| |
Tracks and Composer Commentary:
Ann's Theme
download 
Ann's theme needed to embody all the tenderness and romantic yearning of a woman you would want to fall deeply in love with. A woman for whom you would face any danger. A woman for whom you would be willing to give your very life to save. Ann Darrow is such a woman in King Kong. In creating her theme, I called on some of the lush romantic orchestration and harmonic idioms of the 1930's, while still keeping the theme accessible to the current generation.
Between Two Worlds / Vision of Ann
download
One of the most successful game mechanics you will discover while playing King Kong is what we call "injure mode". When your character takes a mortal wound, the world goes blurry, the sound effects become distant and echoic, and the music transforms into an angel-like vocal sound floating over an ominous low drone, thus implying your precarious position between the current life and the afterlife. In this excerpt from the game, you are nursed out of an injured state by Ann Darrow, and you awaken to see her face above you and hear her theme floating ethereally in the background. An effective and intoxicating elixir.
Lost in the Jungle
download
For centuries composers have enjoyed the sport of theme and variation. They take a given melody and expound it straightforwardly. Then they run it through all sorts of differing harmonic progressions, rhythmic underpinnings, and instrumentations to create wildly different feelings but with a consistent thread of familiarity. I love doing this. In this variation of Ann's theme, Ms. Darrow finds herself lost in the jungle - tentative, afraid, vulnerable. Compare the emotions of this track to the contrasting emotions conveyed in track #1 utilizing the same theme.
Ann Leaves the Island
download
As dangerous as Skull Island is, Ann leaves the island with serious anxiety about her return to New York City and deeply mixed feelings about her experiences on the island. I formed a mental image of her being tossed about on the waves of the sea to help me capture the right spirit. Some of that feeling is conveyed in the string section by combining the undulating viola figure with high and low tremolos in the violins and basses. The cellos carry her theme.
|
|
|
