Daily BrewVideo game app soundtrack helps a Canadian indie rocker get paid
Canadian musicians in search of a steady paycheque in exchange for their talents, along with a platform to reach a wider audience, spent much of the past decade wondering how they could get a tune in a television commercial.
Jim Guthrie, who pulled off that feat when his song "Hands in My Pocket" was used by financial institution Capital One, has now set the trend for the next frontier: video game application soundtrack composer.
While the Guelph, Ont.-born singer-songwriter's score for "Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP" surfaced a month ago in the iPad App Store, it has reached an even wider audience since last Thursday when the game debuted for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Since the app was originally designed for pocket-sized devices, the smaller version of the game focused on a female warrior monk considered truer to the vision of Toronto pixel artist Craig D. Adams, even though it also proved instantly popular in tablet form.
Guthrie, who started performing live with a Sony PlayStation in 2002 before he went on to gain acclaim as a more conventional singer-songwriter, has quickly emerged as Canada's ambassador of a long-overlooked music medium.
The inspiration from classic 8-bit Nintendo cartridges, combined with the symphonic flourishes of a classic film score, has helped "Sword & Sworcery" sound familiar to those who haven't interfaced with a video game in two or three decades.
For a musician, though, the process of making noise for a successful interactive app has required more than dashing off some songs in the dark. After all, the attention to detail has to match the obsession of the gamers being counted on to tweet their friends to play it.
Watch the trailer for "Sword & Sworcery EP" below:
