Hey, it’s Joel here - resident composer and sound guy from the Bytten Studio team. We’ve just released the first single from the upcoming Cassette Beasts 2002 soundtrack, and so I thought I’d write a few words about how “Ages of Change” came about: Jay and I always used to half-jokingly proclaim that one day we’d get Johnny Gioeli to sing on a track for us. Though, in this pipe dream we’re on like game number 5 and have a lot more cred in our back pockets. Crush 40’s Sonic tracks were a major influence on Cassette Beasts’ approach to music in general; and on my personal musical shaping, growing up, in general.
Just over 2 years ago I decided to go on a whim and sent a hail mary email over to the band he was touring with asking if he’d be up for collaborating on CB2 and to my shock, only a couple minutes later, he replied - and he was totally game. The following week we had a call and we were good to go. I couldn’t believe it. Now I just had to write the best song I had ever written - piece of cake, right? It was not. I already had the game’s leitmotif (main melody) in mind from a lot of trial and error the year before, so I knew what I wanted the vocal melody in the chorus to be, but getting it to the scale that I had envisioned and writing the surrounding verses took a while. I put a lot of pressure on myself to make this the peak of scale and emotion out of anything I’ve made before and after working on it on and off for the following 2 years, I think I achieved that. In CB1 (what we call the first Cassette Beasts game) I used programmed drums for the whole soundtrack, but this time round I had the time and resources to get some studio sessions in to record live drum recordings, so I recruited my good friend and ex-band mate Harry Pritchard to smack the skins. It immediately gave the mix way more life and air.
We threw on Cassette Beasts resident Shelby Harvey on accompanying vocals - because I’m a sucker for male + female vocals on a song - something you’ll soon come to know the more of CB2’s soundtrack becomes available.
After a year of fiddling around with the final mix, I had felt that I had lost all sense of objectivity with it and so I figured getting the track externally mastered would be a smart play. So I entrusted it to my deeply talented brother-in-law Thomas Aston and bing-bang-wallop - it was good to go. Not everyone may agree but I believe I achieved the goal of writing the best song I have ever written. I’m immensely proud of it and I hope it resonates with people as intended. The lyrics of the song follow one of the main narrative themes of the game - without giving too much away - it’s about change. The idea that the acknowledgement of change without action, isn’t enough. Not tomorrow, not in a decade, if you want to see a transformation in the world or in yourself, we have to “make the leap beyond” whatever mess we’re in, wherever we are, now. Anyway, here it is! I truly hope you enjoy the track and I can't wait for you to hear the rest!