Today i came across an awe-inspiring find; Garry Schyman's ominous score for BIOSHOCK 2, a newly released first-person shooter video game on the PC, Xbox360 and Playstation 3.
Quoting from wikipedia on the game's storyline, we learn that the game is set in fictional dystopian city Rapture in alternative history 1968, eight years after the events of the first BioShock, also scored by Garry Schyman. The protagonist and player-controlled character is a Big Daddy, a being that has had its organs and skin grafted into an atmospheric diving suit. Among the first of its kind, the player-controlled Big Daddy reactivates with no recollection of the past decade's events, and scours the city in a vain attempt to relocate the Little Sister that he was paired with. When it becomes obvious that Rapture's leader Sofia Lamb will become responsible for the city's destruction, the Big Daddy attempts to overthrow Lamb and her army of Big Sisters.
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Composing for modern mediums rarely gets better than this; with massively dark orchestral textures and a wholly organic whole led by the devilish violin tunes performed spectacularly by violinist Martin Chalifour, Garry's on top form with this.
Granted it won't appeal to everyone, with its eclectic and complex musical stylings, still the genius of mixing the styles and bringing out such a b-r-i-l-l-i-a-n-t sound from the orchestra, is evident in this. There's the pitch-black vast wall of sound created by a massive team of string, woodwinds and particularly brass with their metallic clusters. There's dissonant and rhythmic writing, unsettling choir a la Goldenthal, Elfman-esque violin lines, cello and sax soli, at times resembling TITUS by an afore-mentioned Mister, inspired female vocals and even film noir, this is easily one of the most impressive musical works i've heard for any medium, in many years.
Bravo!
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The score's only available for those who buy the special edition of the game so far, but stay tuned as a release of the score alone might be announced at a point.
Here's some info, photos and sound samples as quoted from the composer's informative official website at: http://www.garryschyman.com/
"February 9, 2010
I am pleased to announce that two projects for which I provided scores are coming out today Tuesday.
Dante's Inferno and BioShock 2 are both available today and I am very proud of both scores.
I am also please to say that reviewers and the developers I have worked with have been very generous in their reaction to my music in both.
A small sampling: Destructoid Interview: The Music of Bioshock 2: http://www.destructoid.com/destructoid-interview-the-music-of-bioshock-2-162931.phtml
Original Sound Version: Review of Dante's Inferno Score http://www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=7400 And some photos from the
BioShock 2 session: http://www.scoringsessions.com/news/197
The Dante's Inferno score is available on iTunes and Amazon MP3 .
The BioShock 2 score is only available to those who buy the special edition of the game for now."
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