Disasterpeace, one of the top echelon of chiptune styled game musicians has teamed up with acoustic guitar man Ian Snyder for a delightful soundtrack to the game The Floor Is Jelly. The result is a melodic and hypnotic soundtrack that tugs at your emotions and amasses to more than the sum of its parts.
Take opener “The First Day” which is a simple acoustic guitar and harmonics piece. It’s such a simple melody and riff that is takes you off guard with its sleepy tones and brand new day glow. It layers tiny melodies on top itself to make a beautiful introduction. “Moths and Moonlight” then takes that brightness and heavily mutes it in a soft toy piano and bass sample that’s been heavily smothered and brushed out so it feels like a vinyl record had a baby with a fluffy cloud. It plinks and gently unfurls itself in abstract bluesy fashion before “The Morning” literally takes a bursting sunbeam and transforms it into sound. It’s joyous and bright as a variety of synths and plucked instruments shimmer and shine over a single chord.
“Swimming” continues the soundtracks penchant for adding background world sounds. A distorted and warped guitar and piano slowly float from chord to chord but there’s a nautical underwater bubbling sample that stretches the atmosphere so much further. There’s not tons going on but it becomes so much more than the sum of its parts as at half way the track appears to pop up to the surface as the bubbles disappear and we have background waves. At the same time the instruments retune and we get bass. It’s so genius it’s amazing. “Rain in C Minor” continues the soggy section of the soundtrack in beautiful abstractness. The rain sample is constant but the instruments flick and flutter up and down chords like a rainmaker log dripping their notes down on us. It’s tuneful, playful and magical.
“Buoyancy and Gravity” see’s Disasterpeace start to pull into the more synth and warped sample world of sci fi. It slowly builds and bends through its smooth synth pads and ambient backgrounds to a weird plateaued finale but it’s a curiously calming track. “Winter in C Major” pushes the electronic synth side further with grizzly sine waves buzzing in and out of chords and volume patterns as if its rowing back and forth. “The Universe is Before You” then goes completely abstract with a spacious and noiz infested loop that builds from a murmur to a full on sunrise before turning it self off and doing the same loop again. It’s jarring yet something is so alien about its composition – it pulls you in. “The Last Day” essentially then combines the previous track and The First Day to create its own fuzzy warm sound.
“Our Thoughts Are Not Our Own” returns to the warped acoustic settings as if to bring a closure to the whole event and the soundtrack has a wonderful full circle feel to it which makes it great to listen to as a soundtrack. Disasterpeace gets the final say though with the time warping keyboardtastic “_X_X_X_VMMMCMXI” which maddeningly loops around a simple keyboard loop and keeps glitching around the melody to give us slightly different versions of the same thing as it grows and develops. It’s an epic track and it really takes you places and rounds off the soundtrack perfectly.
The Floor Is Jelly is an amazingly unique soundtrack. It’s the perfect slice of artsy, melodic and entrancing. One of the early entries for the top 10 soundtracks of 2014 as arrived!
I totally agree. I can definitely relax to quite a bit of this soundtrack, which definitely helps me whenever I have anxiety problems. The soundtrack is very well thought out, and for me, it definitely takes what I’ve heard from ambient music beforehand to a place where I thought it never would go in the best way possible. It’s really unbelievable, and it’s a definite recommendation to anyone who wants to listen to any ambient soundtracks :).
Score for Me: Strong 9/10
Recommended Tracks: The First Day (Ian Snyder), Winter In C Major (Disasterpeace), Rain In C Minor (Disasterpeace), Swimming (Disasterpeace), and Buoyancy & Gravity (Disasterpeace).