Album Review: Ho99o9 – Ho99o9 Presents Territory: Turf Talk Vol. 1

Ho99o9 have always interested me. I've felt there was a lot of potential in the project for a long time. I hope they still release solo albums, but I think this mixtape presents a really interesting new direction for the band. That is as a collective or crew rather than just OGM and Eaddy operating in isolation. Check out what I had to say about their new collaborative mixtape over on New Noise at the links below: 

Read my review of Ho99o9 Presents Territory here.

Buy Ho99o9 Presents Territory here. 

Album Review: Wiki & NAH - Telephonebooth

Wiki and NAH have finally unveiled their collab. Check out what I had to say about the new album Telephonebooth over at New Noise at the links below: 

Read review of Telephonebooth here.

Buy Telephonebooth here. 

Album Review: Giant Claw - Mirror Guide

 I stumbled on to Gaint Claw's music totally by accident around the time that he released Mutant Glamour... I should probably back up a bit. Giant Claw is the exhaust valve through which visual artist and Orange Milk label co-founder Keith Rankin vents the steam off his brain in the form of experimental music. While he's been doing it in fits and starts since 2010, I first encountered his music in 2012 with his playful, synth-jazz record Mutant Glamour. It was a little smart for me at the time and I admit that I had no reference point for what I was hearing. So, in a state of confusion, I wander off into the wilderness of the internet to see if I could find anything similar. My stumbling eventually caused me to fall down the well of Dan Deacon's discography, which was a real blessing, so I guess I have Keith to thank for that. 

I hadn't been keeping up with Giant Claw since the early '10s, and I only took a passing interest in 2014's Dark Web before checking out again. For whatever reason, though, at the start of 2021, I became fixated on a desire to go back to Mutant Glamour. I can barely explain why, other than the fact that the music I listen to these days is increasingly synth-based, and I figured that I had finally acquired the right context for it. I have to say that Mutant Glamour has aged beautifully, but what's more, by revisiting that album, I discovered that Keith had a new one. It's also great, but in a completely different way. 

Mirror Guide comes to us after a period of reflection by Keith. He had been busy enough with his design that he had completely shelved Giant Claw for a couple of years. When he did return to the project, he had decided that his next album was going to aim for a more mainstream, pop orientation. Roughly translated: "Papa's going to make some dough!" Nothing wrong with that. It just didn't happen. Before it was finished, Keith apparently decided that the direction the project was going was all wrong. So he scrapped it and made Mirror Guide instead. This is probably one of the more abstract albums in Giant Claw's catalog and mostly consists of sounds recorded on a cello and a smattering of other orchestral instruments, and manipulated magnificently in post. The aim for the release was to cultivate sounds that triggered a flow of overwhelming emotions, and reignite the awe Keith felt when listening to recorded sounds when he was younger. Results might vary, but I'm giving him points for both style and execution here. He's definitely stuck the landing. 

Opener "Earther" bounces, hiccups, and back-flips like a frog that's accidentally licked a psychedelic mushroom, wallowing in a nutrient-rich pool of cinematic runoff and detritus, and particle of which could be its own thematic score, but here is only presented in a measure or a half measure at a time before shifting focus to the next. "Mir-Cam Online" strains with a warm but peculiar affection that if I didn't know any better, I'd think it was actually trying to tell some kind of a love story (I may not actually know better, btw). The album takes a curious spill through moods of triumph and crushing defeat, before ending with an ambiguous cliffhanger on the thrilling raft of "Disworld" featuring a hushed performance by avant-garde vocalist NTsKi. "Until Mirror" is both wiser sounding and more mischievous than its siblings, a feat helped greatly by the calm and steady elocution of Tamar Kamin, and "Mirror Guide, pt.1" sounds like the soundtrack to an afternoon weather report slowly upping the ante and raising the sonic stakes until it resembles the theme to an obtuse spy-thriller. The whole release is as serene as it is startling, like a free fall with a plot twist. 

It's corny, but I'm just going to come out and say it, Mirror Guide shattered my expectations. 

