Reflections on the Slipways OST

Last week I released the entire Slipways OST on YouTube.  I was inspired to include some in-depth musings about each track as I released them. I’m posting them here (and added some more details!) so Patrons don’t have to go searching through my Twitter feed :)

Here’s where you can listen/buy/download:

• Bandcamp
• Steam (bundled with the game)
• YouTube (playlist with individual tracks)
• YouTube (full album)

We’re talking about putting it on some streaming services (ie. Spotify). But I still need to figure that out.... hopefully soon!

Possibilities

The first song in the soundtrack is the game’s title music. Obviously, meant to convey a “world opening” feeling, hence the gradual introduction of instruments & layers. One of the tightest compositions in the soundtrack, compared to the others which are more ambient, in-game loops.  Actually, this song originally had an ending, but Jakub recommended it fading out without resolving.  This was a great call – it adds mystery, and makes everything seem more unsettled.

The two-note motif is really handy in creating metric & harmonic deception. I’ve used it before in a jazz composition I write years ago called Skeleton Key.

This music also includes most (if not all) of the instruments I use throughout the soundtrack (my orchestra!) – piano, pads, drums, theremin-like instrument etc.

The Big Calm

This was the first thing I wrote for the game - a short in-game ambient loop played at the start of the game when the player is first building & exploring. So it’s meant to sound big and spacious.

I wrote this before Jakub and I knew how the music would interact with the game. It’s based on a 5-step chord progression, each conveying a different mode. Originally, my intention was to expand on each mode depending on how the player advances through the game.

We didn’t end up using that kind of music implementation due to unnecessary complexity, but these chords are heard frequently throughout the soundtrack, especially when I stitch different compositions together.

This track also features the first instrument I designed for the game.  I knew I wanted the piano to be featured in the soundtrack.  First because it’s my main instrument, and second because it’s nostalgic, which I think is an emotional trigger in space exploration – yearning for home!

But space exploration is also about futurism. So I set out to design an electronically manipulated piano.  In the foreground are the main chords/pads, but in the background you can hear subtle piano “pings.”  This are also complemented by “reversed pings” which were sampled from the original piano sound. These were fed into a MIDI machine that combined randomness, arpeggiation, and various intervals (mostly perfect 5ths).

Taming the Void

Player advancement represents 1 of 4 music loops each with different energy levels. The trick was finding the right balance between ambient music (open, unexplored space) & structured composition (developed, colonized empire), all while still chill & relaxing.

Jakub and I started using the term “drifting tune” to represent how ambient music might evolve to and from a structured composition. In this track, there are two drifting tunes stitched together with ambient sections to create a longer composition.

In this image, you can clearly see the looped form, including bits of the 5-step progression from the previous track:

Going Places

At this point in the game, the music is moving away from ambient textures and has more emphasis on structured composition.  More layers, more pulsing, more drums, faster tempos, key changes, etc.

You can even SEE how this track is more complex than the previous.  There are two “drifting tunes” in this track, but stitched together with more active ambient sections (which start around measures 93 and 185) Because of the track’s complexity, I abandoned the colour coding that I used to label my 5 chords, but they’re in there!

Months ago, when Jonathan Blow was playing the Beta on stream, he thought one of the drifting tunes sounded like a Nine Inch Nails song. For the record, I haven’t checked out NIN yet, but it’s now on my list!

Golden Age

This track represents the height of your Slipways empire. It’s all one long composition, no more ambient/drifting tune interactions. Transitions between sections use harmonic, textural & metric shifts to keep pacing. I couldn’t rely on ambience to fill the …erm… ‘space.’

Rhythmic “Pulsing” is a one way I differentiate between ambient & compositional music. This pulsing comes from the Minimalist traditions of Steve Reich, Phillip Glass & John Adams - Pulsing in 12/8 can be subdivided in many different ways. Changing those subdivisions creates a useful point of contrast in this track.

0:00-1:30 - One of the 1st things I wrote for the game but as unreleased trailer music. We salvaged this composition, chopped it up, & used it as “highlight music” for when a player achieves a major goal. Eventually it was repurposed AGAIN as trailer music. It's interesting how the business of games, marketing, & release schedules can impact music composition.

2:10-3:20 - I originally included a variation of the title music in this track to create unity in the music & game. But it was TOO reminiscent & didn’t make it into the game. But it's in the soundtrack. The function of music on soundtrack albums is different than in games.

9:45-10:35 - One of the best parts of writing Slipways music was working with Jakub who has keen ears & gives excellent feedback.  If I wrote something using odd-time signatures (5/4, 7/4) there was a 95% chance I’d get the feedback “needs more chill” or something else exactly right. I say 95% because I slipped this one by him muhahaha.

Rise

This is actually all of the in-game music transitioning in sequence. The Big Calm -> Taming the Void -> Going Places -> Golden Age.  There are two reasons why I wanted to include this in the soundtrack: 1st is to support different modes of listening. The soundtrack is very modular in this way.

The 2nd reason is more selfish. I’m fascinated with “mirror form” or “arch form.” I first encountered the term when studying Steve’s Reich’s minimalist music.

In my experience, if used literally, arch form on a note-to-note micro level isn’t very interesting to listeners. The concept doesn’t translate. On a macro level though, arch form can be extremely effective when building SECTIONS of music. This is akin to a “there-and-back-again” journey.  I’m most interested in how it creates the feeling of “returning from where you started,” regardless of it being symmetrical or not.

Slipways has a natural progression, it’s inherent in the game design. The game music complements this.  For the soundtrack though, I wanted to mirror that progression and try to reverse it. Regression. Sequencing all the Slipways tracks together, smoothly transitioning them all into each other was the only way for me to fully realize the upward arch. 32:00 is the start of the downward arch. Hardly symmetrical. But still “returning from where it started.”

I would have loved to make it MORE symmetrical, but that would have been unnecessarily bulky.  That would be like reading The Hobbit, but it’s double the length, and the Battle of the Five Armies is in the middle.  I think arch form is a good starting point for expressing the concept “returning from where it started.” Practically speaking though, most uses are better off asymmetrical. Like Escher’s Metamorphosis.

Speaking of which, “returning from where it started” and specifically Escher’s Metamorphosis was the main inspiration behind me writing this MilkyTracker album