Album Notes

About the Composer: Tom Stoffel is an interactive media composer whose innovative music spans many genres from action to drama to suspense to children's/family to science fiction to romance. Driven by a dedication to strong melodies and sound textural atmospheres, his music offers a depth of feeling, introspection, and beauty not often found in film and game music today. He draws inspiration from his passion for live theater, musicals, film, comic books, video games, and architecture.

About the Soundtrack: The music for "Underhell: Prologue" was a bit of a miracle project. When the producer Jeremy "Mxthe" Faucomprez found me for the project I had just placed a post, the night before, with examples of my music. I remember, after we had introduced ourselves and talked about our ideas a bit he said to me, "I am not sure how this will all pan out, and I don't want to overwhelm you, but I am hoping to release the game in about two weeks from now." I'm not going to lie, when I heard this I was knocked back on my heals a bit. None the less, I knew I was up for the challenge, so we jumped right in. Being immersed in the world of "Underhell" via screenshots, beta runs, and temp tracks (Jeremy happened to be a pretty amazing musician himself so his input was invaluable during the process) helped to get the feel of the game under my skin. From that point on, it was two weeks of late night music sessions filled with everything from weird jokes to metaphysics. I am still in awe of how we were able to make that release date.

From the very beginning, it was a goal of mine to write strong thematic material for the game. "Underhell" is a very character driven story, so all of the characters needed to have a distinct music---a theme or a feel that could be easily identified and remembered. I began to play around with different melodies. I tried to find tunes that maintained a strong independence while also remaining flexible enough to work with one other in a full texture. Once the themes were set, I started in on a main theme for the game. This theme contained the melodic material that would be the basis for most of the material throughout the game. Jeremy was sure he wanted orchestral sounds. At first, I was approaching the music from a much more electronic place. It was his hope that the mood of the music would, as much as possible, stay rooted in reality and true organic emotion. After a few more rough mock-ups, we decided on a blend of electric guitar/bass with an orchestra and piano texture. This gave the music the "edgy" feel we wanted without jolting the sound to far away from the true sentiment and reality it needed. Once we had achieved this balance, I set out to bring it into every piece of music that was written for the game. I must say, I am happy with the way the soundtrack turned out. All of the tracks contain the qualities we set out to capture and hey, it was all done in two weeks!