Rohrmann: I’ve always loved the idea of fictional worlds reaching out into the real one… blurring the line between fiction and reality. We didn’t end up going with this idea, but the vestiges still remain with stuck-in-time versions of songs like “Lost” which also appears as the song Jonas’ mom would sing, and “The Beach 7AM” which also appears as the backing music for the hangman quiz and Adler basement projector film.Įmily: The game also came with an ARG – could you explain a little bit about how that originated, and what it did?
Another idea from early on in the development process was that much of the score would have diegetic “ye olden style” variants that would take over when the radio was used.
“Against The Waves” is built on a slowed down loop of “Against The Rocks.” “Lantern” is a drone variant of “Black Lantern,” etc. It’s also worth mentioning that there are a large number of interrelated tracks throughout the soundtrack. To that end I wove in a lot of radio disturbances and glitches, to make it all feel alive and part of the Oxenfree world, and ultimately that concept really helped give the soundtrack a unified sense of presence. A part of this idea is that while listening to the album, there is a constant sense of more going on than just listening to some plain old songs. I wanted the soundtrack album to have its own story arc, as if it has its own timeloop within the greater Oxenfree mythology. I used as many of these textures as possible when constructing the music, but not so much that it might interfere with specific sound design elements in the game. So we decided we wanted the music to reflect those qualities as much as possible. Rohrmann: We discussed the aesthetic core of the game and how from the sonic perspective it revolves around the mystical, esoteric qualities of near-extinct technology – shortwave radios, reel to reel, wire recordings, etc.
How did you incorporate those into the soundtrack? The vestige of this concept is the Redheaded Bedwetters cassette that is a part of the collector’s edition).Įmily: A lot of the tracks play with strange tuning notes, which fit the radio frequencies that appear regularly in the game. (Sidenote: We originally intended these songs to appear on a Bandcamp page that would be completely disconnected from the scntfc alias, but since they made it into actual score they went on the actual soundtrack. They were meant to just be quick sketches but we liked them enough and they hit some of the right emotional tones we needed, so we shifted some of these “Redheaded Bedwetters” songs onto the soundtrack proper. As a character, we knew Ren might be down with the likes of Toro Y Moi and Washed Out – and so I just wrote some demos in that vein. There is a character in the game (Ren) who is in a band (The Redhead Bedwetters), and since there is a moment where his band is heard on the radio we thought I might as well write a few songs that could be ascribed to the fictional band. Specifically regarding a couple of the more upbeat songs (“Towhee Grove” and “Epiphany Fields”), these were sort of an accident. What was the approach you used when deciding on the sound for this score?Īfter getting familiar with the plot, I came up with the idea that the score would be dual purpose, serving not only the usual purpose of being “background music” but also as music the characters in the game might listen to in their world. Many of the tracks have this strangely upbeat sound, particularly the melodic tracks, which contrasts the dark nature of the game, but ends up fitting really well with the imagery. Rohrmann: Ableton Live, lots of Kontakt instruments, and outside of the computer are outboard synths, effects, piano, reel to reel decks, etc.Įmily: I have to ask a bit about the Oxenfree score, because when I first listened to it, with the idea that it went to a horror game, the music really surprised me. Confusion continued, and so the easiest route was just to find another alias, and scntfc was as close as I could get without shedding too much recognition.Įmily: Which programs do you use when composing? Rohrmann: I had to pick some sort of alias for solo work, and after some mulling decided on Sientific American (intentionally misspelled as a joke / way to avoid being Google-confused with the magazine) but people just thought I was an idiot so I put the C back in Scientific.
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