TowerFall Ascension Soundtrack

Alec Holowka, 2014

Created by Alec Holowka’s friend Matt Thorson, the multiplayer brawler TowerFall proved a hit with players and critics alike. In 2014, Thorson brought the game to PlayStation 4 and other systems as TowerFall Ascension. Essentially an expanded and upgraded version of TowerFall, Ascension also gave its music something the original never had: a dedicated soundtrack release on Bandcamp.

That was a fortunate development, because TowerFall Ascension contains some of the most inventive Western game music ever written. The game’s retro visual stylings and simple but addictive design might have suggested a chiptune soundtrack. Equally, its fantasy trappings could easily have yielded yet another late-Romantic orchestral score. Holowka rejects both options. What he produces instead is a head-spinning synthesis of rock, orchestral, and electronic elements handled with such virtuosity that the TowerFall Ascension soundtrack rivals the best work of Falcom, Gust, and CAVE – or a classic fantasy genre hybrid like Matt Uelmen’s Torchlight II.

There is so much happening in Holowka’s spirited compositions that easy categorisation or definitive genre labels are bound to fail. Constantly adventurous and sprightly, the pieces on Ascension never remain in one place for long. That is partly due to their kaleidoscopic instrumentations, which invite the listener to unpack the music’s unusual, luscious layers. There is also a distinctly wintry cast to the soundtrack, with its spacious acoustics and abundance of tinkling melodic leads and light metallic percussion. Ultimately, listening to TowerFall Ascension feels like looking into a crystal that refracts light into ever-changing, ever-fascinating arrays of colour.

The sense that the TowerFall Ascension soundtrack offers an impressionistic glimpse into a stunning fantasy world is not simply a product of its imaginative orchestrations. The abundance of instrumental colour is matched by musical material that is itself in constant motion. Most of these compositions are driven by an inexhaustible stream of short, snappy rhythms and melodic phrases. They give the music an energy that can be frenetic, but is always playful. Crucially, however, the score never feels frantic or rushed. No matter how many dramatic ensemble hits, staccato figures, and nimble crescendi Holowka crams into his tracks, the soundtrack moves with a sense of perfectly judged purpose: animated, grooving, and often surprisingly danceable. TowerFall Ascension is a masterclass in action music that does not rely on broad melodic arcs or conventional build-ups, but dazzles through its endless supply of rhythmic and timbral ideas.

Those resonant acoustics and startlingly inventive colours are part of Holowka’s larger recasting of the fantasy-score mould. Yes, this is music far quirkier than the standard orchestral fantasy template. Nor does it overwhelm the listener with grand melodies, choral surges, or comparable bombast. Yet in the album’s more classically inflected tracks, one still hears music that evokes a winter wonderland of magic and heroes battling beneath starry skies. Take “Frostfang Footslip”, with its exquisite dual violin leads set against familiar action devices such as string ostinati and insistent electronic beats. Or “Flight”, the album’s lightest cue – poppy, yet delicate. Then there is “Bloodline”, whose folkier roots subtly announce themselves through stomping rhythms and near-singalong melodies.

It is in the less conventional compositions that bookend the TowerFall Ascension soundtrack, however, that the score truly astonishes. These ceaselessly eclectic tracks are an absolute riot, with few peers in the game music canon. Just listen to “Den of Thieves”, which opens with a wooden percussion groove and funky synth bass supporting a head-bopping bassoon melody. These relatively restrained passages alternate with anthemic 1980s synth staccati that recall classic game music from that era. The exuberant final chorus somehow manages to drag fantasy score music onto the dance floor.

The heavy, trotting funk swagger of “Beastly Boogie” is not entirely surprising, given the sleek electric bass work heard across many other tracks. But Holowka’s ability to fuse contemporary elements such as funk and grungy guitar textures with orchestral writing, and to make the result feel effortless, remains deeply impressive. The album’s most mind-boggling invention may well be “Dance of the Sun Gods”. Through some especially strange kind of magic, solo violin, sitar, Casio keyboards, deliberately fake vocals, and Latin brass fanfares combine with salsa rhythms to create something like a Caribbean cruise through a psychedelic version of the Twilight Zone.

In many ways, the TowerFall Ascension soundtrack is a creative triumph. Perhaps its most striking achievement is the way it stakes a claim for game music as a genre in its own right, with a musical identity all its own – an identity that can nevertheless be hugely eclectic, with boundaries waiting to be redrawn and expanded. It is easy to become nostalgic for the era when chiptune gave game music its own unmistakable sound. But as TowerFall Ascension demonstrates so impressively, there remain myriad ways of exploring and defining what game music can sound like.