You can get a copy of Mirror Guide here from Orange Milke Records. 

Album Review: Brutal Jr. - Party Garbage

I decided to listen to this album because I like the doggo on the cover and then I really enjoyed the album so I wrote a review of it. You can read my review over on New Noise at the links below: 

Read my review of Brutal Jr.'s Party Garbage here.

Buy Party Garbage here. 

Album Review: DJ Camgirl - CANNON / Problems

I read a profile the other night about a woman living in London and working as a cam girl. She had previously worked in health care and recruiting but had to quit due to mental health reasons. Within a few months of leaving her salaried job, she found herself behind on rent and other bills with few options. So she started camming. 

According to the quotes provided in the article, she now makes around £150k ($207,966.75) a year, sets her own hours, goes on vacation to Continental Europe when she feels like it, and is already planning for retirement. She also no longer suffers the mental health issues that forced her to exit her office job. It kind of makes you think about what the fuck you're doing with your own life, doesn't it? Two significant takeaways from the profile that I think are worth noting: 1) Her mental health issues were the result of the conditions and pressures of a "normal" work environment, and 2) Camming (at least in the way the woman profiled was doing it) is less exploitative than her traditional 9-5, evidenced by both her improved mental health and the drastically increased take-home pay. 

I think most people intuit that the jobs they are forced to take in order to earn money to live are only slightly preferable to the alternative, ie dying. I think this is why so many people try to make art their livelihood, or at least why the appeal of doing is so widespread. It's a way of doing meaningful work that isn't exploitative. It's a way of rending some semblance of control from the systems that run roughshod over you. There is a potential to earn more as an artist of some kind than in more traditional careers (if you're lucky). It's also a potential route towards doing work that you find fulfilling and don't mind staking your identity on. This flight from exploitation takes many forms. Whether it is painting, writing (yo!), camming, or... DJing! 

DJ Camgirl is Georgian producer Jeff Cardinal rolls out his second album and Doom Trip release with the amusingly titled CANNON /Problems. Jeff seems to approach house and drum and bass with the same anarchic zeal as a breakcore producer- recklessly clashing beats and textures together to render new, beautiful, bastardization forms. This is definitely house music, but only after a fashion. One in which baselines are shot through an ethernet cable to spin like a cat on fire around a corrupted hard drive before being spit back out into the lobby sound system at a body hacker convention. Cool synths cross-firing with bratty circuit board power serges, shattering along with flash-frozen beats and aggressively imploding lines of nightclub-esque grooves, and rippling over a shivering cleave of body rotating, piston hip powering dance catalysts. Animating current of inhibition annihilating percussion shot through with enough licks of flavorful contra-melodies it will make you think you're skiing down the crystalline circumference of an enormous bubblegum flavored snowcone. This is soft-lipped, hard-biting electronic music deserving of the name techno in the most honorable sense in which that term can be applied. 

You can get a copy of CANNON / Problems from Doom Trip Records here. 

Album Review: GEL - LIVE!

Fuck! This is good. Holy fuck. New Jersey's GEL just dropped a new EP through Conculse Records and you can read my review over on New Noise. I wasn't exactly stoked on the prospect of live shows resuming this year because I'm getting old and the prospect of being out all night, spending a bunch of money at the bar, and then schlepping my ass back home at 2am isn't as attractive of a prospect as it once was. But GEL may have turned me around on this issue. I'm warming up to seeing live bands again this year, especially if they can throw down like I'm hearing GEL throw down here. 

Read my review of GEL's LIVE!

Buy the record from Convulse Records. 

Album Review: Renee Goust - Resister

Pride month is slipping into the rearview mirror as Summer presses ever forward, but if you still need a tune or two to fill out a multi-hued playlist to celebrate, consider picking something up from Renee Goust and her latest album, Resister. I know next to nothing about Renee other than what is on her Bandcamp page and I only know about her because I saw that WBEW Vocalo in Chicago played one of her songs. However, I'm compelled to write about her work because I find what she's doing interesting and pretty unique as well. 

