Tag Archives: Tom Salta

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Game Music Composers Unite for Musician’s Benefit Album “Novum Infinitum”

Everyone know’s I have a soft spot for Benefit albums and good causes so I was delighted to find this press release sent to me below. A hearty shout out to all involved!

Many of the video game industry’s leading music composers, producers and songwriters have joined forces to create “Novum Initium” (New Beginning), a benefit album dedicated to supporting working musicians in need of financial assistance. Partnering with the music industry charitable organization Sweet Relief, all proceeds from the album will be donated to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund which provides financial assistance to career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. “Novum Initium” will be available for digital download via Bandcamp, CDBaby.com, Amazon MP3, iTunes and 7digital on December 6th.

Featuring all-new original music by composers of such blockbuster titles as Call of Duty®, Dead Space™, Dragon Age™, God of War®, Mass Effect™, Medal of Honor™, Prince of Persia®, World of Warcraft®, with cover art by illustrator Aurelien Police commissioned especially for the project; twenty limited edition CDs of the album will also be signed by the composers and auctioned for sale on eBay here: http://xfer.me/nieb.

Composer Sam Hulick, co-producer of the “Novum Initium” album project, commented: “There are many musicians who struggle with medical bills and making ends meet during tough times after dealing with unexpected health issues. We wanted to put together a special project to help our peers who are on that stressful road after recovery.”

“We reached out to our friends in the video game industry and were overwhelmed with the response,” explains composer and album co-producer Jason Graves. “This is obviously something everyone can relate to. As full-time composers, we are self-employed contractors and there’s no such thing as ‘time off’ or ‘paid vacation.’ If we don’t work, we don’t get paid. Medical bills can add up quickly. That’s the whole impetus behind the album.”

Tracklisting with Artists’ Previous Credits:

“Lionheart” – Sam Hulick (Mass Effect™)
“Adagio Coda” – Brian Tyler (Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 3)
“Adrenaline” – Jason Graves (Dead Space™)
“Awakened” – Otto Cate (MAG) & Aubrey Ashburn (Dragon Age™)
“Underwood” – Inon Zur (The Lord of the Rings: War In The North)
“The Maelstrom” – Singlefrequency & Chad Seiter (Legend of Zelda™ 25th Anniversary Symphony)
“Shadows And Light” – Trevor Morris (Army of Two™)
“Chrysalis” – Neal Acree (World of Warcraft®)
“Trouble In Chinatown” – Tom Salta (Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands™)
“Dancing Outtakes” – Garry Schyman (BioShock®)
“Versailles” – Ed Lima (Doom® 3)
“Consequence” – Neil Goldberg (Shift 2: Unleashed™)
“Lacus Turbatus” – Gerard Marino (God of War®)
“Espionage” – Mark Griskey (Star Wars™: The Old Republic™)
“House Of The Vine” – Mick Gordon (Shift 2: Unleashed™)
“The Left-Hand Path” – Cris Velasco & Sascha Dikiciyan (Warhammer® 40,000®: Space Marine®)
“Bullseye” – Christopher Lennertz (Medal of Honor: European Assault™) & Timothy Wynn (Red Faction®: Guerrilla™)
“I’m With You” – Jack Wall (Mass Effect™) & Cindy Shapiro (Myst® III: Exile™)

All proceeds from “Novum Initium” will be donated to career musicians in need. For more information on Sweet Relief please visit www.sweetrelief.org.

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Salta to Compose Tom Clancy’s Hawx 2

Tom Salta, a compose we’re very fond of over at HPM will be composing for Tom Clancy’s Hawx 2. There’s no release date planned yet (let’s get petitioning…now) but with the press releases stating a full orchestra, a Russian choir, electric guitars and a collection of Middle Eastern instruments, it sounds like a perfect fusion of eargasmic tones to be flying through the air to.

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Whisper of the Plains ~ Tom Salta Interview on Prince of Persia

Last week we talked to Tom Salta about his Red Steel 2 soundtrack, this week we finish off the interview with a quick chat about his latest work, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands…

Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands is another soundtrack that has that East meets West fusion that you do so well. What key elements were there for you in finding out exactly how your going to approach making the music for the game?

I like to describe this score as Persian/Fantasy.  We wanted to keep all the instrumentation and vocals all within that world.  I listened to a lot of different music and experimented with several diverse approaches. There were many discussions that I had early on with the team to figure out the overall aesthetic we wanted for the music.

Had you listened to the previous soundtracks for any reference points at all and if you did were there any bits of those soundtracks you really enjoyed?

I was familiar with The Sands of Time score when I originally played the game.  I’m familiar with the music from some of the other Prince of Persia games as well.  I very much enjoyed The Sands of Time score but in the case of Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands there was a decision by the team not to go exactly in this direction. and avoid the use of modern elements or orchestral sounds.

