Kale in Dinoland Soundtrack

Kale in Dinoland Soundtrack, Luming Hao, 2012

How do you stand out from the deluge of retro-inspired indie games that flooded mobile devices and other platforms? Developer The Rotting Cartridge opted for an intriguing, if cheeky, answer: pretend that your new game is a port of a forgotten Game Boy title released in 1992. Of course, Kale in Dinoland was no lost classic from gaming’s past. It was simply a new 2D platformer dressed in the monochrome visuals that millions of players remember so fondly.

Part of that nostalgia-driven design was, naturally, an appropriately vintage-sounding score by Luming Hao. A friend of the game’s developers, Hao wrote the soundtrack in the popular tracker software LSDj. At the time, he was studying Computer Science and Music Composition at Lehigh University. That combination of technical and artistic training would seem to make him an ideal candidate to write a chiptune score.

And indeed, there are strong connections between Hao’s classical student compositions and the Kale in Dinoland soundtrack. Writing for the NES or Game Boy’s four channels has often been compared to writing for a string quartet. It is therefore especially intriguing to see what a composer who has actually written a string quartet can do with the Game Boy’s sound hardware. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the busyness of Hao’s String Quartet No. 1 links it directly to the intricate nature of Kale in Dinoland. Hao piles layer upon layer of melodies and countermelodies, rhythms and counter-rhythms, in spectacular fashion, and manages to bind them into compositions that grow and develop organically.

A typical cue in Kale in Dinoland begins with a single rhythmic figure and builds patiently from there. Chirpy melody lines and riffs join in, often with two melodies unfolding in counterpoint. Hao’s classical training clearly manifests itself in the soundtrack’s expert voice-leading and unusually high degree of polyphony. Meanwhile, a constantly evolving backdrop of syncopated or polyrhythmic beats underpins his carefully paced exploration of the melodic material.

The way these tracks unfold is what most clearly separates Kale in Dinoland from classic Game Boy soundtracks. Hao takes his time establishing his melodies before repeating, revisiting, and reworking them. The result is a set of non-looping four-minute pieces with adventurous, almost cinematic ambitions. Interestingly, he also manages to combine his classical background with pronounced pop instincts. His melodies are always catchy enough to energise and focus these sprawling, multilayered structures. As a result, Kale in Dinoland feels less like a technical showpiece than similarly dazzling Game Boy scores such as Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker.

Another crucial part of the picture is the engaging, varied album arc Hao constructs. First, the chiptune symphonies “Test” and “Grasslands” establish the soundtrack’s high-flying ambitions. “Boss” introduces surprisingly harsh, buzzing drones that lend the cue an industrial edge. Its two melodies dart agitatedly around one another, seemingly trying to escape the destructive pull of the fragmented rhythms. Here another sign of Hao’s classical background becomes evident: a willingness to sustain dissonance for extended stretches. That is hardly unusual in contemporary classical music, but far less common in a non-horror game score. As a result, the Game Boy’s noise channel gets a particularly extended workout. “Jungle” presents the soundtrack at its most vivacious, turning layered arpeggios into a swirling, joyous whirlwind.

After the album’s ebullient first half, the mood turns more serious, though no less compelling. “Arctic” is remarkable for the emotional power of its sparse, near-ambient chiptune reflections. Its main melody is a wistful, lonely synth line set above droning, occasionally abrasive chords. The cue develops with immense subtlety and satisfaction. Those rigid background harmonies slowly evolve into an optimistic melodic line, and the music gradually shakes off its inertia as it strides towards the game’s finale. “Volcano” and “Pterodactyl” reintroduce the conflict and claustrophobia of “Boss”. The industrial percussion strikes in “Volcano” sound like explosions at a mining site, both accompanying and threatening to bury the melody lines.

All of this intensity leads into “Mansion”, and it is here that the Kale in Dinoland soundtrack will divide listeners. By introducing live instruments, “Mansion” feels closer to Cinemascope post-rock than to Game Boy music – as if Mogwai had discovered chiptune, with some avant-garde classical music thrown in besides. At first, it is a frenzy of clashing and beeping sounds, often resembling grating guitar feedback. But this is no headless eruption of sound and fury. Bright, hopeful chiptune chords begin to emerge and gradually take command, leading the album towards its towering, crescendoing conclusion, accompanied by uplifting piano and glockenspiel figures weathering an assault of crashing guitar noise.

“Mansion” may feel jarring, but in the end it fulfils the soundtrack’s central ambition: not merely to pay homage to vintage Game Boy music, but to expand – and even rupture – its format, more violently than works such as Tower of Heaven. In the way it fuses classical music’s density of melody and texture with chiptune technique, it is arguably more ambitious than the game it accompanies, and one of the most remarkable self-consciously retro chiptune scores ever produced.