit). The band has always embraced the miserable along with the beautiful. Wilkinson is especially complemented by the game's “strange sense of humor.”
The first meeting between them took place in Birmingham. “Birmingham is a strange place. Its own world. Its character is very strong,” reflects Wilkinson. “perhaps [Kurvitz] Have you ever been to Alan Moore for a magical blessing? [To meet us] It's a spiritual home of heavy metal and Shire Tolkien's inspiration… it seems oddly fitting. I had never thought about it before. “
New to the world of video games, Sea Power took direction from Kurvitz, who was caught up in a pool of tides of his vision for most of the project. Wilkinson says Kluvitz has a plan and “a gross knowledge of the album and the unusual EPS and B-side.” So much of the game's songs come from existing ocean powertracks, reworked, remixed, and recoded, combined with watercolors that define the declined world of disc erythium.
“Thinking about that, some of the tracks we used in the game continued their presence on the next album,” says Wilkinson. “So working on the game not only pulled from our past, it also impacted our future.”
Disco Elysium's songs are stripped away, exposing core melodies and are a little less dense than what you've heard on a standard Sea Power album. There are fewer vocal melodies, longer, more dreamy sequences. The explicit story is stripped away, and you are left with a soundscape, a painting by Turner as a song. “In general, songs had to be distilled into a basic mood that suited the scene. They're going to abolish those that were competing with that mood and usually add a bit of a dreamy liminal threat,” says Wilkinson.
“There's so much dialogue and the visuals do a lot, so music really needs to reach into the subconscious and open the gates of the mind, helping the brain absorb words and images and get them completely immersed. And it was artistically fun… I love creating textures of atmosphere and sounds just as much as writing choruses and words. Maybe sometimes.”
Sea Power is also working on the film's soundtrack, calling the fictional 1934 Irish documentary Man of Aran. This is an experience that will help Wilkinson know what to expect from creating a soundtrack for the game, despite some important differences.
“The game is a little more comfortable when it comes to timing,” he says. “When you use a movie, you know exactly that hitting clues is often important and different moods need to change direction. It can be more mathematical. This game required a more general mood texture to sit behind the scenes and melt and enhance the senses of different regions of the world. I'm definitely going to work on more games. I love games like Disco Elysium, but it's very rare.”
This spring, Sea Power is embarking on a mini tour called Soundtracks Live. The set features various tracks from different Disco Elysium songs, Man of Allan soundtrack works, and other documentary feature films from the ocean to the land beyond. Wilkinson is excited about the prospect of performing these tracks live, especially for the audience of Disco Elysium fans.
“Since then, we have achieved remarkable growth in our listeners. [the game was released]” he says. “They look like a cool, thoughtful bunch, these disco erythium players. They're grateful. The strange drunken detective was spotted along the crash barrier of the gig.”
The relationship between disco erythium and the power of the sea was symbiotic. They have given each other new lives. Sea Power has found bulging in listeners as a result of the game, and existing Sea Power fans have discovered a new love for video games as a result of their collaboration. And relationships are still evolving.
“In our first meeting, [Kurvitz] He said he was working very hard to reorder the tracklist for our album Valhalla Dancehall,” Wilkinson smiles. “Hmm, Valhalla Dancehall, Disco Elysium… Are there any links?” The band is currently considering this revised tracklist for the album's anniversary reissue. “He's extremely talented and intelligent, too, too, all the core creators of the game. I don't think that through the game, many people don't realize that nods to the world of ocean power. When it became a huge hit all over the world, it was strange, and we were proud to be part of that story.
“And of course, he nods, “We then got the Bafta.
Source: www.theguardian.com