Were their any particular challenges for this soundtrack compared to others that you’ve done before?

Certainly, every score has its own unique challenges.  With Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands, the challenge was to keep it sounding rich, powerful and dynamic without using any orchestral sounds or modern instruments like electric guitar; two elements that were in many of the previous Prince of Persia scores.  I’m very happy with the way the score turned out.  I find that quite often, defining limitations upfront can force you to come up with more creative options.

As a composer does the fact that this is a Wii game have any limitations or positives over say, the more power consoles, or can you blanket score for all consoles the same way?

The console does play a role in deciding the way the cues are put together.  For example, in Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands for Nintendo Wii, we decided on always having two simultaneous stereo streams of music playing that could be mixed by the game engine.  For every cue there was a second layer of music that could play along with it, increasing the intensity or adding another key element to it. On a console like the 360 or PS3, the audio engine is capable of doing more. So that means you have more options if you need them.

Will you be going to see the Prince of Persia film when its released….

I will definitely see it… but with my schedule, it might have to wait until Blu Ray. {laughs}

…and will you be asking to score the seemingly inevitable sequel as soon as you can?

{laughs} I’m pretty sure the Prince of Persia teams know how much I’d love to continue working on the series.  The possibilities are endless with this series and I would love to continue the journey, constantly evolving and trying new things.

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Most Viewed April 2010

One of the possibly the only annoying thing with the changes to stats via WordPress is that I now have almost 600 visitors who visited “Home Page” and that means that these most viewed charts at the start of each month are missing 20% of the page views considering HPM get about 3000 a month. However Bredan Perry stays on top again, although only just this month as his tour got underway and we posted live clips of all the new songs on his tour. I’m so excited for the new album! Most viewed post though was strangely a review from last year, Echochrome’s OST! Is it because Echoshift’s making waves I wonder? Here’s the top 10 viewed artists…

01) Brendan Perry (3 months!)

02) Keith Burgan & Blake Reynolds (NE)

03) Tom Salta (NE)

04) Hideki Sakamoto (-)

05) Lisa Gerrard (v)

06) Jesper Kyd (-)

07) Garry Schyman (v)

08) Ayumi Hamasaki (v)

09) Normand Corbiel (^)

10) Yoko Shimomura (RE)

Top 5 Games

01) RTL Winter Sports (2 Months)

02) Vancouver 2010 (NE)

03) Battle Tanks (-)

04) Musaic Box (-)

05) Numblast (RE)

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Tom Salta ~ Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands OST Review

Tom Salta’s busy streak continues with the release of the latest PoP game, this time on the Wii, PSP and DS and Tom’s latest soundtrack.

Once again Salta’s penchant for mixing different cultures is very much brought to the fore. From the opening “Sacrifice” which opens with exotic instrumentation and vocal floatations and incantations, you are taken deep into a world with mixed influences where East meets West on a dramatic landscape. “The Stranded Castle” is a short track but fuses electronic beats with eastern fixtures and fittings for a powerful and industrial Arabian experience. “The Ancient Halls of Izdihar” however are much more ambient and dense in atmosphere and harsh dusty reality. The percussion used in the soundtrack as a whole is something quite beautiful and organic. “Taking the High Road” mixes the two previous tracks in tone and has a real drive and journeyman feel to it with its one note bassline and structured percussion.

“Breaking the Seal” starts to merge the mystical and orchestral into the mix with lots of jangles and heavily layered and then feathered out strings and keyboards. The song then flips into a real hardcore Persian Trip Hop track for a few bars before falling back to mysterium. “Clear as A Sandstorm” has all kinds of whispy soundeffects for a parched windy feel and here really see’s the Asian guitars take control for a track while swirling vocals slid in and out like a mirage. “Tourtered Souls” is more ambient with lots of drums and backwards voice snippets. It’s more tense and thrilleresque than the other tracks so far. “Ambush in the Caves” is not as fast paced for a battle track as I’d have thought it would be. It keeps the traditional boiiing-boing beat of Persia and features some great guiro sounds but actually is no more percussive and dramatic than the other tracks so far. “Warriors of the Haoma” is much more frantic however really pounding out percussion and dulcimers to signal a huge upping of the ante.

