Big Giant Circles has been creating a name for himself with all these wonderfully small but perfectly formed soundtracks and Puzzlejuice is no different.
Opener “Puzzlejuice” introduces you to the sound palette used here. It’s heavily processed mini flicks and beats that to non game music fans I can describe as Bjork’s Vespertine only hyper driven. Opening with a cute melody it then drives into a wonderful juxtaposition with “Sipping Juice” where the percussion really builds into a mechanical firefly frenzy whilst an incredibly laid back and catchy keyboard melody casually echoes throughout. It’s a sublime contrast that sticks in your head. “Over-Juiced!” apart from having an awesome name takes the same jolly tones and fills in more of the gaps with more of a twisting and endless arpeggio feel to it. It still feels polite and sweet – a bit like a late 90s platformer soundtrack! “Mojito Punch” ups the tension slighty as the drums become more processed and fatter in the overall sound of things and the chord progression is no longer naturally all pleasurable. You know the tensions in when the strings come to play with rising chord patterns and glistening guitars. It absolutely works though and as a looping track it plays very well.
Bonus tracks are included such as “Puzzlejuice Trailer” which is a short one minute hybrid of the soundtrack as a whole before “Too Much Juice” comes in as an unused track. It feels much more trance orientated and it missing the warmth that embodies the rest of the soundtrack as its going for the jugular to get your pulse racing. There are also alternate versions of “Over-Juiced” and “Mojito Punch” to round of the album – both of which are much softer versions that don’t quite push their tense parts to the fore as much although they are very similar.
Again Big Giant Circles conceives a fantastic soundtrack. I love the mix of really warm keyboard sounds against a harsher percussive background and the tracks are equally memorable with their riffs. An excellent piece of work.