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"Vengeance From On High"
This is one of my favorite of the pieces underscoring the aerial battles in Crimson Skies.
It was part of the interactive music design that all battle pieces would break down in terms of tonality at the end so that they could be followed by any other piece of music which would be either randomly or programmatically selected by the game's audio engine.
"Night Battle Over Chicago"
This piece strongly suggests two of most prominent historical music influences for this game score. They were Erich Von Korngold's scores for the Erroll Flynn swashbucklers, and Igor Stravinsky's "Symphony in Three Movements," which according to his memoirs, was influenced by the rise of fascism in the 1930's.
"Fortune Hunters... Aloft!"
"Fortune Hunters" is the name of the Crimson Skies hero's band of airborne pirates.
"The Battle For Europe"
This is an excerpt from the underscore for the game's opening video.
This music starts with a downed WWII pilot behind emeny lines, then a flashback to a British mission control center, followed by the hero's takeoff. Then there's a sudden dogfight in which the hero's buddy is killed. The hero responds by angrily shooting down the enemy, briefly mourning the death of his friend, and then pulling it together to take out a bridge. In the last sequence, he is pursued by a jet-propelled German flying wing. It ends with logo and the main theme motif re-stated.
Flight Simulator X:
"Emergency Response"
This piece is for the User Setup screen in the Emergency Response section. It's designed to loop indefinitely, although here it fades out shortly after the beginning of the second iteration.
Flight Simulator X
"Pilot For Hire"
This piece is for the User Setup screen in the Pilot For Hire section. It's designed to loop indefinitely, although here it fades out shortly after the beginning of the second iteration.
Links 2004
"Trophies For All"
Heroic sports theme was created for a PC-based golfing game.
"Reflections On A Glorious Day"
Friends gathered at the 19th hole. A tale is told; the glory relived.
"Champion Strut - Brisk"
Behold the glory of computer-simulated golf! You can almost smell the freshly-mown grass.
"March Of The Club-Wielding Sportsmen"
Music to accompany your victorious strut to the legendary 19th hole. Swagger on!
"Champagne With A Twist"
In this scene, what promises to be a very romantic evening ends with the girl stealing the secret plans and then slipping out of the window to escape in a waiting zeppelin.
"Flyboy, Herschel Flyboy"
In this scene, our hero meets the love interest for the first time. After brief flirtatious introductions, they are immediately strafed and bombed.
As you may have guessed, they narrowly escape.
"Inside The Ruins / Hot Lead And Conversation"
Here our hero sneaks into the villain's secret lair. Then, after witnessing a dastardly deed, he engages the villain in a round of gunplay interspersed with expository dialogue.
Then there's an innocent death, and the scene ends with almost everyone escaping before a volcano blows the whole place sky high.
"Doc Makes Mucho Wind"
After a brief mysterious beginning, this scene consists of a long-winded exposition where Doc tells the story of the development of a secret device capable of creating violent storms.
As usually happens with such devices, it has fallen into the wrong hands.
"Arixo Sunset"
This is one of the more ambient "flying around" pieces to be used when the player is not engaged in battle.
The title is taken from a desert in New Mexico where part of the story takes place.
"Could She Be The One? (She Certainly Flys Well)"
This is another of the ambient "flying around" pieces.
The title comes from the notion of our hero and his love interest sharing a romantic flight with their two planes gracefully weaving together in an aerobatic arabesque.
"Crimson Are The Skies"
This piece is the game's main introductory piece which plays when the player is on the main setup screen.
"They Do Look Like Little Ants"
This is another of the "flying around" ambient pieces.
The title reflects a well-documented aeronautic phenomenon which I personally have experienced.
"Cold Cock"
This is one of the five "Vibramax" tracks that was licensed for use in the Project Gotham racing game. It was edited together from a couple live recordings of Jerry Schroeder and I doing our improvised electronica thing. Typically, our tracks tend to be long free-flowing pieces that last around 20 to 30 minutes. But for this project, we edited things down more tightly to create a frenetic pace.
"Grey Matter"
This is an excerpt from another "Vibramax" piece that was used in Project Gothem Racing.
