This week’s song isn’t by an individual artist, or even technically a band. Instead, it comes to us courtesy of the Vancouver studio A Shell in the Pit.
A Shell in the Pit makes music and broader sound design for video games, or as they describe it on their website, they “make games sound like themselves” –a wonderfully simple phrase that captures the way their music fits so well with the games they help create.
“Rainy Day” comes from the work they did for “Sneaky Sasquatch.” My kids have been very much into this game recently. Even though it’s not a two-player game, each one will sit there and watch the other one play it. They request the soundtrack when we’re in the car. Working together, using cardboard and construction paper and every single toy they have, they built a landscape in the basement that mimics the landscape of the game. This project took days, and was always accompanied by the soundtrack.
It was the kind of sibling endeavour that I know they’ll always remember, because it came entirely from them, and it consumed them with a focus and collaboration that I rarely see in them. As they worked, I sat upstairs with the basement door open so that I could hear their heartwarming back-and-forth as they planned and built their world.
I listened in as much as I could without intruding. They’re getting older, and this kind of play might not last much longer. My son especially is at the age where his interests are changing, and that’s okay of course…but it’s nice to know that the curious toddler he once was is still in there, and I honestly think the music has a lot to do with it. He even told me, “this music just makes me so happy.”
So I guess in addition to making games sound like themselves, I can thank A Shell in the Pit for making my kids play like themselves.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The way the percussion comes in with a series of false starts beginning at 0:45.
2. The way the middle-bass line waits until just after the fourth beat of the bar to hit its final note.
3. The high synth sounds like a theremin, if Fisher-Price made a theremin.
Recommended listening activity:
Building.