“Interlude I” is a wonderfully short but quite astral keyboard piece. It reminds me of something from Ico or Crystal Dreamscapes. “The Menagerie of Legends” is another very beautiful piece with lots of ancient guitars and lutes. It absolutely holds a history inside it, and the echoed production here really suits the music perfectly. Similarly “At the Palace’s Gates” holds the same regal and ancient qualities with its twisted riffs and slightly eerie chords. It’s a take I could happily listen to on repeat for 20 minutes and not notice. “The Peri” is another mystical track relying on the Arabic musical scale to up the charm and the spirit. It’s a great track to completely envelope you inside with its great use of wind instruments and astral vocalscapes. “Swarming” is a short build up track for “Challenge of the Beasts” which is another well constructed battle track that reminds me heavily of Heavenly Sword in pacing and structure. “Interlude II” is a short, icy keyboard note.

“Water Bearer” is quite clever in using percussion that sounds like water drops to make the track stand out. “The Dead City” is a bit more rockier and atmospheric than most tracks with big drums and empty keyboards. “Chase Through the Palace” on the other hand has a bounce in its step with its thin guitars and drums. “Roaring Fire, Lingering Smoke” is about as close to a sneaking theme as you’ll get on the soundtrack. It leads well into “Augur of Malice” that has a great detuned element to its instrumentation that makes it sound a little more kookier than the other tracks.

“Trapped” is more dramatic and intricate but follows very much the same line of thought as the rest of the soundtrack. There isn’t really much of a melodical edge to the soundtrack. There’s very little in the way of repeating riffs and so on, its much down to the feeling of the instruments and how they are played. The percussion really sets things up and the other instruments augment around the drums. “Falling Apart” is one of the few times where this is not the case with lots of real traditionally Persian instrumentation. “Regret” is more of an etheral piece with keyboards and ab lib vocal layers taking centre stage before “Interlude III” rounds off the short but sweet trio of ambient spacescapes.

“Harbinger of Gods” is quite underplayed with what sounds like a harpsichord playing in the background at times. The song reminds me very much of Dead Can Dance’s Eastern inspired tracks with its slow overtune and quick percussion underneath. “Lord of the Sea” has a lot of water based extras thrown in with electronic elements thrown in and twisted metal synths piercing the ear on occasion. “No End in Sight” and “Dance of the Veil” go hand in hand really as evolutions of each other before “Mah’s Void” takes interesting stance switching from ambient swirls to heavily manipulated tabla runs and back again.

“Sacred Ascent” is a real culmination of the whole soundtrack in an excellent four minute pilgrimage. It encompasses everything that’s gone on before and pulls it all together for a fine track. “The Earth Mother” is a vocal chant led piece with heavy drums slowing marching behind the leading lady. “Defying the Haoma” is more of a scowl than a chant before the epic “Final Confrontation” takes over for an excellent final battle track with melody patterns and increasing tension and drama as everything gets progressively faster during the track. Excellent stuff!

“Loss” is an etheral vocal cry and is very emotive with the heavy echoes and strong vocal delivery. That then leaves you with the massive nine minute “Credits” which combines the entire soundtrack into nine minutes of Tom Salta excellence.

Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands is a very interesting soundtrack because despite having very little in the way of melody and hooks, it holds a certain ambience and feel that keeps you interested. I’m sure having played the game, many of the tracks would surely take on a greater emotional meaning, as on first listen, there’s a lot of similar tracks that blend into eachother. What it does give you is a great pilgrimage soundtrack, one to make a mix tape of all the percussive tracks and then take on a road trip – you’ll feel like you’ve crossed the desert in a day!

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Tom Salta – Red Steel 2 OST Review

Something of a coup HPM has today, is the access to the seemingly never to be released Red Steel 2 Soundtrack. Ubisoft – we will start a petition! Tom Salta’s beautiful soundtrack needs to be released to the public…yesterday!

A strange hybrid of several genres, Red Steel 2′s soundtrack is never boring. “Red Steel 2 Theme” opens like a sundown showdown from a Western. Tumbleweed, whistles, clicks and twanging guitars are at the ready for this atmospheric opener that slinks its way into your speakers. It suddenly breaks out into a Wild ARMS-esque finale section at the end with flowing percussion, chinese instrumentation and light vocal chants.

“Kusagari Blues” makes you remember why the blues were called the blues in the first place. It has a very isolated feeling to its intricate workings and is a beautiful piece. “Caldera Trap” is more frantic with lots of shrieking Shakuhachi and some very fast paced Chinese percussion. “Desert Secrets” is more desolate with its echoes and whistles setting the scene like you can only see yourself in a massive panaramic landscape.

“Ninjas in the Mine” has a real bounce to it as the Pipa  and Fue really come to the fore and the blend between East meets West really starts to absolutely shine in these tracks where you have the Western guitar twanging over an undercurrent of traditional Chinese instrumentation. “Let’s “Dance”" is more ragtime to the dosey-doe! The harmonica playing here is exceptional, as the violin – going along at a meaty pace. You could do a whole barn dance with this track alone!

