Melbourne-based man of many talents Tim Shiel knows all about cross-media appeal — as a touring member of Gotye, solo artist under his own name and Faux Pas moniker, and regular host on newly one-year-old digital station Double J, Shiel has kept his fingers in many musical pies.
Now, he's set to see worlds collide once more as he prepares for a joint performance with the esteemed musicians of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra to recreate the soundtrack to Duet, a 2013 mobile game created by Melbourne-based indie studio Kumobius for which Shiel composed the music. However, far from being part of some grand scheme to reimagine his work in another setting, it was Queensland composer Ryan Walsh who came to Shiel, he told theMusic.com.au.
"That just came out of the blue at the end of last year," Shiel said, still sounding a little surprised at his own turn of fortune. "Ryan Walsh, who's a composer and orchestral arranger based in Brisbane, he dropped me an email and said that he'd been playing Duet and was loving the soundtrack, and he was keen to work with the QSO on something, so he basically pitched the idea to me! Like, 'How would you feel if I worked up an orchestral take on the soundtrack and we maybe get the QSO to perform it?' Well, I mean, I just said yes, you know? [laughs]
"I'm equally excited and nervous about it, because I don't come from a classically trained background at all; I don't have much in the way of traditional music training."
"I was just like, yeah man, when am I ever gonna get asked to perform with an orchestra? Of course I'm gonna say yes! It's a bit like taking the plunge, I suppose — I haven't worked with Ryan before — but we've been getting to know each other and he's got really great tastes; he's bringing a whole different element to the soundtrack.
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"I'm equally excited and nervous about it, because I don't come from a classically trained background at all; I don't have much in the way of traditional music training. My experience is pretty different to that, and I've never been in a room with an orchestra before — you know, a room full of highly trained, skilled players of instruments that I don't deal with very often because I'm primarily an electronic producer. I'm really excited about rehearsals next week … it's just such a foreign environment. It's really exciting."
As exciting and unexpected as the new collaboration is for the veteran electronic producer, his original dalliance with the world of video games was just as sudden a development, Shiel said.
I remember them saying to me, like, 'You might not have heard of this guy… Aphex Twin?' [laughs] I was like, 'OK, I think I can do this.'
"Basically, what happened was I woke up one morning and just thought, like, 'I've never made music for games; why haven't I tried making music for games?'" Shiel explained.
"I put the word out amongst my friends, because I just figured I must know someone who knows someone who is a game developer, and a friend of a friend of mine put me in touch with the guys who made Duet — they're a three-man indie studio based in Melbourne, two brothers and one of their friends — they'd already worked on a few games and they had Duet in development," he continued. "So we met for a coffee and talked a bit about the kind of music they saw for the game… their one reference to me was Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works. I remember them saying to me, like, 'You might not have heard of this guy… Aphex Twin?' [laughs] I was like, 'OK, I think I can do this.'"
Shiel made good on his assumption, leaving the meeting with the intention of creating a demo track to show the developers and instead ending up with "what would become the foundation of the whole soundtrack, in a few hours on one day".
"We hadn't made a deal or really spoken in detail about it but I knew it was the right music for it, and they loved it, and I had a bit of time to develop it from there, which was good," Shiel said. "I got a couple of friends to play on it, including Luke Howard, who's a pianist and composer in Melbourne who's put out a couple of great records in the last couple of years, and also Ben Edgar, who's the guitarist from Gotye, who I got to know while we were on tour.
"The game came out October 2013 and yeah, it's been a big success; it's been really well supported by Apple, it's had great critical response from gaming websites and gaming media but also mainstream places like The New Yorker, but more than that people just love it; it's an addictive, hypnotic game and it's now been downloaded over 10 million times, which is just in-sane."
Evidently spurred on by the sense of fulfilment generated through his work on Duet and, now, his collaboration with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Shiel is setting his sights on further soundtrack work for virtual titles, as well as keeping fingers crossed that this adaptation of his work opens the door to future brushes with the classical world.
"I really hope so, yeah," Shiel said of the prospects on his rapidly expanding horizon. "I'm working on a few new games, actually, which is great; I'm gonna be spending the second half of this year working on a couple of games that are gonna come out next year, which is good, because I've sort of been just waiting… Duet was just such a great experience, and it's been such a successful game, that I've been cautious about working on any more games, jsut because I want every experience in that world to be as good as Duet was. So that's coming up before the end of the year. But in terms of doing this show again, I really, really hope so; I'm hoping this is the first show, and then maybe I can take it to other places around Australia, but it'll just be a matter of getting to know some of the other orchestras in different cities around Australia and taking it to them. I'm crossing my fingers.
"Apparently they do all talk to each other, I've been told. I've been told of secret meetings where the orchestra heads all get together and they go, 'Well, what have you guys been doing? What have you guys been doing?' If I can get in with the orchestra Illuminati, then we can make another Duet show happen!"
Tim Shiel will perform Duet with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, arranged by Ryan Walsh, on Friday, 15 May, from 8pm. The show's lighting design is by renowned local visual artist Jaymis Loveday. Tickets are available now via the QSO, priced from $25 for a single adult pass.
