Blade Ballet OST
When I pitched “classical dance but synthy” for Blade Ballet, I was hoping to channel the energy of movies like The Third Man with strange score choices (like ZITHER.) I think maybe another part of me wanted to take (what would have been) an easier path: arranging a bunch of classical music for chiptune emulators and other synths. I did do that, a few times, before realizing that a) those pieces are copyrighted :/ and b) something brand new would actually be more rewarding to write. The tension between the joyous flow that is arranging other people’s music and the emotionally arduous but transcendent experience of writing and releasing something original that I don’t hate was very present here.
So I met my demon halfway. The Blade Ballet soundtrack is all original except the main theme, which couldn’t bear to let go of Bizet’s “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (Habanera) from Carmen. The piece burrowed into my brain after it came up in a conducting class long ago, as an exercise intended to teach the students to conduct rubato in an elegant way. I am not a good dancer, so pulling from this Habanera experience was the only way for me to channel anything like elegance, which felt important for the weird Third Man-esque mismatch I was going for between the score (elaborate pastiches of historical dance forms) and the world of the game (fidget spinners with Jetsons energy.)
I’ve written a bit more about the very silly trailers we made in the audio design section.