“Pursuring the Shadows” is more dramatic with its tonal qualities, although the previous tracks haven’t been a picnic either, but this is going for the drama more than the previous ones with its heavy percussive smashes. “Into the HQ” sounds like it’s using a Jew’s Harp in there somewhere which gets the automatic thumbs up from me! It’s another high octane easts meets west fusion and Pipa player Xiaofen Min deserves a special credit for playing one of my favourite instruments so well!

“Enforcers Mood” is more ambient atmosphere with spacious cold clangs and echoey shakuhuchi’s langishing behind brooding electric guitars. This song feels more arabic than everything else so far in places. “Back to the Old Temple” however is the one track in what is generally a very fast paced soundtrack, that is a place of solace. It’s beautiful jangles and vocals layered with encirculating chords from the guitar, pipa and fue, all complimented with tuned percussion – bliss.

“Invaded City” returns to the more cowboy side of things with a guitar heavy track with lots of finger sliding that makes a western a real western. It holds great presence in your ear when its done right like it is here. “Vultures’ Prayer” has a manic little electric guitar riff as it interacts with the vocals and the chinese instruments. The boing of the Jew’s Harp is back, and so the energy really bursts through in this track. “The Ghost Town” takes the previous energy and then uses the solomn whistling of a lone ranger to be layered over the top. The result means the short track packs a bunch whilst still having a sad element. “Sheriff Judd” is another short track that’s led by tuned percussion and the jews harp which is a nice interlude. “Ambush” starts off atmospheric before bursting into life with an army of drums and a fist full of basslines to keep you more than tapping your foot to the beat.

“Opening the Water Gate” is another track full of glitter and jangles although it has a more mysterious and forboding edge to it, especially when the pipa joins in for its solo. Then for the last fourty seconds, the taiko-esque percussion booms in for a big climax. “Roots at Night” for a while feels like the soundtrack has suddenly gone electro-western with all kinds of a computer wizardary involved rewinding and reverbing noises back and forth. It makes for a disorientating track that feels different and unique to the rest of the collection and therfore stands out as an ambient highlight – especially with the drum n bass beats diving in at half time!

“Canyon Melody” is a guitar based track that’s then embellished with all the chinese instrumentation over the top and this track really feels like a roadtrip track, or one that signifies a long journey – it just has that weary feel to it. “Poisonous Wind” has thick atmosphere with the woodblocks knocking away and the whispering voices far off in the distance.

“Exploring Caldera” is the only song over three minutes long and that is because it encompasses the entire ambient side of the soundtrack in a single piece. From its  guitar string scratches and wind instruments leading the way to the owl guiros and clappers in the background, it paints a desolte desert picture. Fantastic. “Fight With the Snakes” is a minute of pure adreneline as the track goes for the simple two chord rising trick but its completely effective with all the instruments pounding away. “First Tension” is a dusty guitar riff driven track with long pauses between each line as if you need to swallow after each one. “The Old Mine” is an underplayed ambient piece where the woodwind comes to the fore and the final track of this masterpiece “Tamiko” rounds off in a ragtime piano led track that reminds me so much of a cleaned up Silent Hill 3 track its quite spooky and completely removed from the rest of the collection.

I have absolutely no idea why this hasn’t been released! It’s amazing from start to finish. The complete fusion of cowboy meets 3000 year old oriental mage in a studio is phenominal. The way how everything blends seemlessly together in the desert environment is a stroke of genius and Tom Salta has produced a unique soundtrack I will return to time and time again. We will be starting a petition!

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Tom Salta Composes Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands

Tom Salta has been a busy bee. Not only has he just composed the score for Red Steel 2 (talking of which a review and interview are in the works), he’s now been named as the new composer for Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands. Tom is known from slotting all kinds of themed instruments into his grand scores and this soundtrack will be no different. In the mix are world singers Azam Ali and Judith Berard, both highly acclaimed in their fields, as well as percussionist Bashiri Johnson. There is also talk of custom made instruments.

While there’s no word on a soundtrack release date yet, I hope to be shaking my hips to the beats soon, and in the meatime I’ll be starting up a petition for the release of the Red Steel 2 soundtrack instead!

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Salta Shakes It Up With Red Steel 2 Soundtrack

Tom Salta has written and composed the score for new wii game Red Steel 2. Looking set to potentially be one of the most intresting mainstream soundtrack sof 2010, Salta has said he has used some Wild-West guitar moments mixed around with very traditional Chinese instruments such as the Due and Pipa. That combination ensures Higher Plain Music will be right at home and we can’t wait for the release of this soundtrack on 23rd March 2010! That’s my birthday spending money gone then…!