Flight Simulator X:
"Bush Flying"
Wide open spaces stretching on forever, remote cultures, a funky groove and not a verb is sight. This piece is designed to loop indefinitely as the user chooses the parameters of a bush flying experience in Flight Simulator X. Here though, the music fades out shortly after the beginning of the second iteration.
The trumpet player is Steve Mostovoy, the soprano sax near the end is David Henry and the spacy pedal steel guitar is Dan Tyack.
Flight Simulator X:
"Sport Flying"
This is an excerpt from the piece used for the User Setup screen in the Sports Flying section of Flight Simulator X. It's designed to loop indefinitely until the user completes his or her choices. In this example, it fades out shortly after the beginning of the second iteration of the loop. The trumpet player was Steve Mostovoy.
"Velkommen"
This piece originally appeared in version 3 of Microsoft's "Internet Starter Kit." It was intended for people who might have some trepidation about going online and about using computers in general. The idea was to make them feel like the internet was a warm and friendly place.
I guess it serves a similar function as the setup music for Windows XP Home version.
"The Secret of Modern Propaganda"
Believe it or not, this piece was actually created in for a Microsoft Human Resources recruiting video! It's also been used in some subsequent Microsoft promotional videos.
It was a collaborative effort in 1996 between myself and Jerry Schroeder of Steel Porn Rhino and Vibramax fame.
"The Known World In Thirty Seconds Or Less"
I did the splash screen music for the Encarta products from around 1996 through 2003 or so. From '96 to '99, we took the cultural collage approach, combining musical styles from around the world into a musical collage of 30 seconds or less. Later, from the the 2000 versions on, we started using a short musical branding logo approach. But this piece is from the earlier collage period, and it's still one of my favorites.
The vocalist on this piece is Anisa Romero of Sky Cries Mary.
"The World In Your Eyes"
This piece was originally created as the score for the Dallas Video Festival's animated video intro. It has since been used in a number of other projects including Diamar's "Understanding Photography" CD-ROM and R.E.I.'s employee recruiting and orientation videos.
"Shantha's Year To Sing"
For this track, I had a local singer named Shantha Benegal and her friend, Annie Penta, sing a traditional Hindu folk tune over my rhythm track. Then I added the other instruments.
The pedal steel guitar was played by Dan Tyack, formerly of "Asleep at the Wheel."
"Orange Man of Sumatra"
This piece is from the score for a nature photography documentary entitled "Art Wolfe: The Living Wild." It's from a sequence on photographing orangutans in Indonesia. The title comes from the translation of the word orangutan, which I'm told means "orange man."
"Music Central Montage"
This piece was used as the basis for the launch video montage for Music Central '97.
Some of the performers include Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, a doo-wop group known as The Main Attractions, Barry Curtis of the Kingsmen, Brian Pertl of the Didjeri Dudes.
"Drive This!"
This piece was created to underscore the video intro to "NBA Inside Drive," which was developed by High Voltage Software and published by Microsoft.
For the 2003 version, we created several remixes of this piece.
"Nothing But Net"
This piece is an excerpt from one of the featured player videos in Microsoft's "Complete NBA Basketball Guide."
"Oh Yeah! Yes! Yes! Yes!"
This was the splash screen intro music for Microsoft's "Complete NBA Basketball." The idea was to emphasize the span of time from basketball's early days to the present.
"Cartoon Mayhem: Space Age No. 1"
This is the demo version of a piece was written for a game called "Cartoon Mayhem" that was to be published by Microsoft. The music style was going to be various kinds of campy '60s styles including Space Age Bachelor Pad, Spaghetti Western, Munsters surf boogie, etc.
Microsoft eventually chose not to publish the game and so my music never saw the light of day... until now.
"Paperwork Blizzard"
This piece was the underscore for an Eastman Software product promotional video in which a company takes on a complicated project that starts off smoothly enough, but soon becomes a nightmare chaos of paperwork and mismanagement. This excerpt ends just after a climactic blizzard of paperwork and before a thunderclap which is followed by the inevitable logo.
