Aquaria Soundtrack

Aquaria Soundtrack, Alec Holowka / Ian Holowka, 2007

By 2009, the indie game resurgence had already begun to leave its mark on the games market at large. Its impact on game music, however, took longer to materialise. Existing digital distribution channels such as iTunes and other online music stores did not particularly cater to these often tiny projects. In that environment, the release of the Aquaria soundtrack was a watershed moment for Western indie game music. At the time, a 2CD release for a Western indie game soundtrack was unheard of. Publisher Infinite Ammo’s courage was duly rewarded. Like the game itself, the Aquaria soundtrack met with an enthusiastic response from critics and players alike.

One thing that helped the Aquaria soundtrack break through was the extent to which the game placed music at its centre. Everything begins with the ‘verse’, a twelve-note melody that developer and composer Alec Holowka devised early on. As he reused the verse theme throughout the soundtrack, Holowka realised that it was well suited not just as musical material, but as a central plot point and gameplay mechanic.

Naturally, binding music and narrative together so closely has consequences for the score. The most obvious is the constant presence of the verse theme. In its most familiar form, often voiced by flute, it is an expansive, calm melody tinged with both melancholy and hope. It establishes a sense of yearning very early on, representing both cautious optimism for the future and a pensive, elegiac relationship to the past. Both qualities mirror the game’s narrative perfectly, with its preoccupation with lost memory and the search for self-realisation.

Beyond such conceptual considerations, Holowka’s theme is also simply a beautiful and immediately memorable melody. Attempting a nearly two-hour monothematic score, as he does here, is a formidable challenge. What makes it work is both the sheer attractiveness of the main theme and Holowka’s ability to present it in enough varied guises throughout the Aquaria soundtrack. One particular highlight is the yearning cello rendition in “Remains”.

In interviews, Holowka cited Nobuo Uematsu and other SNES composers as important influences. Those inspirations are most obvious in the way he mixes orchestral and pop elements throughout the score. Many tracks are gently propelled by soft drum-kit rhythms, while graceful, immediately accessible melodies, often assigned to orchestral solo instruments, are layered above them. When executed as well as it is here, this familiar combination lends the music immediacy, colour, and gravitas. “Mystery” even revives the venerable JRPG tradition of the standalone music-box track.

It is the orchestral side of the score that comes to represent its warmth and sentiment. In the verse theme’s statements on oboe, flute, or horns, the melody rings out most clearly and draws the listener into Aquaria’s world. Once that bond has been established, Holowka begins to introduce distortions that turn the initially idyllic waters into something colder and more hostile. Particularly in the album’s final third, electronic sounds make the ocean harder and less fathomable. “Dark Places”, for instance, buries its melody beneath chiming sound effects and electronic rhythms. “Gullet” is more abstract still, with its lonely tinkling sonorities and deep bass line dragging the music down towards the ocean floor. Melody does not disappear from these tracks entirely, but, as in “The Body”, it has become eerie and forlorn.

For an album of such extraordinary length, the Aquaria soundtrack builds its narrative arc with remarkable success. One could argue that the musical building blocks of Aquaria’s underwater world are fairly conventional. The music is usually serene, carried by expressive woodwind melodies and soft strings, with embellishments from piano, string pizzicati, and light metal percussion, while occasional choir pads and bell strikes evoke both the ocean’s majesty and its forbidding depth. Yet this very familiarity allows Holowka to involve and move the listener almost immediately.

Just how powerful the score’s narrative arc is becomes fully apparent in its closing stretch. Put simply, it culminates in one of the most moving finales in game music. “Ending”’s resigned piano close and the following “Return” offer only the briefest suggestion of redemption. Then the vocal ballad “Lost to the Waves” brings the soundtrack’s long-sustained yearning to a genuinely affecting peak. It sounds like the setting sun flooding the sky with gold one last time before the waves darken again. Resolution remains out of reach; the journey must continue.

And even then the Bandcamp release still has one more piece to offer: the bonus track “Fear the Dark”. It is the sort of large-scale, sweeping pop-orchestral closing ballad that Western game composers attempt far too rarely. Impeccably arranged and constructed, and at times exquisitely overwrought, “Fear the Dark” is a nearly nine-minute behemoth that rises and falls with the assurance of a passionate operatic aria. There is no reason, then, to assume that indie scores must feel smaller than their mainstream counterparts. Aquaria’s music tells a story that fully justifies its immense scope.