0°N 0°W (Original Game Soundtrack)

Experience the original soundtrack to 0°N 0°W, a multidimensional melange of soundscapes, rising arpeggios and the distorted wails of broken synths echoing from the void. Hopefully this universe of inspiration and dreams invigorates your lifestyle and increases your workplace productivity!

0°N 0°W is a surreal exploration game released in March 1 2018, described by reviewers as "visually arresting" -Venture Beat, "completely original in an indie market flooded with homogenized art styles" -OnlySP, and a "sensory onslaught" -PCGamer. There are over a hundred different locations to discover, each with a unique visual style and accompanying soundtrack.

"0°N 0°W is an experiential journey, a passive meditative adventure that slowly engrosses the player with its atmosphere. Thus the music had to amplify this peaceful state of discovery by embodying the worlds of 0°N 0°W and their overall themes. The color palettes, the moods, the vertical or horizontal characteristics of the worlds, their natural features; everything inspired and guided the ideation of each piece. In the same way that the graphical and sensory qualities of each dream vary from the concrete and physically material to the ethereal and glitchy; the tracks themselves through their instrumentation had to represent this gradient.

To me ambient music is the sonic representation of architecture, of space, it creates worlds and puts the listener right in the middle of them. As abstract as the worlds where the soundtrack had to equally go beyond the recognizable, it had to represent the impossible architecture of 0°N 0°W. This led to an interesting process of capturing instrumentation and field recordings and layering, distorting and post processing them to a degree that they became something new.

Having grown up with cassette tapes, an aspect that always fascinated me was how through their overuse or repeated copying, the songs began to take a life of their own. A textural quality that was not found in the original recording became apparent, the notes echoed differently through the many layers of reproduction acquiring new sonic qualities. Its a very interesting process and one that was used extensively in the creation of the soundtrack.

In terms of melody and instrumentation the use of arpeggios introduced a structural integrity to the pieces, through their repetition the notes mark points in space whose echoes then trace its boundaries. It’s a musical echolocation process of sorts. Synthesizer pads then add to this sense of space, they reinforce the physicality and more importantly the emotional reaction that it should elicit. In short this soundtrack was a fun and playful state of creation where inhibitions were let loose, and while indulging in a fair share of remembrance in the nostalgic qualities from the music of our collective past I tried to envision an impossible auditory future that’s yet to be."