"For A Deaf Son: Ending Credits"
This documentary was produced and directed by Rob Tranchin of KERA in Dallas. The subject was his son, who was born functionally deaf. Rob sent me a recording he had made of his son's vocalizations and suggested that I sample them for use in the music. The "little pig" sample came from the documentary itself where the boy's mother was reading a story to him.
"UNO Arcade Theme"
Primary colors, family fun for all ages, and the fact that Uno is a Latin word are some of the notions that inspired this piece.
"Alphabet Signs"
This piece was the underscore for a short film produced for Sesame Street by Cindy Reid.
Twenty-six signs from around downtown Seattle were shot for each letter of the alphabet, and from each sign a letter would zoom out as a child would say the letter's name.
"A Very Brief History Of Film Music"
[from the silent era to the present]
Like the Music Central piece, this piece was created for a product intro video montage that was storyboarded and shot based on the music. They wanted me to cover the history of motion pictures in less than 30 seconds.
No problemo.
"Season To Taste" [18th century classical]
This was for the opening splash screen intro. The style emulates the Classical Period of the 18th century and utilizes a string orchestra and a harpsichord.
But it's Julia's narration that makes for me.
"He's No James Bond" [1960's spy theme]
This is an edited version of a piece that was used in a presentation of 3D audio technology given by Bill Gates at some computer conference. They wanted a 60's style spy theme.
In the demonstration, there were lots of guns and and explosions and helicopters flying all around in every direction.
"Success Tag No. 2" [1930's big band swing]
In the first Crimson Skies game, every time you successfully completed a mission you would hear an upbeat big band swing piece. This is one of them.
"Hymn for the Black Union Soldier"
[19th
century hymn]
This is underscore for a video sequence in which Colin Powell quotes Frederick Douglas regarding the African-American Union soldiers who served during the Civil War.
"Air Tales" [1930's swashbuckler film style]
For the first Crimson Skies, it was decided that two styles of music were wanted: 1930's swashbuckler film music in the style of Erich Von Korngold's scores for the Erroll Flynn movies, and some 1930's big-band swing stingers. This piece is one of the former and is a medley of heroic and old style swashbuckling pirate themes.
In the second Crimson Skies, we modernized the style just a bit while still maintaining a 1930's period feel.
"Success Tag No. 5" [1930's big band swing]
This is another of the mission success tags from the first Crimson Skies game. I like to use it to end my demo reel with an upbeat and slightly silly "capper."
"Defluere In Reddo [Fughettamagushpa]"
This is my favorite of the pieces I did for Age of Empires III: Asian Dynasties. It's the victory music.
"Defluere in Reddo" is Latin and means "Lost in Translation."
Stephen Rippy of Ensemble Studios played the banjo part at the beginning of the piece.
"Wadettagushpa"
This is the music for ending credits. For Asian Dynasties, I modified Stephen Rippy's Age of Empires theme to make it sound more Asian. You can hear it plainly stated by the koto at the end of this piece.
Warren Chang played the er-hu and Elizabeth Falconer played the koto. The orchestra and choir were recorded in Prague.
"Win A Holy Bone"
This piece plays when the player achieves certain milestones within the game. It signifies industrious progress in the building of a glorious empire.
"Rook For Where It Hurts"
This piece is underscore for a video from the Japanese campaign. After a brief title card, the video open on an expansive landscape followed by the revelation of the ambitious plans of our conquering hero.
"Guarding Change"
This piece is underscore for a video from the India campaign. The subject matter deals with tension and conflict between the occupying British army and the Indian people.
For these cues, I used a particularly Indian-sounding scale called Rag Todi. The sitar was played by Rasasangeet (aka, Larry Ludwig).
"More Everywhere, Then Afraid Man"
This piece is underscore for a video from the China campaign. After an introductory title card, the scene opens on an expansive landscape followed by expository dialogue.
"Spoil O' War"
This piece is underscore for a video from the Japanese campaign. In this scene, the hero reflects on the suffering that has occurred in the epic struggle that has taken place.
"Know Not The Water's Edge"
This piece is underscore for a video from the China campaign. In this scene, a long ocean voyage ends with the arrival in a strange new land.
The er-hu was played by Warren Chang.