Post by drinkplentyofmalk on Aug 3, 2021 22:59:26 GMT
Apologies if this post is formatted badly, I've never made a post on an internet form this wordy or ambitious before!
(Yes, a webcomic - stick with me.)
To make a long story short, Homestuck was a long-running webcomic about four internet friends playing a video game that transports them to a stock 'heroes journey' fantasy world - thing then spiral wildly out of control as a labyrinthine amount of plot threads interleave, including bootstrap paradoxes, another universe of aliens playing their own game and an alternate timeline version of Earth.
Arguably more impressive than the comic's scope was it's experiential formatting: the only real dialogue between characters is presented through their instant messaging chat-logs, the narration is written as if it's a text based adventure game with panels and (most relevant to us), it even integrated flash animations and games into it's narrative.
These animations and games needed music, and while at first a relatively throwaway thing of the author asking a team of hobbyists to score specific moments, their enthusiasm matched the comic's own and so they started to churn out track after track. Eventually creating enough individual motifs for practically every single character, event and location in the webcomic to make an incredibly varied 'soundtrack.'
This escalated into the official album releases going from volumes of tracks used in the comic to projects themed around specific concepts and groups of characters. This became a massive pool of music that the author pulled from, using the original track to storyboard his animations to instead of the other way around.
Naturally, every track is extremely listenable on it's own - while all about something from the comic in specific, they're all made to be listened to on their own without it, the soundless medium providing inspiration.
Very few of these tracks have lyrics, and most have strong melodies - your mileage may vary on if that's your preferred way of scoring.
Now, there was a LOT of this material covering a surprisingly large amount of genres (orchestral bombast matching Murray Gold, subdued electronica matching the Classic Era, video gamey-chiptune etc etc), so I'm going to specify the three albums I think would best fit standard Doctor Who, also giving an example for a specific scenario.
Most of Homestuck's music is available for purchase on it's official Bandcamp page - however, a lot of albums are either currently unavailable or oddly batched together - I'd recommend you use Youtube for these.
EXAMPLE #1 - MEDIUM
A solo project by one of the musicians, all eight of Medium's tracks are around eight minutes long and consist of atmospheric tracks focusing on specific locations from the comic. As they focus more on atmosphere than melody (and are fairly lengthy), all of these would make wonderful soundscapes for alien planets.
SAMPLE TRACK - WIND
WHO THEMED EVENT - Exploring a surreal alien environment for the first time - be it Vortis, Woman Wept or another dimension entirely.
EXAMPLE #2 - THE FELT
Themed around a time travelling gang of criminals, each track in this album naturally plays around with time - strange time signatures, a palindrome track, one that constantly stops and restarts itself to simulate a time loop... naturally, you get why I feel this album fits Doctor Who so well.
SAMPLE TRACK - TEMPORAL PIANO
WHO THEMED EVENT - Your crew are the target of some kind of temporal weapon, and now have to literally race against the clock to try and reverse the effects before they cease to exist completely.
EXAMPLE #3 - COLOURS AND MAYHEM, UNIVERSES 1 AND 2
Both of these albums consist of tracks made to be motifs for specific characters, and each has it's own individual flavour and feel - Iron Infidel has latin chanting, Gold Mage the perfect 'cyberpunk hacking' theme, Orange Hat a pounding industrial feel, etc etc. By extension, one of them could perfectly fit one your npcs/pcs.
SAMPLE TRACK - GREEN GHOST
WHO THEMED EVENT - Due to a complex state of events, your crew's TARDIS's consciousness has been placed in a sapient being capable of speech.
I'll leave off there for breviaries sake, although I may post again in this thread with some quick overviews of other albums and tracks I think would fit the game well, assuming there's any interest. (As in, at least one person responds to this.)
To that end I might as well share this jokey video I made a few years back - it's unlikely to be of much help, but it does give you a very quick overview of what each album sounds like.