Renee combines American and Mexican folk traditions to scatch wonderfully deep and lovingly embellished portraits of everyday people living their lives. Some men. Some women. Some gay. Some Mexican. Others are from parts unknown. And still, others may claim neither nationality nor gender as determinative of their identities. They're all part of the tapestry of humanity that blankets the Earth, a theme that is given life from the outset on bright and crisp opener "Diosa," where Renee pays homage to a universal being while delivering a sweet thrumming vocal melody atop a clip and shutter of Spanish guitars. 

Beyond the theme of communion with the whole of the human family, Resistor also satisfies the slightly more narrow study of romantic love. Sometimes this love is between a man and a woman, like in the warm and wistful ballad, "A kiss in the mall." But as the video for that song makes clear, the normative binary of opposite sexes attracting is not generally Renee's focus. Love is where you find it, and Renne is enthusiastic in her ability to paint with the full pallet of possible human affinity and passion. And the passion she shares with other women is probably nowhere better exemplified than on the bendy steal backed, countryfied canzone, "Baltimore to Brooklyn," a charming song about a woman who will travel just about any distance to be with the one she loves. 

In writing songs within this latter category, Renee pretty clearly draws from the understated, but perennial, heritage of lesbian folk music within the United States, and baths it in the textures and sounds of ranchera, as well as other Mexican folk traditions, until they are fully absorbed within it like milk and sugar soaking into the dough of pan dulce. It's an overlap of influences that is well overdue. Genre is historically permeable and it thrives on cross-pollination. Just like the Southern border between US and Mexico. No one whose interests intersects with those of common people's benefits whatsoever from lines being drawn where they do not need to be drawn. There are lots of things that you should be putting your whole back into resisting these days, but if there is one thing you should let slip past your guard, it's Renee Renee Goust's Resister.

You can buy Resister here. 

Album Review: Final Exit - ノイズの若大将 (Young Guy of Noize)

ノイズの若大将 may be the most shocking grindcore album I've ever come across. I'm serious. Not shocking in a vulgar sense though. There are plenty of those. Instead, the band is doing something to my brain that I have never witnessed a dyed in the gore grind operation do before. They are tackling banal subject matter without a hint of irony- and it's really working for them.  

The long suffered scourge of Japanese grindcore band Final Exit dates back to 1994, surviving most of that time as a two-man sonic slaughterhouse. They released their twenty-fifth album last year, titled ノイズの若大将 , or Young Guy of Noize in English. I don't read Japanese, so I needed to have it translated for me. But once I Googled their full name It became very apparent what they were going for- this album is an earnest tribute to a series of teen films from the '60s and '70s known as the Wakadaishō series, or Young Ace or Young Guy in English. I've heard of tribute albums before, but this is probably one of the more conceptually challenging ones. Light teen romps shouldn't make for good subject matter for a grindcore album. Thankfully, no one told this to Final Exit. And if they did, they were ignored. 

The Wakadaishō  series, which stared Yūzō Kayama as the "Young Guy," was wildly popular in Japan at one point. You can think of the series as akin to those old Elvis beach party films, where the protagonist is a well-healed and intentioned meaning but salt-of-the-earth kind of guy, who has to rise to the occasion when confronted by an ill-tempered and often litigious villain, in order to win the heart of the film's female lead. 

These contests for the clasp and affection of Yūzō's true love usually took the form of a sports competition. However, there is one film (Ereki no Wakadaishō) where Yūzō had to learn to play the guitar to woo the girl (something that he did in real life, as well as the film), and it ended up rocketing him into a very successful music career with his backing band, literally called, The Launchers. 

