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Isn’t it fun to make up scientific claims? Fake science is something I love, and that’s why I loved the game SpaceChem It’s all about taking the basics of chemistry, bastardizing it, and turning it into a logistics-puzzle-game-from-hell.
The soundtrack for this indie game (available on PC and iPad) comes from humble roots. The composer, Evan LE NY, was discovered by game creator Zach Barth when Zach was trying to find some fitting music for his unique puzzle games. He stumbled upon Evan’s work through Jamendo [2], a haven for demoscene artists who are in it solely to experiment and, perhaps, get their name out there. No money changes hands, and all music can be used freely. Creative Commons and all that.
After using some of Evan’s tracks on previous games, Zach asks Evan to do an original score for a new game. The result is the epic, thematic score for SpaceChem. And now one more person (me) has learned of a virtually unknown French music prodigy.
Like much of the music I’ve been listening to lately, this soundtrack is free, so download it [3] and listen along while we take the music into further consideration.
Sci-fi space opera fantasy time. That’s the best string of words I can come up with to summarize this music.
Let’s start at track 5, “Discovery.” Like many of the other tracks, the instrumentation here is as follows: large string section, looped synth percussion, piano, and some ethereal space-y sounds. We’re moving along with a pretty consistent sound and dynamic, and then *bam!* the brass hits hard at the 1 minute mark. Evan then adds a synth choir, in a way that I find reminiscent of Motoi Sakuraba’s “Sacred Song” from Star Ocean: The Second Story, at around 90 seconds. Then, at 2 minutes, the entire song changes. This B section sounds like a “prepare your party” song for a Tactics-esque game. The harp, wind chimes, and female choir all suggest a high-spirited adventure is about to take place. Then, at 3 minutes, the music grounds itself back with the more serious string theme from earlier, but now without the constant percussion. Loop back to the start, rinse and repeat (for about 2 hours while you’re trying to solve a hellish Chemistry problem, if listening in-game).
Much like my friend Josh Whelchel [4], it seems Evan LE NY has mastered the art of combining 19th and 20th century orchestral sounds with the modern synthesized soundscape available thanks to computer technology. He also knows how to milk a recurring theme. Listen in track 7, “A New World.” Hear those triplets in the background? Or how about that upbeat B section?! Yeah, it’s all varied enough to technically be a new song, but you can tell the themes of this whole soundtrack are grounded in very consistent, basic ideas.
Fans of bell-heavy rhythmic complexity will find a lot to love in this soundtrack, especially in tracks like “Under Construction” and “Some Elements.” Syncopation is fun, people. Support syncopation.
I can’t imagine liking this soundtrack as much as I do if I didn’t let the music grow on me during many hours of gameplay (well-documented in my gushing Gameosaurus interview with Zach Barth [5]), but that doesn’t mean the music can’t hold up on its own. As background listening, or perhaps even intentful “foreground” listening, Evan’s score for SpaceChem is a mini-masterpiece.