We here at GameTyrant LOVE Avowed and especially the music. Check out our quick interview with Venus Theory, the producer/composer of the soundtrack. If you haven’t given Avowed a try, get some and check out the soundtrack above.
What inspired the soundtrack choices for AVOWED?
Personally I'm a very visual person when it comes to music, and Avowed being an absolutely beautiful game made a lot of the heavy lifting pretty straightforward. Each region has a distinct visual aesthetic that usually was screaming an idea or at least a shape of one at me.
From a broader perspective, the most impactful choices were some of the questions we asked during the earlier days of the soundtrack process. Since time was a very limited resource, having to stick mostly to sample libraries and whatever I could record in my home studio things like 'what can we do with samples that we can't do live' and 'how far are we allowed to push a fantasy sound before it breaks' made for some really interesting and sometimes unconventional choices that I think give Avowed it's own sonic flavor.
Carrie Patel (the game's director) also made a lot of references to the film Annihilation throughout the initial meetings I had with the team about the games themes and moods they wanted to strike in the soundtrack's feel. Of course, Avowed being more of a fantasy RPG than a sci-fi modern thing meant that the more synth oriented sound wasn't a possibility - but it did provide me an interesting question that I think really gave form to the overall theme of Avowed's soundtrack: 'what if something like Annihilation was acoustic'
I think that more than anything shaped the direction that ended up guiding almost everything else.
What is your personal favorite track?
Originally I figured the region of Galawain's Tusks would be the favorite for me - I was really excited to write for that region for some reason. However, now in hindsight, the Emerald Stair region easily has my favorite tracks. The track 'Soil Song' which is used as the general exploration music for the region came together incredibly well and has such a cool feeling to it, which was in my mind an exploration of the idea of 'what would nature sound like if it was sick' and how that'd be expressed musically.
Towards the end of that region, you'll hear the track 'Finding Roots' as you get ready to move on to the next and you'll hear a reprisal of the main melodic line from 'Soil Song' that I think comes together so beautifully. This is compounded by the narrative in the game by this point, as you learn a lot of new truths as to the nature of you and your place in The Living Lands and I think the context that the reprisal is heard in makes it especially impactful.
What were some of the unique effects/instruments you enjoyed playing worth during production?
Just about as many as I could get away with before the folks at Obsidian caught on and yelled at me haha.
A few fun discoveries were bowing a banjo using a cello bow, which I aptly named 'the bowjo'. This actually stemmed from finding a sample instrument library of the Turkish tambur instrument. Nashville isn't exactly known for it's traditional Turkish instrument shops but I figured since it's basically just a large banjo-like instrument that you bow, a banjo from a pawn shop and a cello bow was close enough.
I'm a big fan of tape delays, and there's loads of interesting effects chains on various instruments to try and morph them beyond their traditional sound or use. Lots of extreme tape delays, sometimes paired with weird reverbs (Aberrant DSP's LAIR is one of my current favorites), spectral synthesizers, granular effects, time stretching, resampled instrument performances, and even a little bit of noise from my homemade 'horror box' instrument made it into the soundtrack.
I come from a background steeped in experimental music, so things like tape loops and extreme processing are right up my alley and I was very lucky that the team at Obsidian were willing to let me explore my own ideas and influences to push the sound of the game into something that I really wanted to make rather than just a legally safe approximation of some other IP.
I love exploring sound design as part of the composition process, so there were lots of unconventional ideas like complex multiband processing on acoustic instruments or resampling an instrument into a synth or additive resynthezier, physical modeling synthesis, spectral resonators, and just about anything else I could do to create an 'organic but unfamiliar' feel.
Just remember to put a limiter on your sessions when you're getting weird with things though - I continue to learn this the hard way and immediately forget by the next time I decide to try a weird idea.
About Venus Theory
Nashville recording artist, composer/producer and sound designer Venus Theory is renowned for his cinematic electronic albums, leading-edge scoring and sound design collaborations with major music brands (Arturia, Cubase, Lunacy Audio, Modal Electronics, Reason Studios, Spitfire Audio, Ultimate Virtual Instruments) as well as creating bespoke instruments for producers bringing contemporary cinematic sounds to film and television shows on Apple TV+, Discovery+, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. In addition to these assignments, Venus Theory’s popular YouTube channel reaches millions of music producers and creators worldwide.
Most recently, his journey as independent music artist, producer and content creator has propelled him into the world of video games, scoring the first-person fantasy RPG, AVOWED, from the award-winning team at Obsidian Entertainment.
Venus Theory’s soundtrack for AVOWED embodies his concept of scoring 'a hero's mystery' whereby the music progressively reflects the player’s journey and evolves into more unpredictable and unconventional soundscapes. As the story reveals itself the score floats away from traditional orchestral arrangements into hybrid ensembles employing Indian, Chinese, Greek and other instrumentation, while also adapting melodically into less conventional Western musical ideas and more obscure instrument articulations.
“Getting the opportunity to learn from and work with the studio behind some of my favorite games and scores, while also getting to score one of their games myself and creating an immersive soundtrack experience is such a whirlwind of a gig. I can't wait to share the music and sonic worlds we've been working on together and see my take on The Living Lands and the world of Eora out in the wild.” – Venus Theory