There are winks and nods to Wakadaishō patterned throughout Young Guy of Noize, mostly in the form of straight-face, surf-rock interludes and bookends, but also a cover of The Launchers' "Black Sand Beach," which feels like it gliding in from a luau two houses over. You can almost smell the pineapple on the grill as its warbling riffs drift beneath your nose, and the crash of the waves on the beach as it bustles between your ears. On the grindery side of things, songs like "Some "Waka" songs #1)" do a remarkably palatable job of thinly layering sunny, strolling guitar lines with gummy wads of gnashing blast parts, and the complex interchange of the stop-start structures and momentum building melodies of tracks like "Running Donkey" are charmingly reminiscent of such technically proficient, and similarly anarchic, output of enigmatic groups like Clown Core. Think of the Ventures in a meth lab fire or Repulsion tooling around with their instruments and feeling the vibe on a deck of a soon to be shipwrecked cruise liner, and you'll be in the right headspace when diving into this album,

As I said, it's kind of shocking how earnestly Final Exit undertakes the subject matter of the album and how thoroughly they integrate the themes of the source material into their joyful, irreverent, pleasantly repugnant approach. Shocking, I would say, but not disappointing. This record gets my highest recommendation! 

You can get ノイズの若大将 (Young Guy of Noize) on vinyl here. 

Interview: Matriarchs

Image courtesy of the band

I had a great conversation with K and Ben late last year and I finally got around to transcribing it for New Noise. I think these two are doing something pretty great in the world of hardcore. Wishing them as much luck in seeking success as I've ever wished anyone. Check out our conversation at the links below: 

Read interview with Matriachs on New Noise here. 

Get a copy of Matriachs's new album Year of the Rat from Upstate here. 

Album Review: Erik Nervous - Bugs

I wrote a review of the new LP Bugs from Indiana weirdo Erik Nervous for New Noise. Some great Devo worship here. Check it out at the links below: 

Read review of Bugs here. 

Buy Bugs here. 

Interview: Serge Bulat

Photo courtesy of Serge Bulat

Sound is an odd and malleable thing. Your experience of it may be temporal, but the impression it can leave on you may be permanent. The structure of a song is endlessly variable and yet it is always experienced concretely once by an audience. There is an objective physical quality to sound that can be measured in decibels and air displacement, yet there is no way of predicting its effect on a person once it comes in contact with their sense organs. These ambiguities and irreducible facts are the fertile plateaus on which Maldivian-American multidisciplinary artist, composer and sound designer Serge Bulat has begun to erect puzzle-like sonic architecture, as an expressive extension of his own psyche, and a bridge to your grey-matter palace.

The incredible flexibility of Serge's approach to making music has found a natural collaborator in Russian developer and visual artist Michael Rfdshir. Together they have made a number of short, interactive visual experiences, that range from liberatory and imaginatively fecund frolics, to insidiously incisive visual polemics. The malleable models of the stop motion animation provided by Michael perfectly compliment the uncanny nature of Serge's scoring in both of their major projects thus far, Wurroom and Isolomus. With more games already in the works, their partnership is truly a cornucopia from which a strange and irresistible bounty may be harvested.

Check out the trailers for both Wurroom and Isolomus and then read my interview with Segre Bulat below.

 

Interview conducted over email on June 3, 2021. It has been edited slightly for the sake of clarity. 

This interview is published in partnership with the Video Game Art Gallery.

What does your musical background look like and how did you develop your style? 

It looks bumpy!

I went to music school for piano, finished in 5 years then took a big break. 

At some point, decided to move to Chisinau (the capital of Moldova), and got involved in radio. 

I dedicated a few years to it, producing different things from programs to concerts. Then, there was the Academy of Music Theater and Fine Arts stage, more fun things; I tried pretty much everything art-related. 

I come from a family of musicians but felt discouraged by lack of opportunities in my town, basic needs like instruments or equipment... so it took a long time to find my way back to music,  and more importantly make music I want, with no compromises whatsoever. 

And then New York. 

Sort of a reroute, I jumped from one random project to another and then realized that music should be my main focus. 

I can't be objective when it comes to describing my music, but, I guess, I got anywhere by trial and error and also brought different elements into my art. 

Your style has a strange familiarity to it. Almost like it is emerging from the subconscious of the listener's mind. Is this intentional, and if so, how do you go about achieving this effect? 

Thank you so much! 

