(This piece was originally composed ca. 2009. It has been polished up and posted here because I still like it, but it should not be viewed as representative of my current music-writing ability.)

One of my old unfinished novels is ‘Inhuman’, the sci-fi tale of a weary soldier in the distant future who finds himself stranded on an alien planet inhabited by anthropomorphic animal-people, and who tries to find peace in their way of life whilst keeping the demons of his past at bay. (No, you’ve definitely never heard any premise like this before, really.) I must have revised and rewritten the thing about a dozen times before I eventually lost interest and pivoted to music full-time, but not before it inspired me to compose a “soundtrack” for it – really just a few individual tracks, one of which is this suite of various themes representing different elements of the story.

This is one of the earliest “big” pieces I composed, and it remains one of my favorites to this day, even if the writing is a tad simplistic for my present standards. I’ve now spent a cumulative 12 years on this song, producing almost a dozen iterations along the way, so I do hope this is the last one for a good long while.

The art is a very old piece I made for the front cover back in the novel’s early days. I thought about remaking it for the occasion, but I decided that old art would be fitting for an old song. (Also, I’m lazy.)

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FOLLOW ALONG —

0:00 – Intro
1:02 – New world (main theme)
2:06 – Village theme
2:28 – Nighttime/nostalgic theme
3:15 – Conflict theme
4:34 – Outro

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SHEET MUSIC (PDF) —
Link available on SoundCloud (Bandcamp doesn’t allow Dropbox links):
soundcloud.com/joe-mcken/inhuman-suite

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Recorded September 15, 2021
Software used:
» Written & recorded with Sibelius using the following sound libraries:
    » Woodwinds: Cinematic Studio Woodwinds
    » Brass: Cinematic Studio Brass
    » Percussion: CinePerc, Stormdrum 3, Hollywood Orch. Percussion, Kontakt 5 Factory
    » Others: Spitfire Harp, The Grandeur, CinePerc
    » Vocals: Voxos 2
    » Strings: LA Scoring Strings, Sibelius 7 Sounds
» Mastered with Ozone & Audacity

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CHANGELOG —
» 09/06/21: First posted on Bandcamp.

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You can also find my music on:
» SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/joe-mcken
» YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCAw74cxzEpa6nWK3fY-zJmw

For announcements and personal news, follow me on Twitter:
twitter.com/joemcken