Lorien Testard has made just one video game soundtrack, his first and only commercially released work for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. It’s being touted as one of the best this year.
Lorien Testard’s soundtrack has topped the Billboard Classical album and Classical Crossover album charts. (Supplied: Antoine Billet, Sandfall Interactive)
So how did Testard achieve this impressive feat, which has been nominated for the World Soundtrack Award longlist and praised by French president Emmanuel Macron?
By posting his SoundCloud online for anyone and everyone to listen, until exactly the right person found it.
“I would train myself by composing one song every week and post it on my SoundCloud. I did this for a year.”
“One day I shared a link to my music on an indie gamer forum and Guillaume Broche [ Director of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33] found me. He presented me with his project and asked me to compose the music for the games.”
Decorating time with soundscapes
The world of Clair Obscur is a twisted and destroyed version of our own.
Paris is transformed into a city called Lumière, shattered by a gigantic woman called The Paintress who scrawls a massive number on The Monolith causing everyone of that age to disappear in a phenomenon called The Gommage.
Players take on the journey to defeat this towering enemy on the expedition named after the age of those who will face their doom at the end of the year, the titular Expedition 33.
The devastating and beautiful vision of this world mirrors how Testard views his music complementing the layered artful experience involved in a video game like Clair Obscur.
It’s more than scores and notes, it’s the heartbeat that dictates the rhythm of Clair Obscur’s digital world.
“I see the world of Clair Obscur like a giant painting, and I write each song to create my own little drawing musically, one for each scene and each character, to tie the world together.”
Lumiere is the twisted and destroyed version of Paris that serves as the opening location in fantasy roleplaying game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. (Supplied: Sandfall Interactive)
Online connections into collaborations
A project like this doesn’t usually come about through solitary work and a slew of wonderful talent were brought in to help bring this dream soundtrack to life.
Vocalist and co-composer Alice Duport-Percier was also discovered online, through her performances on YouTube. (Sandfall Interactive: Antoine Billet)
This includes impressive musicians like vocalist Alice Duport-Persier, Daniel Sika who helped orchestrate Testard’s music and l’Orchestre Curieux whose members brought these melodies to life.
But how Testard found some of these people is a wonderful modern-era tale of how the internet can be a tool to bring creators together.
“It was really important for us to have a French singer to sing the lyrics I wrote, so I searched on YouTube for singers that I really love and [Alice Duport-Persier] was by far the number one on my list.”
“I feel really connected and tied to her voice. She gave me a lot of feeling and a lot of emotion when she sang.”
Duport-Persier joined Testard as co-composer on the soundtrack.
“I showed her Lost Voice in the first email, the song of The Gommage, and she said yes pretty early and the very next week she was in my house to record with me.”
Ultimate fantastic crescendo
In the role-playing genre of video games, just like dramatic films, the action culminates in a final epic confrontation with musical pieces like One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII taking on a life of their own outside the games.
These monoliths of music are the climax of a player’s journey, where hours of time and effort exploring and learning the video game world are tested, and ultimately rewarded.
Testard’s love of video game music means he’s familiar with this feeling and was keen to chase it in his own work, seeing it as his own final boss battle creatively.
“This was my first game and it’s my first final boss theme for a game so I want to remember it for the rest of my life.”
The boss battle piece for Clair Obscur, Nos vies en Lumière, is a 33 minute journey divided into three 11 minute pieces, combining elements of every piece that comes before it to give a clear message to the player.
“Right now you’re against the final bosses, just like for me, it’s your one opportunity so I want you to take it.”
Love of the game
For Testard, this wasn’t just a job. It was an opportunity to finally get to work on composing something he had dreamed of creating for a very long time.
“It was like joy and luck, I feel really grateful to have the opportunity to create the soundtrack of my dreams. I see that as a gift for me.”
“I don’t need to top that and I don’t want to top that. For the future I will create what I love and what I want to create and it will be different.”
“Maybe next time they’ll let me do a 43 minute long piece for expedition 43.”
