Enh, I just don’t find it very interesting.
I love Soule when he’s doing something exciting. His Total Annihilation score is perfect from top to bottom
Exactly. The nominated track is one of the least exciting on the whole album.
Never played Morrowind, and find the track super evocative, which scores infinitely more points than anything trying to merely attract attention.
Fuck. Yes.
Agreed.
Don’t think so, sadly.
Are you sure you didn’t just turn it off? It has some amazing themes, some of which I’m hearing in my head even as I write this, though I haven’t even touched the game in months.
Like the one that starts playing about 47 seconds in here (sorry, can’t remember how to do the timestamp thing):
What I love the most about that theme is the simple start with violins and piano, then getting the plucked cello or bass echo of it, then the flutes take it up.
I like the music in ED. There will be domes a plenty to nominate it (I hope)!
Heheh, yeah, that was me too this morning. I sleepily loaded the page up and just played Caprice over breakfast, skipping Disco Descent. Lovely.
I’m a big fan of textural and evocative ambient music and I’m glad to see something like Caprice getting this far. While it might not move my body like more ‘exciting’ music does, it moves my mind. Caprice embodies the quieter feeling of exploring and being in the world, like From Past To Present does in Skyrim, more than the main themes do (which evoke perhaps the grander journey overall). They take me places. Hell, they make me want to play Elder Scrolls games before I catch myself and remember how much I don’t like them.
Vigil is the other standout ambient piece for me here, and the vocal-less version of Glass (despite having heard neither before). May more ambient music enter the thunderdome in future!
I’ve got to say, after hearing the Soweto Gospel Choir version of Baba Yetu, the male vocal section from 0:55-1:10 sounds so flat to me. It sticks out every time. So in this instance, with Phendrana in the other corner… I’m fruitlessly voting against Tin.
Right click any YouTube video, even one like this one playing embedded. “Copy video URL at current time.”
Thanks for the tip, but it’s there something you can use when using your phone?
I don’t know if there’s a tool, but it’s pretty easy to just copy the URL and then add ‘&t=0m47s’ on the end of it.
For mine I click through until I see a big red play button for YouTube play. Then click and hold and I get those same options, so you can copy the URL with current time.
I find quieter, simpler music far less engaging sans context. A roaring orchestral swell sorta announces itself to the world, while a thoughtful and somber composition that might have elevated a powerful moment in a game, or provided a much needed sonic counterpoint in a longer album/track, will often just fail to engage me on its own without something else notable to recommend it.
I admit this is a failing on my part :-)
I will just interject that ‘quieter’ and ‘simpler’ don’t necessarily go hand in hand!
As for Crypt vs. Morrowind/Caprice, I think those little blip-arpeggiation hooks tipped the scale. Sorry, Jeremy!
I agree, but sometimes there’s music that’s perfect while you’re playing the game but is no great shakes “standalone” so to speak.
This is true and I feel like it’s a judgment call whether to demand ‘standalone’ quality in a contest like this. It’s a bit tricky of course because great game music can evoke memories of the game where one encountered it, which is part of the pleasure.
Absolutely, yeah. Actually when I tossed in simple, I was kinda thinking about “To Zanarkand,” my perennial favorite “quiet meandering track whose emotional heft is bolstered by the gameplay moment it highlights” song that recently got knocked out of the competition. Not to say that it’s a bad composition at all; it’s really quite lovely in its way. But it’s also not a demonstration of extreme technical skill or complexity, nor is it especially demanding of your attention. It plinks away sadly, easy to roll right off of, unless you’re given extra reason to care.
And that’s sort of how I feel about the “Caprice” track. I’ve tried to get into it a half dozen times over the course of the competition, and every single time, my brain just slides off the side of the music and I completely lose interest.
Which, as a big Soule fan, feels weird to me. But there’s just nothing to hook my particular sensibilities into diving more deeply into the track, either in its composition or in my memories associated with it (which are none; I spent less than an hour with Morrowind before getting confused, then frustrated, then bored).