Arrangement of the Week: Faster Than Rock

We’ve covered a lot of classic game tunes on Arrangement of the Week. Today we’re going to switch it up and take a look at a remix of an indie game soundtrack. If you’ve payed attention to the independent games world, you’ll have undoubtably heard of the space strategy game FTL (Faster Than Light). The game’s electronic centric score was composed by Ben Prunty, who has since then worked on a handful of other sci-fi games like Star Crawlers and Gravity Ghost.

This week’s selection is a rock arrangement of “Space Cruise,” the main title theme for FTL. The artist for this arrangement is Little V, aka James Mills. In addition to creating rock arrangements, he also reviews guitar and music gear. Be sure to check that out on his YouTube page if you have the chance.

When I first saw that this was a rock remix, I was honestly expecting to hear a very heavy rock mix. However this arrangement is surprisingly light in terms of its tone. The piece opens up with mellow electronic pads, along with some clean electric guitar chords and arpeggios. Light drum beats and an electric bass also come in, building up the mix but still maintaining the ambient rock tone. At the 0’55” mark the first instance of a distorted guitar comes into play, adding a more metal sound to the arrangement.

Even at its bigger and heavier rock moments, the ambient synth textures still play a role. They blend quite well with the electric guitars and help connect the rock sections with the quieter moments. There’s a nice little break at around 2’17”, where the electronic pads and the guitar play out some more chilled out tones, before returning to the main theme. Overall it’s a great arrangement, creating a unique combination of ambient synth textures with the more aggressive sounds of heavy metal.

Have you heard any cool arrangements, covers, or remixes of FTL’s music? Tell us about them in the comment section below. You can check out Little V’s “Faster Than Rock” on Soundcloud, OC ReMix, and on YouTube.