The Ark & The Tinderbox - MP3!

Sorry for the delay on this one! I feel like I'm constantly playing catch up with Patreon posts, things have been mad as ever over here recently!

As far back as working on A Purpose for New London, my previous sponsored Frostpunk project in 2019, there was talk between myself and developer 11Bit about working together again when the time came for Frostpunk 2. I'm absolutely thrilled we were able to make it happen!

I knew I wanted to take things in a different direction with this track. Having already written 'Shelter From the Storm', a song about the grit, determination and hope of those setting out to build the first cities in the frost, then 'A Purpose for New London' being about those first steps in determining a path for that city, I wanted my third song to close that arc. Where does that path lead?

With Frostpunk 2's even greater focus on politics, diplomacy and the fires that ignite between ideologies, it seemed only fitting to write a track exploring what might happen when things don't work out. When the dreams and toils explored in Shelter from the Storm crash and burn. The City already had its anthem of hope. I wanted to write it's eulogy. Frostpunk is, after all, a game series where failure is part of the experience and I felt it was something really important to reflect in my musical exploration of that world too.

Whilst researching writing styles of the period to try and make sure the piece felt authentic, I came across the poem 'In Memoriam A.H.H.' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It's an incredibly long poem, but thematically it spoke so directly to a lot of the themes of the Frostpunk world I knew I had to incorporate it somehow. Published in 1850 the poem explores man's place in a world where understanding of science is beginning to question long established religious beliefs and the idea that mankind is the centre of all things. The poem, in part, takes the form of a conversation between man and nature as man begins to realise that perhaps they are not above all else, that in the grander scheme of existence we are no more than any other animal or plant and that we might as easily go extinct as any other creature. That nature holds us in no high regard, that the world turns without us, a thought that was terrifying to a society that had believed for so long that the world was made for us and us alone.

Thematically this resonated so hard with the story that Frostpunk is telling. Of a society forced to reckon with nature at the end of their days. It's something I tried really hard to emotionally explore lyrically and the excerpt I chose to include at the end was the best one, I feel, to take that message home at the end.

Cinematically, I think this video is the greatest thing my team and I have ever produced. From the set design (though not quite the biggest set we have built, by far the most densely detailed), the costume work (the largest number of custom costume pieces for a video to date), the makeup (5+ hours of prosthetics work each day) to the lighting and practical effects (show machine!) this video was a joy to create and everyone involved did such incredible work. It's videos like these that make me so grateful to have such a stellar team of friends to work with.

I really hope you enjoyed this project as much as we enjoyed making it!

Stay tuned, we should have a new BTS dropping before the week is out!