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Rob Hubbard: “Zoids” (1986)

From the album The Sound Interface Device: Music from the Commodore 64, Vol. 1 

Although I am an enthusiastic and unabashed fan of early video game music, the role of nostalgia in the present-day appreciation of these tunes is undeniable. It’s impossible to separate the aesthetic effect of music from such games as The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, or Castlevania from its formative role in my childhood. But such music can also be enjoyed tabula rasa, as I have discovered through this wonderful four-volume collection of pieces for the Commodore 64 released by the British label Binary Zone.

Most of these pieces I’ve never heard before (with the exception of Arkanoid), and they constitute one of the most impressive collections of early video game music I’ve ever encountered. The first disc is especially good, and its highlight is this jaw-dropping theme music from the 1986 game Zoids by legendary C64 composer Rob Hubbard.

The structure of Zoids is uncomplicated: a straightforward ternary form (ABA’). But the effect of the music comes not from any sophisticated formal design, but from the perfectly paced unfolding of material which gives the piece its feeling of epic inevitability. The A section is introduced by four bars of the percussion loop that underlies the entire piece. This loop is pure ear candy for anyone who appreciates the sonic signature of 8-bit sound.

The main theme enters over a simple chord progression of G-Cm. This melody is borrowed from the track “Ancestors,” on the 1981 album Audion by Synergy, where it has a much more spacey, New Age feel. (Hubbard was apparently a big fan of this album: he also lifted the music from the song “Shibolet” for his soundtrack to the 1985 game Master of Magic.) The theme is followed by an ascending arpeggio passage based on the same harmonic progression. The main theme is then repeated, now with a different sound whose volume is modulated by a square-wave LFO, giving it a rapid on/off effect that is one of the trademark gimmicks of early video game composition.

After another apeggio passage, the B section begins with a wicked “guitar solo” played by a high square wave, complete with bends and vibrato. The solo leads the music though several modulations and a short false ending before opening onto a completely tripped out extension in which the solo voice becomes a veritable showcase for all manner of bizarre sound effects. The reappearance of the previously-heard arpeggio motive grounds the music somewhat, but overall this passage represents a daring departure from the stability of the A section, and one of the most musically adventurous gestures imaginable within the technological limits of the time.

When the main theme returns, there is a feeling of return comparable to that of the recapitulation in classical sonata form. The reprise of the A section (shortened by half) is almost a formality, but it brings the piece to a satisfying close, complete with a fadeout of the opening drum loop.

February 23, 2011, 8:00am

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David Vorhaus and Dave Bradnum: “Video Games”

From the album Sound Conjurer (1983)

Sometimes the title says it all: this homage to the unique and evocative sound world of early video games is an exemplary musical miniature, showing what can be done with an imaginative treatment of limited sonic material.  It’s a document from the heart of the so-called “Golden Age of Video Games”: 1983, a year after the release of the Commodore 64, and the year of the first incarnation of the Mario Brothers.

In 1968, David Vorhaus started the band White Noise with BBC Radiophonic Workshop alumnae Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson.  Their first album, An Electric Storm, was a fusion of rock and experimental electronics which became an underground classic.  After this debut Derbyshire and Hodgson left the band, and future White Noise albums were essentially Vorhaus solo projects.

In 1980, Vorhaus began releasing music under his own name on the KPM label. Described as “an imaginary trip into sounds real and unreal,” Sound Conjurer was made entirely on the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument, recently profiled on this blog.  The predominant character of the music is one of rather ignorable electronic soundscapes; most of the album is mid-grade library music, but there are occasional flashes of brilliance.  

Vorhaus can be seen showing off some of his equipment in an interview from the 1979 BBC documentary “The New Sound of Music.”

November 30, 2010, 9:02pm

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Martin Galway: “Theme from Arkanoid” (1987)

From the album Input 64: A Collection of Commodore 64 Game Music 1984-1989

This music has special meaning for me, as I  devoted a good portion of my teenage years to Arkanoidal studies, from the rigorous and unforgiving geometry of ball/paddle interaction to metaphysical speculations on the cryptic, existentially-fraught scenario revealed at the game’s beginning:

THE TIME AND ERA OF THIS STORY IS UNKNOWN. AFTER THE MOTHERSHIP “ARKANOID” WAS DESTROYED, A SPACECRAFT “VAUS” SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM IT. BUT ONLY TO BE TRAPPED IN SPACE WARPED BY SOMEONE……..

Arkanoid (which the vulgar confuse with an earlier game, “Breakout”) was for me an alchemical ladder whose every rung represented a new purification of mind.  The asymptotic goal of this spiritual regimen was an absolute unity of forms, in which the player becomes the paddle, and the paddle becomes the ball.

All this makes my later discovery of this music the more serendipitous, as in my memory of the game there is no music, but rather a vast, capacious silence like that of outer space.  And though my first video game memories are of the Commodore 64, I discovered Arkanoid only much later, on a PC Nintendo emulator.

The C64 sound chip became a legend and lives on in the present.  Listen to this music and hear why.

September 26, 2009, 11:21am

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Yellow Magic Orchestra: “Rydeen”

From the album Solid State Survivor (1979)

Yellow Magic Orchestra represents a Japanese take on the fully synthetic, drum-machine driven style of music that emerged in the 1970s and was represented by Kraftwerk, Cerrone, Giorgio Moroder, and early Human League, among others.

YMO has a strong dramatic sensibility that is missing in much other music of this genre, which can easily meld into a pleasantly repetitive sonic wallpaper.  Their music also features a tunefulness uncommon to the loop-based productions of the period.

As “Rydeen” demonstrates, YMO forms one of the secret influences behind the “golden age” of video game music (c. 1980-1992), before the style became hackneyed and game companies started importing ready to hand pop songs.

August 05, 2009, 3:18pm