Symbiosis of the senses

If you search for the word “cuddly” on the Internet, you get a few definitions slapped in front of you: “Cute, adorable, lovable”, says the Duden (German dictionary), the site dwds adds, “arousing sympathy, the desire for affectionate attention through external characteristics or behavior”. And even gutefrage ("goodquestion") - always a guarantee for good questions and no less good answers - has its own thread. Danielconnor writes the following there: “What does ‘cuddly’ mean? I've often been called that by girls.” To which emily2001 replies, justifiably annoyed: “sigh! You can google the meaning.... So: cuddly means: cute, lovely, adorable, sweet, cuddly”. And firstanswer adds: “as a boy, not exactly the compliment you want to hear from girls...”. A drama that took place 13 years ago. I wonder what has become of Daniel? And is he still so cuddly?

Where was I? Oh yes, “cuddly”, so basically “cute”. The word should actually be synonymous with “Kena”, or more precisely Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Because this action-adventure debut from studio Ember Lab, released in 2021, meets all the criteria to be carved into the root of the word. According to critics, the game, which looks like a tech demo for Unreal Engine 4 on screenshots, is actually a very competent story about the eponymous Kena, who accompanies the deceased to the afterlife as a soul guide - a bit like Death’s Door or Spiritfarer.

The conflict in the form of a dark corruption, which plunges the colorful forest idyll into darkness, and the Pixar-like look suggest that this is primarily a game for a young target group. That this assumption is in fact misleading is proven by the rather challenging combat system, which, especially at the beginning, often turns us involuntarily from tour guide to tour participant. Quick note: This is all just information from the internet, I personally have not (unfortunately) played Kena and will not do so with regard to my Pile of Shame, which still contains such trinkets as Elden Ring, Marvel’s Spider-Man or the Red Dead Redemption-port.

The score

This much-used segue brings us elegantly to the game's soundtrack. This is (finally again) a proper OST that delivers not only in terms of quality but also quantity: It weighs in at 90 tracks with a duration of over 2.5 hours - if you combine the two albums Vol. 1 with 56 tracks and Vol. 2 with 34 tracks. The music was composed by Jason Gallaty, better known by his stage name Theophany, who also contributed the score for the 2016 indie hit Oxenfree.

Anyone expecting spacy synth sounds similar to those in the graphic adventure from Night School Studio will be very disappointed by Kena . However, this is probably the only reason why you might be dissatisfied with this score. After all, Gallaty provides an excellently fitting musical backdrop for the adventure, which is deeply spiritual at its core.

It's not surprising that he moves into the Far East for this, as the themes of spirituality and transmigration tend to bring Asian religions to mind - or is it just me? According to Wikipedia Gallaty drew his inspiration from gamelan, which doesn't refer to the weekend-long gaming sessions in my basement, but rather a collective term for traditional Indonesian music ensembles. The best way to understand it is probably with Western terms like big band or string quartet.

According to the Kena-entry, the cooperation was inspired by the group Gamelan Çudamani. The group's leader and front woman Emiko Saraswati Susilo did not originally want her traditional music to be used in a video game, but the team later agreed in order to give Gallaty and the development studio an orientation to Balinese culture. Ostensibly following the idea: before they do it wrong, we'll show them how to do it right.

A stroke of luck! Parts of the score were composed together with Dewa Putu Berata, the founder of Gamelan Çudamani, and his daughter Dewa Ayu Dewi Larassanti even became Kena's voice! What was originally a search for an ensemble became a cooperation with the aim of preventing traditional melodies from being 'misused' for a game. This ultimately resulted in a symbiosis that gave the developers a much better insight into Indonesian culture and allowed Gallaty to respectfully adapt an Indonesian funeral march, for example. If you would like more background information, you can watch this interview with Dewa Ayu Dewi Larassanti on YouTube.

Due to the sheer mass of tracks, it probably makes little sense to throw examples around or to analyze pieces in the deepest detail. In general, the score can be divided into two streams: on the one hand, there are the positive/playful pieces such as Beni & SaiyaDor Rozen, Rozen4, Rot ParadeJason Gallaty, Theophany3 or Ascending the MountainJason Gallaty, Theophany4, in which traditional wooden instruments dominate, with their delightful sounds testifying to childlike innocence and a spirit of discovery. The 'Angklung', a so-called shaking idiophone, is particularly catchy and accompanies us throughout the score, creating that 'jungle' feeling, as we know it from the appearances of the Korok tree spirits from the new offshoots of The Legend of Zelda-series, for example.

On the other hand, there are the action pieces. I ( rather unsurprisingly) like them a little better, the drama and energetic driving atmosphere fits wonderfully and works both as a 'generic' action track (Kurulung, Taro’s Spirit Dive, Mountain Shrine) and as a climactic boss fight (KappaDor Rozen, Rozen5, Wood KnightDor Rozen, Rozen5, Corrupt TaroJason Gallaty, Theophany5). Especially in these moments there is a bit of a Sekiro– / Avatar: The Last Airbender-feeling exiting the speakers - and that's always a welcome touch.

Regardless of the circumstances of its creation, the result is a soundtrack that is a great combination of Eastern tradition and Western video game music. Unlike Ori and the Blind Forest, for example, which has a similar narrative at its core but is very Western in its musical style, we are literally immersed in Kena entering a different continent and a different soundscape all together. Jason Gallaty demonstrates a fine artistic mind in bringing together his own style and a sense of traditional cooperation, and I am already looking forward to his future works!