Neil Voss – Tetrisphere

Welcome to the first Video Game Soundtrack Week! For the next five days I'll be taking a look at various pieces of game-related music and soundtracks.

August 11, 1997 • Nintendo

I never thought of Tetrisphere as a particularly good game, but it still holds a special place for two reasons: one, it is one of the two video games my family first owned, and two, it has an amazing soundtrack. Neil Voss's commanding use of highly danceable and catchy electronic jams still lives on in my music library today.

Perhaps it's the nostalgia talking, as I grew up playing a lot of games where this sort of soundtrack was popular and were mostly the typical amalgamation of house, techno, IDM, and drum and bass (and I'm not much into techno). But there's still a quality to Tetrisphere's that holds up critically. There are few, if any, points where the music could be considered cheesy or generic. While juggling these different styles Voss manages to throw a lot of creativity into the mix in the forms on clever sampling, great atmosphere, complex drum beats, and a huge array of synth voices.

As no official version of the soundtrack was ever released (that I know of), the soundtrack can only be heard in-game or via a digital bootleg floating around the Internet. Surprisingly, in the album format, it still works really well—most soundtrack albums I've heard don't do well in this format (not that I'd expect them to). But whoever compiled this one did an excellent job, despite the sonic diversity—the fadeouts are well-placed, no track goes on too long, and the album feels only a little bit lengthy. And for some reason, they back-loaded the album: all the best tracks are at the end ("Learn", "Zyp Zyp", and the godly "Extol") form a great closer, although it's a bit sad that my attention has waned a bit by the time they show up.

While Tetrisphere's soundtrack will sadly pass over a lot of people who never owned the game, as a primer to electronic music I can think of none better. Its catchy yet atmospheric sound is among few I've heard from video games, and it's probably one of the major reasons I'm even into electronic music in the first place (although a few other games helped too).

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