I suspect music is my way of figuring out the world and understanding myself. I try to make stuff that I'm majorly passionate about.

 

Music, I think, should stimulate the brain; the more you do to help it, the better is the effect. 

I do not have any expectations nor do I limit myself when working on sound; I welcome ideas, any information, concepts, tools, and just explore. Whatever comes, comes... and the unexpected is always welcomed.

The last few projects are indeed about the territory of the mind. The goal was to get on a "trip",  explore imagination, discover selves by encountering both new and somewhat familiar things and places, sounds, beliefs, cultures... and also expand our understanding of reality. 

No secret that music is a powerful tool, but we tend to discount its' many qualities, such as the ability to shed light on our personality and what it's made of.

There is a psychological side to my music, and, with the last two albums, it is definitely the main focus. I reference to Rorschach test a lot since I think It is an awesome tool for accessing imagination with major potential for research. 

I do my own research too, and bring what I learn or take from data into projects; neurology, neuropsychology, anthropology, philosophy...

I also enjoy collaborations, with artists from other disciplines, thinkers, doctors, etc. 

Approaching sound from different angles and through interaction with other disciplines has become my approach. 

Do you consider yourself much of a gamer? 

Funnily, I do not! 

It is a newly discovered pastime and I love it. (I can see myself becoming a legitimate gamer one day.)

I enjoy the games that are more "out of the box" since I have a major interest in arts and go there for an experience. So it is always an exploration and research for me. 

What was your introduction to video games as a medium of expression? 

Michael and I were thinking about a way of presenting my new album, looking for an interesting form. Both of us were not into making just another music video. 

At that time, I was all about finding new tools for music interactivity with a psychological twist, and Michael wanted an all-claymation experience, a dream project of all sorts. He wanted to produce a video game for a very long time. Then, we organically came to an idea to make a game based on music. 

Gaming offers interactivity that no other medium can deliver. 

We knew that we wanted an interactive cartoon or installation that will challenge the format and tickle imagination.  

It was an experiment, with no guarantees or results expected, and, we didn't know it'll end up being a real thing.  We trusted ourselves and each other and purely had fun!

I think it reflects the concepts of the album quite efficiently and also leaves space for imagination. 

When we put out "Wurroom", we realized this is a very unique way to deliver music. We both felt it fully represents our art at the moment. 

At what point did you realize your music could work as a soundtrack within other mediums such as video games? 

Hm... There wasn't a specific moment, but I see the path in retrospect. 

There was an interest in that kind of musicianship but I wanted to set my playground rules first. 

I tried different things in sound, approaches, figuring out what I like or don't, finding exciting tools, and ultimately made some material that was satisfying (if that's even possible). If one starts exploring, that process never stops.

I love instrumental and fusing styles; creating an atmosphere is as important as having a good tune. 

Once the music started forming I looked for additional ways of expression. Audiovisual work followed, writing, experimental pieces, "Inkblot" project...  

Video games were fascinating as a medium and also a challenge that I was eager to take. 

What are your criteria for selecting collaborators for your work? 

It's all about authenticity and having a vision. 

When you experience somebody else's work and can't place it anywhere, just pure joy of discovering a rare talent... then you know. 

Always gratifying to collaborate with someone who inspires you to create differently; a new perspective, flexibility, and willingness to explore. When artists are willing to try, get out of their comfort zone, and unconditionally experiment then it becomes dreamy! 

I cherish a generous collaborator and was lucky to work with this kind of people so far. 

The last projects involved collaborators from around 10 countries, such as harpist Katie Buckley from Iceland, vocalist Miriam Garcia with multi-instrumentalist Rumbo Tumba from Argentina, percussionist Nino Errera from Italy, saxophonist Hirokazu Ishida from France, folklore band Oyme from Russia, flutist Pavel Vit from Ukraine, and harmonicist Dai Sekiguchi from Japan. 

All very different but immense talents that joined me on this odyssey. 

How did you get connected with Michael Rfdshir? 

We were cyber buddies for a very long time!  

Interestingly a lot of friendships and frequent collaborations have a similar start. 

