Below by Jim Guthrie
Below by Jim Guthrie pressed on translucent blue and purple vinyl by Bandcamp & Dark Flute
“…It was just a matter of making something that is both dark and pretty — my favourite mix!”
Moth to a Flame
Sail off to an isolated world this week with Below by Jim Guthrie. Pressed on translucent blue and purple vinyl by Bandcamp & Dark Flute, the soundtrack to Capybara Games' otherworldly action-adventure roguelike is here to surround you in its moody and tumultuous grooves. This week I sat down with composer Jim Guthrie to traverse through the catacombs of Below’s music... Grab your torch and stay near the light, you don’t want to see what lies within the depths.
Campfires
Jim Guthrie is a singer-songwriter, composer, and musician based out of Guelf, Ontario in Canada. Best known in the indie game music scene for his work on projects like Indie Game The Movie, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Planet Coaster, and many others, Jim has built a household name for himself as one of the most eclectic and emotive composers in gaming. As a solo artist, Jim has released some of the best indie rock albums I have ever heard. A Thousand Songs being my personal favorite album of all time is chock full of all the blissful whimsy that Jim brings to his modern-day soundtracks, and is the perfect barometer to see how he has never lost his playful touch with anything he sinks his teeth into. The way he has infused his lo-fi indie background into his modern video game soundtracks has been breathtaking, to say the least. I highly recommend you check through his catalog of solo albums and his work with Royal City to get a wider appreciation for the music Jim has created in the gaming scene. Stemming from his lo-fi and indie rock roots, Jim brings a nuance to the game soundtracks he composes that’s altogether unique and totally timeless. As one of my favorite composers of all time, I just had to know what influenced him to lead a life in music.
“Everything I’ve ever heard on the radio or TV/film was huge when I was young. Music always sounded so magical and complex yet it completely made sense to me. It’s always been something that energizes and moves me. I’ve always made time for it and It’s always given back as much as I put into it. My relationship to music and my success has been very gradual and pretty organic. I think that’s been key to my development. Nothing came too fast but it always felt rewarding on some level, personal or public. There was always the hope that I could make it my living but never the expectation. It doesn’t feel right to say I chose a life in music because it’s just always been there. I think I never really had a plan B so in some ways it had to work out. I have no idea what I’d be doing otherwise.”
With Sword and Shield
The fact that Jim never had a plan B is the exact reason his music is so good. You can literally feel the drive and passion for what he does permeate through every aspect of his work. His commitment to music is absolutely contagious and is one of the reasons why his music is so captivating to those who listen to it. The dedication that Jim brings to the albums he writes is just serendipitous in every sense of the word. You never know what’s going to happen when you begin a Jim Guthrie album, but you always know it’s going to be a journey — one that you are glad you took part in when it's all said and done. The pure authenticity and courage that he delivers with every project he releases absolutely resonates from out of the tones, it truly encapsulates who he is as a person and I love it. Jim has this way of evoking a sense of belonging, and truth through his compositions that, in my mind, helps to elevate what he does to a totally new level. Throughout all of his eclectic music, and lo-fi fuzz, there's one thing Jim never ceases to deliver on and that is his unadulterated muse. Like an extension of himself, Jim reaches out to us, the listeners, through sonic tendrils that completely wrap you up and embrace you within his own soft and melodic world of notes. Jim Guthrie is a master of melancholy riffs and transcends the material world to give us all a gift that can never truly be described. Jim has always had a way with his music that totally displaces you from time and space and Below evokes that experience in spades. From his lo-fi early days to his indie rock masterpieces, the one thing that has remained constant in everything Jim does is his contagious love for music. I just had to know what games or soundtracks if any that resonated with him, and helped influence his sound.
"It’s so hard to say. I didn’t actually play a lot of games growing up. I had an Atari and maybe an NES but…. I can’t even remember if it was mine or I played at my friend’s house? So I definitely love the Mario jams but I wouldn’t say it’s an influence. I then got a PS1 for free years after it came out and loved Abe’s Odyssey and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater among others but it wasn’t a huge passion — just fun. Although I remember playing the first Silent Hill and being pretty blown away! All this to say, I don’t have any real magical moments with games growing up but I do love their potential. As for movie soundtracks, I was always drawn to 70s and 80s horror movies. I also have a huge memory of seeing the movie Amadeus in theatres when I was a kid and that blew me away. I love classical music even though I can’t read or write music. I think that makes me love it more? But yeah, I’ve never obsessed over too much. I’ve always tried to keep moving and listen to new things because even after all these years I still get goosebumps when I hear a good song."
