July 31, 2022: A Western-Tinged Cyberpunk Soundtrack

Part of my "you're trapped at home and have time" experience during the 2020 pandemic included learning the Soundtrap DAW (digital audio workstation, a tool for music production and composition). I was introduced to Soundtrap by David Blanchard, our rep at GPI, who knew I had been interested in tackling music. David was already using Ableton Live to craft music, and we had several great conversations about our completely different approaches to creating music using the tools we each had at hand.

Over time, as we both released music, I thought it might be fun to experiment with a bit of a collaboration. I constructed a beat of drums, various percussive bits, and special effects and sent it over to David. He then added the melodic elements, the most distinctive of which was his guitarwork. That one track was so much fun that we created a second . . . and then two more! All four tracks were created in the same way, with me providing the percussive skeleton and David overlaying guitar, strings, bass, and more. 

We took the project to Kickstarter -- along with game content for the CY_BORG roleplaying game -- and successfully funded a 7" record.

Fortunately, part of the Kickstarter plan included the promise to release the music and game content as free downloads, so everyone can access and download the work even if they missed the Kickstarter campaign. The MP3s and a PDF of the game content can be downloaded at DrivethruRPG, while the music tracks are also available at Bandcamp and on several streaming services.

Thank you to the Kickstarter backers for their support and to David for joining me in creating this four-track EP. It was more fun than I expected, and I hope that we make time to produce another EP together one of these days.

-- Phil Reed