Dune Soundtrack (PC)

Dune Soundtrack (PC), Stéphane Picq, 1992

It seems that early media adaptations of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic Dune were fated to encounter troubles as vast as the material itself. There is, of course, the convoluted story of how Dune finally reached cinema screens in 1984 after more than a decade of failed attempts, only to disappoint at the box office and alienate its director. The first video game adaptation of Dune struggled no less to see the light of day. Publisher Virgin Games cancelled the project altogether, launching instead the development of what would become Dune II, only to discover later that Cryo Interactive had secretly continued work on Dune. Thankfully, the story had a happy ending. Thanks to its innovative blend of adventure and strategy elements, Dune became a commercial hit, selling 300,000 units by 1997 and paving the way for Cryo’s expansion and prolific output throughout the 1990s.

Contemporary reviewers placed unusual emphasis on Stéphane Picq’s soundtrack. His work quickly entered game music history when Virgin Records released an arrange album titled Dune – Spice Opera. At the time, album releases of Western game music were almost unheard of, so for a European game soundtrack to receive such treatment was wholly unexpected. The release left a lasting mark: when online game music criticism began to emerge in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dune – Spice Opera drew rave reviews for its unusual and imaginative aesthetic. It remains a fan favourite, and its official European release made it one of the earliest pieces of game music that aspiring enthusiasts of the medium could readily purchase.

Thankfully, it is not only the arrange album that deserves such acclaim. The source material itself is equally worthy of praise. Picq had been scoring French PC games since 1988, making his debut for Cryo Interactive in 1990 on the company’s first game, Extase. Dune was unquestionably his breakthrough work, establishing him as an exciting new voice in game music, a reputation he would sustain on later scores for Cryo.

Picq’s vision of the world of Dune is far more psychedelic and less militaristic than that of Frank Klepacki and other composers who would later score the franchise. What he creates is, in its own way, remarkably close to Herbert’s achievement. More than almost any earlier work of science fiction, Dune conjured a believable fictional world in all its complexity, rendered in painstaking detail. Similarly, Picq devises a soundtrack that draws on recognisable musical cultures only to reshape them into something singular: a kind of authentic world music, if the term may be allowed, for an imaginary planet.

Consequently, the Dune soundtrack is an exceptionally skilful balancing of contrasts. Familiar electronic sci-fi soundscapes intermingle with acoustic elements in calmly monolithic compositions. Their gently surreal character reaches towards the same mysticism Herbert used to enlarge the novel’s narrative scope and emotional force. The word “Opera” in the arrange album’s title is no accident, such is the music’s breadth of feeling and suggestion. It is tempting to say that Dune’s woozy atmosphere is simply the natural by-product of a story ultimately structured around the harvesting of a drug. Yet however trippy the music may be, it channels those heady impulses into something at once spiritual and earthy.

The soundtrack’s finest distillation of these qualities is “Chani’s Eyes”. The cue condenses the score’s minimalist yet tonally rich language of synth ostinati, chiming melodic fragments and synth-evoked Middle Eastern inflections into an entrancing example of Picq’s singular sound world. Crystallising the soundtrack’s undercurrent of melancholy and suspending it in time, “Chani’s Eyes” is the score’s calmest composition and a genuine trip into outer space. At the other end of the spectrum lies “Free Men”. Here the music becomes a colourful, quirky tapestry of activity, with wooden percussion, flutes and a mysterious, harpsichord-like melody all woven together. The whole structure is held aloft by synth ostinati that take unpredictable harmonic turns, fraying at the edges under the merciless desert heat. Again, Picq takes recognisably terrestrial musical materials and adds just enough synthetic colouring to make them feel alien while still inviting.

It is this intermingling of technology and ancient tradition, set to unusually languid tempi, that distinguishes the Dune soundtrack from so many other 1990s sci-fi game scores, at times even evoking the now retro-futuristic aura of 1970s prog rock. “Opening” establishes the score’s peculiar mood early on. Both futuristic and warm, its organ-like opening chords give way to irregular, full-bodied electronic heartbeats, wooden percussion and harsher synth textures that move from subtly interrupting the cue’s near-religious atmosphere to ultimately complementing it. Music fit for an extraterrestrial cathedral, “Opening” defines both the soundtrack’s drifting atmosphere and its immense scale.

Like a prayer, the music’s power is not diminished by its restraint, and so a track like “Dune (Variation)” requires no overt sonic bombast to achieve grandeur. Underscoring the Arrakis palace, the cue feels appropriately weightier than much of the score, but solely through its heightened sense of foreboding and wistfulness, conscious of the expectations placed upon Paul Atreides as heir. The synth pads and melodic figures are more yearning than usual, before a lonely flute solo drives the point home and provides a telling contrast with the surrounding lushness.

For a game that ultimately concerns the conquest of a planet, the Dune soundtrack offers relatively little in the way of straightforward action music, yet it is not without more pressing moments. “Too” carries a stronger sense of urgency in its blend of wooden and electronic ostinati, while a four-note synth figure underscores the solitary act of scouring Dune’s endless deserts. Then, suddenly, silvery arpeggios transform those same dunes into somewhere unexpectedly magical, creating a brilliant contrast with the arid atmosphere of the cue’s opening section.

World map theme “Wake Up” is the closest Picq comes to writing a march on this score. Built steadily over snare-drum and electric-bass rhythms, the cue encompasses both the relentless forward drive of conquest and the majesty of gazing from above at a vast world. It communicates that sensation far more effectively than the game’s visuals. Indeed, few sci-fi game soundtracks have evoked the seductive spell of living in another world as potently as Dune.