Michael and I are into writing; we initially connected on that level, shared ideas, and even worked together on a few pieces. I lived in Moldova and he in Vladivostok, Russia.

Then I moved to the USA, but we still kept in touch. 

Sometime in 2014, I asked him to make some art for my first album "Queuelbum" and since then, we have never stopped collaborating. 

How do you feel that Michael's work compliments your own? 

In it, we can see each other's reflections. We are different in some things, and, very alike in others. When it comes to creating I think we usually instantly understand each other, since both have similar preferences in art, literature, science, etc, and love trying new things. We do debate too, but it is always exciting.

Both generate ideas, and when having a 100% idea resonance, one can express in sound and the other one visually. I can't speak for him, but in my case, "Wurroom" was such a direct hit, I felt like I've been inside my own head while playing the game. 

It is an odd feeling. 

How do you approach creating the soundtrack for a project like Wurroom knowing that it will need to be in conversation with such expressive visuals? 

With "Wurroom" it was easy since the game was inspired by "Wurmenai" and the album's mythology. Michael created a world with its creatures based on his response to music. 

Colors came to be also as a reaction to the sound. 

With the design, I had to make sure the material felt authentic to the created world. Luckily I collected a lot of sounds and field recordings over the years. Some of it was quite interesting and came in handy. 

Since the album displayed a lot of design and sounds in the first place, the material was appropriate and it was just a matter of complementing the narrative. 

With Isolomus it was quite the opposite. It happened spontaneously. 

Michael picked an older track of mine as a prominent theme, so it was challenging to recreate that musicality in other pieces, certain quality if you like. 

I had to build every theme and sound effect that he had in mind. It also had a completely different mood and aesthetic. 

He would send me super metaphoric requests, sometimes without showing me the scene, and I had to trust my intuition. 

What sources of inspiration do you have in terms of other video games? Are you more inspired by the visuals or the sounds of these games? 

Michael is surely more of authority here since he is a legitimate fan of the medium. 

He often mentions how much of the atmosphere depends on the sound. The games make a stronger impression on the gamer when the soundtrack efficiently compliments it. It takes the whole experience to the next level. 

I certainly care for both sound and picture but I do think sound in gaming is underrated. It has as much power as the visuals. 

I understand people who are there just for the gameplay but, many many others equally care for a sound experience. When we presented a demo of our next project "Ultra Strangeness", the community emphasized the importance of the music and looked forward to listening to the soundtrack standalone. 

When it came to inspiration, we talked about mythology, culture, psychology, art. 

Referenced to the surrealists of the era, Eastern European modernists, and quite random creatives. We also both enjoy a good cinema, so there was a lot of sharing of films. 

We got inspired by a variety of things, from life to art, and I doubt we had a direct reference to an existing game. 

What are the etymological origins of Wurroom, and what does it mean in the context of both the album and the visuals that you created with Michael?

Often in our projects, the titles are code names. 

In my case, there is always a meaning, and even if the word is made up it has a story and somewhat logical explanation. 

The title refers to Wurmenai (hence Wur), and since the album is about encounters with versions of reality, Wurroom is one of the rooms/spaces on this adventure. 

Michael's first project was named Protein Motel so we also thought this could be one of the stories told in it. 

Wurmenai in turn is a word I misread on a street sign in New York. I clearly saw Wurmen although the real word was very different. 

Thus, the whole concept, of perceiving reality, confusing things, and experiencing glitches appeared.  Individual interpretation became the motto for both the album and the game. 

Interestingly, once you give this new "thing" a proper thought it becomes a living concept, and its' existence is as real as any real object's (including fish, chairs, and other random things)…

What are the unique advantages of working on a game whose animations are entirely stop motion? 

We both think it is an extremely efficient embodiment of imagination (not trying to sound too Jungian). It is flexible by design and demonstrates transformation the best. It is quite limitless. 

Plasticine allows the creation of complex models, and this is crucial to the ideology of the project. 

