Style: VGM, ambient, classical, acoustic, Arabian, orchestral
Primary Emotions/Themes: Discovery, exploration, wonder, mystery
Thoughts: This game and soundtrack were destined to be in my collection. I adore games that have exploration as the main focus and I am hopelessly addicted to city building games. Combine both of those and you get Airborne Kingdom.
The whole concept of Airborne Kingdom is building a flying city. The larger it is the more it can explore. The more you build it the more you have to worry about keeping it afloat and balanced. It's a simple concept and the execution wonderful.
Of course a game needs music in order to feel more immersive. From the first few moments I played Airborne Kingdom I wanted the soundtrack on vinyl. I looked around and no one had pressed it yet, so I stopped the search. Nearly a year later I find out that Manawave pressed it and it was available. I don't know why but I waited to pick it up, and I'm kind of glad I did. Black Friday gave me this wonderful treasure at a bargain price.
The music in Airborne Kingdom is nothing short of the perfect pairing with the game. It excels at giving me feelings of wondering what's over that next hill? What's across the sea? What's in that town over there? Will any of them want to join me?
The music itself is deceptively simple. It's light and airy (get it?), often played with woodwinds and an acoustic guitar. As the tracks progress more instruments are added in, but they never increase in pace or urgency. There is this deep sense of calm over these tracks, they never have a sense that something is wrong... only that there is more out there that needs to be explored.
I love the instrumentation choices that they used for the soundtrack. The acoustic guitar in particular is allowed to breathe and expand like so many other albums that I love. Silence is used as a balance to the instrumentation... the two are in constant harmony, one never dominating the other.
This is a soundtrack that really needs to be heard to be experienced. It's a beautiful score and deserves far more recognition than it has gotten. When I was active in the video game community I would often post about overlooked soundtracks and why people should check them out. If I was still there then this soundtrack would absolutely have been an entry into that series of posts. This will have to do in it's stead.
Written January 3rd 2024
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