"Darren Korb"
"Darren Korb"
date of birth 5 nov 1983
Bastion's soundtrack was produced and composed by Darren Korb, a songwriter and composer. He was selected to pen the soundtrack by Rao, who was a childhood friend of Korb. Bastion was the first video game that Korb had scored; prior to it he had worked on a few smaller television shows and movies. He was brought onto the team in the beginning stages of the project, and several of the pieces he developed were created prior to the final design of the levels with which they were associated. The musical style of the soundtrack has been described by Korb as "acoustic frontier trip hop". It was intended to evoke both the American frontier and an exotic fantasy world. The songs combine "heavily sampled beats in layers, along with acoustic elements", and he determined that he wanted to create the soundtrack in that style as it was different than video game soundtracks that he had heard before. The music was recorded in Korb's closet at his New York City apartment, as were the sound effects and over three thousand lines of narration by Cunningham.
In addition to composing the music, Korb wrote all the lyrics for the soundtrack. The soundtrack features four vocal themes: "Build That Wall", "What's Left Undone" (played looped in the game), "Mother, I'm Here", and "Setting Sail, Coming Home". "Build That Wall" features the voice of Ashley Barrett, "What's Left Undone" features that of Cunningham and "Mother, I'm Here" features Korb, and both Korb and Barrett perform in "Setting Sail, Coming Home". Supergiant Games originally had not planned to release a full soundtrack album for the game, but due to fan demand they released one in digital format on August 5, 2011, with two songs not heard in the game. These songs are "Get Used to It", which has a voiceover written by Greg Kasavin and spoken by Logan Cunningham, and "The Pantheon (Ain't Gonna Catch You)", with lyrics written by Korb and sung by Cunningham. A physical limited edition CD signed by Korb was released on September 2. The soundtrack sold 30,000 copies by November 2011. On March 15, 2012, Supergiant Games released sheet music for piano and guitar arrangements by Korb of "Build That Wall", "Mother, I'm Here", "Setting Sail, Coming Home", and "The Pantheon (Ain't Gonna Catch You)" for free in their online store.
