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Ahead of the first ever Gaming Prom, Verity Sharp delves into the vast and often surprising world of video game music. Since its inception, video game soundtrack composers have pushed the boundaries of their imagination, initially limited by early technology and now creating new soundworlds to match the medium’s ever more richly imagined visual realms. This music has gone on to capture the suspense and frustration of trying to pass a final level, the emotional toll of a quest, the nostalgia of past battles with friends and foes, heightening an essentially visual experience into an all-consuming world. We’ll hear early adventures in video game music from Hirokazu Tanaka, as heard in classic 1986 game Metroid, music from Soichi Terada’s hardcore jungle and techno-inspired soundtrack for Ape Escape and a track from the darkly comedic post-apocalyptic RPG Lisa: The Painful.

Elsewhere in the show, Romperayo take an avant-garde approach to the traditional sounds of Colombian tropical music, and there’s new music from Balinese gamelan master Dewa Alit, played by the composer’s Gamelan Salukat, a large ensemble that performs on instruments specially built to his designs.

Produced by Gabriel Francis
A Reduced Listening production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3