Progression
Goosebumps are exactly what I got when I heard the soundtrack for Below last year! The game was completely shrouded in mystery from the moment it was announced until its release date, and with Jim Guthrie doing the music I was beyond hyped. While not natively drawn to video game music, Jim has truly cut out his own special piece of the industry that has captivated us all over the years and that in itself is special. With Below being such a widely popular and anticipated release with a laborious development time I felt compelled to ask Jim what it was like to reprise his role with Capybara Games on this soundtrack.
“Most of my interactions were with the creative director Kris Piotrowski but we had worked on many things over the years so it was very familiar. Game development is always a bit of a rollercoaster and it’s all about being able to push through and continue to be inspired. Everyone at Capy is so good at what they do and it’s always a pleasure to work with them!”
North Shore
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP was the previous project that Jim and Capybara Games collaborated on. With a huge emphasis on Jim’s music sculpting the game it inhabited, Below became much more about Jim’s music settling in the background of the game that was being created. That dichotomy in the creative pathways between these two projects became the catalyst that Jim needed to discover his sound for Below. Taking a different approach to the creation of this album, I wanted to know exactly how much of Below Jim got to see during his writing sessions, and how different it was with this new development process with Capy:
“It was challenging because I always had access to the latest build but I’m not super good at playing the game (even with developer cheats and shortcuts etc) I never made it far. Since we weren’t doing a lot of tight scoring in the game I could just experiment and most of the time it would work out. For the scenes that needed more care, I would work from some gameplay footage and then reverse engineer it back into the game (with the help of the audio director at Capy, Sean Lohrisch) as loops and other bits so it felt smooth.”
Catacombs
Smooth it was indeed, Below definitely feels like one of the most exploratory and experimental Guthrie albums to date, that’s the one thing I think I love most about this album and its compositions. You really hear that experimentation emulate from out of the depths of the grooves here, and you get a true sense of just how sonically different this album was to produce. With access to the dev build and a huge swathe of creativity flowing within him, Jim set out to create and extrapolate on what Below would become, but just what did Jim use to create the music we hear today?
“I used my cassette 4-track to record drones created by a Super Ego pedal and ran all that through delay and reverb. It was very effective in creating some of the real pretty, dark and cloudy drones. I also used an OP1, Prophet 6 and an old Akai synth (can’t remember the name right now). I also used a good mix of soft synths like stuff from UVI and Spitfire Audio. So many plugins, so little time!”
Blackrock
The synth-filled tapestry that Jim weaves into this album’s framework is a testament to his iconic sound and feeds into those lo-fi roots that he is so well known for. The hypnotic dancing of sounds that cascade across the corridors of your mind and house as this album spins is absolutely elevated by Jim’s commitment to the raw analog fuzz that captivates our nostalgic hearts. His work on the synthscapes of this album bled directly into what would become Jim’s favorite memory from the writing sessions of Below:
“I think using my 4-track to “play the faders” and feed these drones into other outboard effects. Songs like Caves and With Sword and Shield were very satisfying to create. Some of the most meditative and blissed-out moments in my studio for sure.”
Caves
I think Jim delivered those meditative and blissed-out moments directly into our homes with this release, and it’s one of the reasons this album is so good. As an ambient dreamscape of lo-fi tunes and groovy rhythms, Below has a lot to offer beyond just being a soundtrack, it’s an excellent standalone album and an extension of the universe that Capybara Games created. As one of the darkest and brooding albums I have ever heard Jim write, I just had to know how he came to this amazing musical conclusion.
“After many months of experimenting with different sounds and approaches it became clear that ‘less was more’. Then it actually became quite meditative at times when searching for the right types of ambient drones/textures. The gameplay can be very punishing but the world itself I found to be very beautiful and calming at times. It was just a matter of making something that is both dark and pretty — my favourite mix!”
