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The man who fell to mirth | page 1, 2
Distance. But amplified with the need for Nearness and Belonging. It would be a very long and complicated thread, impossibly tangled, soft to the touch but somewhat sticky underfoot ... almost invisible, self-replicating and most of all ... taut. How important do you think soundtracks are to video games; and are there any other video game soundtracks that influenced you? In some ways our work was a reaction to the plethora of industrial/techno game soundtracks we'd heard -- we wanted to create an emotional sound -- something with the ability to project an intensely personal envelope around game character and player alike. In Omikron it's your soul that's at stake -- we wanted to make sure that your heart was playing along too. Soundtracks in games couldn't be more important -- to heighten, to warn, to pace, to lie ... (cut to the end of a long list falling out of the tumble-dryer). How is the music you created for the game different, conceptually, from the music you recently released in album format? The eight songs from Omikron are all on my new album "Hours ..." but different versions. The 35 or so instrumental tracks are only available within the game. The parallel world scenario of Omikron actually suits the songs -- I found they were equally at "home" in the "real" world, partly through the simple nature of the emotions they portray. I suppose it's the songwriter's art -- in many ways the end results only start to really live through participation, interpretation and juxtaposition. The Omikron player doesn't necessarily need any straight, plot-driven narrative through the songs, it seemed more fitting to insinuate. Let the words reinforce the game story, but also trigger flights of imagination within the player. It's a kind of passive role-playing where sometimes the best stories are not the ones you think you've told, but are discovered in the telling. So, in short, it's a parallel world and a shared concept. In many ways, the character that you play in Omikron seems to hark back to your early "Ziggy Stardust" days. Is that intentional and why, or am I just imagining it? Naw, it's just his manly youthfulness ... Ziggy was a fundamentally self-sure, almost arrogant individual. Whereas this character is more controlled by forces outside of his power. I have other plans for Ziggy ... Actually it's an interesting situation -- take the second of my two characters [in Omikron], the beggar/singer of "The Dreamers." Here we have a digital reflection of me, in a parallel dimension, motion-captured to look and move just like me (at 24 years old!). It alludes to me, but it's not me. I'm playing a character, a role, but the very nature of the game, and its tangible link to Earth, allows the connection to be made -- the character is singing songs that are forcing their way into his body as physical visions (hence the choreography), he's receiving the words in painful fragments from a linked universe, maybe from Earth, maybe the other side of the mirror -- how Wilde is that!? How influential has the Net community at BowieNet -- of more than 10,000 people, if I recollect correctly -- been on your current work, both games and music? Nothing like giving your work a good airing -- that's over 10,000 opinions, art critics, sounding boards and streams of abuse ... I can even slip on there incognito from time to time and say things like, "That song 'Life on Mars,' that's a piece of shite, mate" -- probably all in CAPITALS, TOO. To say more would give away my cyber alter-ego, Mr. Rant ... Influential, and amazing! You can simultaneously feel very much connected to everything and agonizingly just-
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