ALBUMS

Lost Eden

Commercial album.

 Composer: Stéphane Picq
Publisher: Shooting Star
Catalog Number: MMM-0197
Release Date: 1997
Content: 1 CD - 13 Tracks - 50:02
Front / Back Status: In print - Shooting-Star Boutique

Track List

01 - Citadel Of Knowledge [6:56]
02 - Thaa's Secret [2:57]
03 - The Quest [4:15]
04 - Lost Eden Theme [3:56]
05 - Amazonia [4:21]
06 - Brontosaurus [2:55]
07 - Aquasaurus [1:37]
08 - Castra's Harmonic Song [2:23]
09 - The Magnificents [3:15]
10 - Velociraptor Ride [3:28]
11 - Mother Of Energy [3:40]
12 - Undead Soul [4:56]
13 - Elemental [5:16]

Total Time: 50:02

Credits

COMPOSED & PERFORMED BY STÉPHANE PICQ

Liner Notes

(From the "Making-Of" in the CD-ROM content):

Mother of Energy:
Composed in june 1992, this track was not supposed to be present in Lost Eden (the game). But, as it is truly the first outline of what I have done after, I finally decided to put in it the game, and in this CD.

Citadel Of Knowledge:
This track, the first of the CD, is also the first I have composed specially for the Lost Eden game, in july 1992. At this time the game development wasn't started, and the only inspiration avaible for me was the amazing sketches of Jean-Jacques Chaubin, who was the main artist on "LOST EDEN" after having done most graphics of "DUNE", and is responsible of the splendid artwork you can enjoy inside the booklet of this CD. The atmospheric first and third parts of Citadel Of Knowledge were composed in october 1995, for the sole purpose of the present CD.

Lost Eden Theme:
Composed in september 1992, this track was not intended to feature in "LOST EDEN", and it's only some months later that Philippe Ulrich heard it by chance, and told me something like that: " What's this music? You MUST put it in the game! Man, from all the tunes you've done, if I had to choose only one, it would be this one!" . As I usually start to say "No" before thinking, I obviously disagreed with him, feeling that the ambiance didn't fit the game! The story has proven me to be wrong... even if it's still not my favorite tune.

Thaa's Secret:
The inspiration for this track has been the very first animation rendered for the game: The living-entombed corridor, under the citadel of Mô. When I saw this scene, the only one being a little scaring in the game, I decided to compose something mysterious and frightening at the same time. I tried to do that in october 1992, but the result is not frightening at all, which is maybe better, after all. The voices and some sounds used here were simply grabbed from the TV! One can found here traditional chinese theater voices, an opera singer recorded in 1947, and a guimbard, amongst other things...

Velociraptor Ride:
The first design of the game featured velociraptors (a two legged dinosaur) rides, where the lanscape was supposed to move very fast on the screen. This tune, composed in november 1992, was intended to play on those scenes, which were finally dropped. Some shorts excerpts of this track were kept in the game, like the one in the tyrann attack. The big drums were done by stacking 32 times the same sound (sampled on a cheap drum machine), detuned and delayed.

Deshydratation Tower:
Don't look for this title on the CD, it's not here! The Midi file and most sounds of this tune, present in the game and composed in january 1993, were accidentaly erased after a hard disk crash (according to Rémi Herbulot, the boss of Cryo, I'm a specialist of this kind of situation). The version featured in the game wasn't good enough to be included in this CD, and it would be impossible for me to remix it without starting the whole thing from scratch!

The Quest:
Used in the game for rides on diplodocuses, this song was born from a meeting and a "jam-session" with a female cellist, in february 1993. Our improvisations have inspired me this music, but unfortunately I hadn't the technical ability to record her "live" at this moment, and that's why I just sampled some sounds from her cello to play it on the keyboard later. Thanks to Christele Colin for her kindness and for the cello. The sound ambience wich comes before the tune itself was created from scratch specially for the CD, in october 1995.

Brontosaurus:
This is one of my favorites. The 16th of august 1993, at evening, while we were celebrating my birthday with some friends, one of theme, Simon Cibasti, started suddenly to sing with an incredibly low voice (We were speaking about Tibetan Monks). I was so amazed with this voice, wich nearly made the numerous empty glasses and bottles quiver, that I asked him to continue in front of a microphone to let me sample him. Next day, I composed this tune based upon this voice sample, in a few hours. The Armenian flute I play on the main theme was a gift from Didier Bouchon, in 1991, when we were both working on "Dune".

Aquasaurus:
Composed in october 1993 for the cavern of Narim, this tune marks my return in the region of Paris, which I leaved in april 1992 after finishing my work on " Dune ", to live in a farm somewhere in south of France. The sound used in the main theme was done by blowing into a 3 meters long aluminium pipe.

Castra's harmonic song:
Composed in october 1993 too, this music is one of my first attempts to do harmonic singing(1). Well, "composed" is not an adequate term, since it's an impro played on the keyboard with a unique sample of my own voice. The rhythm and the tibetan bowl sound were added a few days later. The title does not mean I'm a castra, but rather comes from the name of an imaginary singers tribe wich is met in the game!

(1) Harmonic singing is a technique wich allows to produce two notes simultaneously with the same voice by modulating the mouth's resonance with tongue shifting. This singing, used by tibetans monks, amongst others, have spiritual and relaxing properties and produces some particualr effects on the listeners as well as on the singer. A good start to learn it is to place your tongue in your mouth just behind the front teeths, with the end of it sticked to the palate, in the same way you would do to produce an "L", and move it from front to behind while producing a continuous note. Have a try...

The Magnificents:
In november 1993, I composed this one as an answer to a repeted request. At this time, some of the people working on the game as well as journalists starting to speak about the game in progress, were often asking me why I didn't use again the voice sounds of "Lost Eden Theme" to do another music with the same flavor. It's somewhat to please theme that I composed "The Magnificents", wich is not the most spontaneous thing I've sone...

Taboo:
Even if it's present in the game, I've never liked much this tune, composed a little too much in a hurry in november 1993. I've not included it inside this CD.

Undead soul:
The first version of this title, not so good, was composed in november 1993, wich was definitely not a good time! I've done some work on it in february 1994, to illustrate the unexplored valleys in the game. The present version has been deeply remixed in january 1997, in such way that it's nearly a new one.

Amazonia:
Composed in december 1993, this track features the same blown pipe sound than "Aquasaurus", and my own voice. The CD version was deeply modified in october 1995.

Elemental:
Unreleased in the game (except for the CDI version), this music was composed in the middle of the spring 1995, when the Nature is awakening from a long sleep, and where vital strenght seems to emanate from each tree. The voice you hear is mine, without any sonic manipulation. It's my first attempt into what is called "throat singing", an ancient singing technique used by shamans in eastern Russia. I'm too involved to appreciate the result, but I've tried to depict the moving vital forces, between the chaos of origins and the Creation of Life. This song is a milestone for an important moment in my life, the death of a part of myself and the birth of another. It's the beginning of something, and that's why I've placed it at the end of this CD.

Extra Info