The Cathedral Interior
Dark and pretty is the perfect description of Below’s sound. From the moment you sail onto this mysterious island of grooves, you are thrust into this poignant and shimmery vista of notes that totally and completely enraptures you. The consistent torrential downpour of synth present here is a wonderful touch and is a major highlight of the album and is in tune with Jim’s iconic sound. The darkness bellows up from out of the foggy ether and slowly takes over the foreground as it begins to swallow you deep into the cavernous depths. Cast well below the surface you are left in this pitch-black corridor of notes that is filled with Jim’s classic and playful accents that barrage through your consciousness — Drawing you ever further in electric tidal waves onto the shores of his own world of sound. Below isn’t just a soundtrack, it’s the embodiment of Jim’s persona and it is his greatest work to date.
What Lies Below
Below’s vinyl release came as quite a surprise for many of us collectors earlier this year when the crowdfunding campaign went live on Bandcamp. The whole concept of releasing vinyl in this way was completely new to the scene and was amazing to witness. Jim Guthrie and this incredible video game soundtrack became the pioneer of the concept and everything just fell into place. I asked Jim what it was like releasing the album in this way with Bandcamp and this is what he had to say:
“It’s always a little nerve-wracking to have to sit and hope you hit your goal but Bandcamp was very helpful and supportive. Seeing as it was a pilot program I didn’t have access to all the backend tools and stats that I would normally have so that was tough but it’ll all be there by the time it’s a full feature on the site. It was mostly about working closely with Bandcamp and they sort of ran the campaign while trying to make sure the interface was working as needed and learning as they went/building out the service. I’m super pleased with the results!”
I think we all are! Releasing under his own label Dark Flute, Jim went all out in giving us fans a premium release with all the buzzwords that make vinyl fans drool. Housed in a triple gatefold featuring artwork from Cory Schmitz, the dark and mysterious cover is perfect in representing what this album has to offer. The inner gatefold artwork by Sylvain Coutouly features a beautifully stylized depiction of the iconic opening scene from Below. The amazing sense of scale that you get when this thing is fully opened totally lets you relive that experience from the game on physical media, it’s just lovely. The material of the gatefold itself is matte in finish and almost takes on a giclee style feel with the grain of the material, which feels great. I do wish the gatefold itself were a tad more rigid as I noticed mine had issues with creasing where it folds together. The inner sleeves are definitely where it’s at for me. The die-cut diamond with gold foiling gives you a literal portal to the vinyl housed in each sleeve that’s totally elegant and adds a premium touch to an already spectacular presentation. The flip side of each sleeve houses gorgeous early concept art for Below by artist Tony Chan that completely steals the show. The cartoon watercolor stylization and the etching of the tracklisting make these some of the best looking inner sleeves I have ever seen in a vinyl release. Mastering here was carried out by Andy Magoffin and Jeff Elliot. The sound of these stunningly gorgeous blue and purple discs is quite exceptional in my opinion. I had zero issues of surface noise, and the whole album sounded great from start to finish with very little inner-groove distortion that I could distinguish. Overall I’d say as a concept piece for Bandcamp’s new vinyl production platform I am quite pleased with what has been delivered here, and I highly recommend you snag this album while you still can. There are still limited quantities of leftover pressings from the crowdfunding campaign still available over on Jim’s Bandcamp page! Sail on over and grab one!
Iris
What’s next for Jim Guthrie?
“I really want to make another indie rock album but nothing in the works yet! I do have a few other games on the go right now. I’m doing music for Cat Lady with my pal JJ Ipsen with Rose City Games and also working on Griftlands with Klei among other things that I can’t talk about….yet!”
The Lookout Observatory
For those of you that want to learn more about Jim Guthrie and learn even more about his musical magic, I highly recommend you check out the wonderful biography written by Andrew Hood titled “Who Needs What”. It’s a fantastic read and goes through all the fun little avenues of Jim’s career and life. You can snag a copy over at Jim’s Bandcamp page, and trust me it’s more than worth it!
Album Details
Music by:
Remastered for vinyl by:
Andy Magoffin & Jeff Elliot
Artwork by:
Cory Schmitz, Sylvain Coutouly & Tony Chan
Vinyl produced & distributed by:
Dark Flute & Bandcamp
Where to buy?
This album is still available in extremely limited quantities on Jim’s Bandcamp page. As the only copies of this album left available are the leftovers from the crowdfunding production I highly recommend you sail on over and grab a copy before it’s gone for good.