What limitations, if any, did Michael and yourself encounter while attempting to realize your goals for your Wurroom and Isolomus? 

Time is the enemy! 

Due to the format, it takes a lot of time to finish each project. 

Sometimes it takes a month to complete just one scene.

One thing is to make a plasticine figurine and another one is to actually animate it. If we talk about sophisticated scenarios and gameplay we are looking at years in making. Wurroom only took 6 months, and the game is 10-12 minutes. 

I think we are both getting more productive with each project but still, time is the main concern. It does affect how we approach the story. 

It also could be difficult synchronizing the music with the animation. 

How important is narrative to the way that your structure your songs? 

It depends on what is needed from music. Often the music becomes the narrator. 

I think what I care for is the feeling, an imprint of a certain idea, fixed in audio. 

I enjoy concept albums quite a lot, and my last 2 were exactly that. 

At the same time, I like pieces that are just a vibe, ambient in nature, and take you places. 

Those follow whatever narrative comes to mind. 

When it comes to scoring, I try to make music as personal as possible. 

Kind of like the Stanislavsky system, you look for an appropriate memory or thought that will make you act in the desired way. It is easier to connect to any project via this trick. 

Many times the music becomes more powerful than the circumstances depicted on the screen (and that tells me that we all feel very differently). I'm not just talking about fear, joy, or sadness (these emotions could be achieved by a formula as well). The music takes over and you give in to it.

Some simple stories get a musical heartbreak, but that's what the composer felt. 

And those are my favorite scores.

Do you feel that both video games and musical compositions are uniquely suited to facilitating non-linear narratives? 

Michael thinks the whole point of interactivity is in the game's response to the player's move. 

Only non-linear narratives can truly be called Interactive. 

We experimented with this approach in Isolomus, where one can play the game repeatedly and have a different experience each time. Although it minimized the scale of the game, the gamer's choice was worth it. 

The non-linear narrative is exciting and yet super difficult to execute. We are planning on producing more games, besides point&click adventure, in which we can depart from the linear storytelling and give the player more freedom in interacting with the game. 

Music is essential in creating atmosphere and conveying the game's character. Current tools allow building the soundtrack "brick by brick", which is beneficial to non-linear storytelling. It helps to adapt sounds and themes to the gameplay. 

This technique could be seen in Wurroom, and also in the upcoming game Ultra Strangeness, in which we expanded the concept. 

Why is it important for you to tell stories that do not have an immediately recognizable structure? 

Tough one. Maybe because life is never just one thing. 

The story depends on who is telling it, and each time perspective changes. 

Art comes from the reaction to the world around us, either we deal with it directly or create an escapade. Both are a dialogue, so it is a matter of preference I suppose. 

It is quite boring when the music is predictable, the brain loves stimulation and enjoys both familiarity and unexpectedness. The space in art is as important as any structure. This way you encourage participation and it becomes a joined experience. 

The form is less important when conveying a feeling, it's quite the opposite. Feelings are complex and have different stages. Such could be music. Or anything else. 

What are some game soundtracks that you have been particularly impressed with recently? 

There is a lot of good music out there... Ghost of Tsushima was pretty amazing. I love the scale of it. Michael recommended "Inside" - the sound-driven video game. 

I genuinely wish I had more time to explore! 

How is a chair like a fish? 

Both exist only when you observe them, or, both a hologram hahaha!!!

The idea is that the reality of a chair is a legitimate as yours, mine or fishes'. 

We are all made of atoms and the same particles.

The paradox here is how do we define reality and claim the "real" thing. It also refers to ideas from all 3 projects (Wurmenai, Inkblot and Similarities Between Fish And A Chair), the notion of memory, perception, normality, and quest for the "individuality gene".

We tend to look for labels and think that giving an object one, makes any difference. At the end of the day, those are just words and don't contribute to objects' reality.

Symbols are symbols if one doesn't have the knowledge to back them, so what is the point in labeling anything?

You can buy Serge Bulat's latest album Similarities Between Fish And A Chair here. 

You can learn more about the Video Game Art Gallery here.