“Pat Earrings” sounds like it’s from the soundtrack to a version of Drive where Ryan Gosling is burning round the estate in a beat-up Citroën and every song is being blasted out of the tape deck. Some tracks feel purpose-built for this game. A trace of the room where it was recorded, I suppose, but in the white vacuum of an Audiosurf level, it’s like the song is resonating out into infinity. For example, the reverb at the beginning of “Hands on Me”. I prefer to play on Mono, the game’s most basic mode, because it commands my fingers and parts of my brain but leaves just enough space that I can appreciate the details of songs I’ve never noticed before (unless I’m being catapulted down the sheer face of a Chvrches track). One of the great things about Audiosurf is the way it forces you to be alone with a song, something that’s even more valuable today than it was a decade ago, with a hundred things constantly vying for our attention. Acoustic guitar and “mm-hmm”s might not sound like the most obvious fit for the game’s slightly Tron-ish aesthetic, but apparently sexiness is a detectable parameter, and the generated track retains that telltale swing in its hips. Next up, the single horniest country song I have ever heard. I do get a pretty good score on it, though, so at least there’s that. I’m sure this is faithful to the BPM and such, but it just doesn’t feel right. This track is a stark piano-driven lament that, for personal reasons, makes me think about bereavement and grieving.Įxcept in Audiosurf, where it’s a nippy little number, your ship skimming happily across the surface of Yorke’s brittle voice. The game’s interpretation of tracks isn’t always so spot-on. Here, it’s like driving over the speed-boost arrows on a Mario Kart track. The whole song is a tribute to Prince (possibly because the Purple One himself worked on it before he passed) but the single best moment is when it goes full “Kiss”, and the beat concertinas into a quickfire stutter. It even pinpoints my favourite moment of the song (Mitski somehow yelling in a whisper, “scream in my mouth, I’ll barely hear you”) as the bit where the whole thing accelerates into hyperspace. And the thing is: the game is right and I was wrong. Between the woozy synths and Mitski’s airy delivery, I’ve spent the year thinking of “Between the Breaths” as something ethereal, perhaps even floaty.Īudiosurf reveals it as an irresistible headrush, a single oasis of calm in the entire six-minute track. Other times, the game’s interpretation of a song comes as a complete surprise. “Between the Breaths” by Mitski and Xiu Xiu It perfectly sums up how I feel about the song – the pairing of J-Pop and S-Lec trios (that’s Scottish Electro, a genre I just made up) is a great big nitro injection to the usual Chvrches sound. A relentless downhill slalom throughout, it’s probably the fastest track I’ve ever seen this rhythm ‘em up generate. Audiosurf’s most basic trick is breaking tracks into build-up – indicated by a gradual upward climb of cooler colours, and a racing release with swooping descents and hot reds. “Out of My Head” by Chvrches and Wednesday Campanella The result is not, to borrow a phrase from Cardi, the hot tamale I had expected. But with the exception of the choruses, which get pleasingly frantic with the sheer number of beats on screen, that doesn’t really translate through Audiosurf’s decade-old algorithms. It’s an intoxicating cocktail of trap and salsa, ideas and genres layered one on top of another. The thing I’d never realised about “I Like It”, though, is that there is no real drop to speak of. It takes that drop most dancefloor-ready songs are built around, and makes it literal. The beats are transformed into blocks for you to scoop up or dodge. Audiosurf reinterprets music as neon-lit rollercoaster tracks that you ride along in a little hover car. My journey begins with a verified banger. “I Like It” by Cardi B, Bad Bunny and J Balvin After all, is there a better way of celebrating the end of the year than to take 10 of the finest tunes of 2018 and run them through the finest rhythm game of 2008? I certainly can’t think of anything. Like games, yes, but also telly and photos and, as we shall see, music. As we rapidly approach the end of the year, it’s time for everyone to look back over the past twelve months of stuff and turn it into neat little lists of what was best.
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