The Music that Inspired Ampliterra
Happy holidays, everyone! Now that pre-orders are well underway, I thought it would be fun to revisit and expand something from earlier in the project: a playlist of music that inspired Ampliterra.
I’m a huge music person. I constantly have something playing in the background. So when I was writing Ampliterra in the winter of 2021, I listened to a lot of music. I compiled those tracks into a playlist last year, but didn’t explain why I picked those tracks and what they represent in the book. So today, I’m going to pick five of those tracks and tell you exactly how they fit into Ampliterra: Echoes of the Rift.
Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean: This song served as a sort of tonal thesis statement for the book. Its emotion is exactly what I want to evoke in the book…wonder, mystery, optimism, vastness…it sounds like an adventure that has just begun and has every opportunity in front of it. Literally every time I hear this song, I get chills.
Ólafur Arnalds - nyepi: Arnalds’ contemplative piano is a perfect representation of what I want Vindurheim to feel like: quiet, warm and sparse. As wistful strings and tinkling synthetic pianos join the main voice, it sounds like ice and magic sparkling throughout the towering trees of the Skadi Forest. For all of the solitude it evokes, it still sounds inviting – like a lonesome walk surrounded by nature and all of the life it contains. A little later in the playlist is another song by Arnalds called “We Contain Multitudes (from home)” if you need another dose of this type of music. Really, his whole catalog is worth exploring.
Anna of the North - Oslo: Forgive me for picking another VIndurheim song, but I just couldn’t resist including this cut from Anna of the North. I remember hearing this song for the first time when I was driving around in a snowstorm in Ohio with my friend Abdurrafey in December of 2019 and loving the way it made me feel. It’s icy, it’s warm, it’s dynamic. As I was designing Vindurheim in March of 2020 for our home game, I leaned heavily on this song for how I wanted the setting to feel.
Stromae - L’enfer: This is a song that came out just a little bit after I finished writing the book, but the moment I heard it, I thought, “That is exactly what Oceros sounds like.” The larger-than-life backing vocals, the stabby, flittering synths, and the way the song expands and contracts in an instant feels just like the volatility of the Boiling Pinnacle volcano and the Abiding Conflict.
Hiatus Kaiyote - Chivalry is Not Dead: Picking a song to sum up Solandria is difficult. The continent is vast and has so many wildly different-feeling settlements. This track from Hiatus Kaiyote is a great contender, though. It’s tonally all over the place — exciting and wildly energetic. While it doesn’t feel like any of the cities of Solandria specifically, it captures the feeling of the place as a whole – you never know what you’re going to find.
Bonus tracks!
The songs in the playlist are all pulled from a pretty specific time and I haven’t updated it since I made it last winter. Now that I’ve had more time to sit with the book and listen to more music, I wanted to add a few tracks that, while they weren’t part of the original process, make me think of Ampliterra.
Natalia Lafourcade - María la Curandera: This song from Natalia is filled with mystery. I love the way some of the instrumentation imitates natural sounds and how the whole thing sounds almost like a spell. Much like Solandria, the Atolón Archipelago is hard to wrap up with just one song, but this one captures how magic and nature define what it’s like to live in the Archipelago.
Maro & The Paper Kites - Walk Above the City: I vividly remember a conversation I had once with Abdurrafey when we were driving to Coachella together in 2022. He asked me what my “perfect songs” were – essentially the songs that I wouldn’t change anything about and never get tired of. I didn’t have a great answer at the time (I think I might have picked “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem), but I still think about that conversation a lot. “Walk Above the City” is absolutely a perfect song for me. It’s quiet and contemplative, but still has a driving beat that gives it a sense of momentum. Plus, Maro has one of the most incredible voices I’ve ever heard – breathy and ethereal. This song feels like the peace that someone would feel sitting at the base of the Tree of Life at the Kadisian Monastery in Aspela as magnolia flowers and dragonflies flutter through the air.
But now I’m curious – what songs do you think of when it comes to Ampliterra? Do you have any perfect songs? Let me know in the comments!
Next up…release day!
Austin
