Composer, Orchestrator, Arranger
As a phantom presence in several amazing Video Game soundtracks over the years, I have actually never had a credit in the industry as composer proper until this very day! The album was released this morning, and the game itself will be available tomorrow on Steam.
The game is a cutesy, tongue-in-cheek little autobattler called Claws and Chaos. One of the artists brought me on because I was working on another project with her, and it was such a lovely change of pace from the other two behemoths I’ve been working on these past few years – not to mention a wonderful collaboration with great people!
I was originally asked to deliver six minutes of music, given the small scope of the game. I fell so in love with the developers and the game itself that I ended up doubling that, scoring nearly ever major cutscene in the single-player campaign as well.
This album is special to me for another reason than it simply being my first game OST as composer: I managed to rope in big names that really did not have to take the time to even notice this project, let alone work on it. One was the now industry-famous swiss army knife woodwind player Kristin Naigus. One was Austin Wintory’s multi-talented assistant Dallas Crane, who plays a mean Trumpet and Flugelhorn (he’s also comfortable improvising, which is an incredibly valuable and rare skill as a musician!). And the most insane of all was the legendary Steve Kempster, whose credits include things like Bourne films, Enemy of the State, National Treasure, Twister, Remember the Titans and Ori: Will of the Wisps. And of course, my mother plays violin, managing to hold her own even in the Jazz Improv world.
As a result of these heavy-hitters and the irreverance of the game, the album ended up an ecclectic little oddity. It often plays the straight man to the game’s zaniness, but also isn’t afraid to go full Looney-Toons with it. There’s even a Sailor-Moon-esque adaptation of the B section of the main theme as the final track, which doubles as the boss fight underscore and credit sequence.
I have more amazing things to share before the year is out, but in the meantime check out the official project/album page here! If you’re looking for more BTS material, I do have a version with commentary on youtube below.