Chamber Chu Person
Chamber Chu is a Taiwanese Composer hailing from Taiwan, being one of the lead composers for some notable games from Rayark. He is mainly responsible for some of the main themes of said videogames, including the main theme for Sdorica, Deemo II, and Deemo.
This week, there isn’t anything particularly special that crossed my mind, so I wanted to take some time to appreciate one of the composers that I appreciate in Rayark. Speaking of which, we had talked a lot about composers in Rayark haven’t we? Don’t worry, we’ll dig from other sources soon.
Recommending Chamber Chu is a bit of a niche decision I thought of, but I think there’s always a certain aspect about his compositions that really resonated with me. To put it bluntly, his compositions are particularly great at projection emotions in a very endearing manner. There is always something about the way the music is structured, the synths that are used, and the glorious string ensemble that really made the music that he had composed to be truly special.
I would say that this sentiment is similar to the one we talked about last post, these tracks are well composed to the point that they are very recognizable and iconic pieces of identity for these games, and I believe that when a piece of music is made recognizable by someone, the first thing that they should turn their attention to is the composer.
Away From the Rain are two prime examples of what Chamber Chu is all about. From the fantastical string ensembles, to the Piano that carried the tract forward, the perfect harmony that came together to form a very messy, yet uniform piece of music that one can simply listen to, and imagine the kind of story the piece is trying to tell. Having said that, I think a very peculiar aspect about Chamber Chu’s composition is the “messy” part. This is evident in the tracks composed in Deemo, as the piano playing would often felt in disharmony, two pianos playing as if they are opposing each other, but the end result being that it all comes in full circle, and the listener is left with plenty of elements to process, and a reason to listen to the track again.
If you are all for fantastical compositions that are very endearing and emotional with that Asian tint, then I couldn’t recommend Chamber Chu’s music more.
Or you know
just go play games from Rayark
Chamber Chu, another Rayark composer on the list. He has a few entries on Deemo I and II, but the thing that caught my attention the most is the stuff he put out for Sdorica. Sdorica being a turn based RPG game, it naturally caught my attention upon release, (be it that I didn’t touch the game until recently, but listen only to the OST of it on release). It is something that is remarkable, some OSTs beating even the recent years released triple A’s.
Sdorica being set in a complete fantasy world, means that they do not have to comply and stick to any of the ruleset for their ost, example of what I’m saying would be modern setting with more modern music, (whatever you can hear in MGSR), historical set pieces with more traditional music (Utawarerumono, best example I can come up with) and the list stretches on. Sdorica’s setting played into the advantage of what Chamber Chu composed for the game, with more orthodox instruments as the foreground/ focus of the music, piano, violin and drums, while having soft breathing and vocals in the back to compliment it, all while making it more foreign sounding to better suit the setting.
You can hear that from most of Sdorica’s ost, from Fighting Spirit, which strongly uses piano, at times reminding me that of NiER’s music, all while staying original enough to not confused the listener, then moving the focus on to vocals and violins to make it sound more fantasy like. Then there’s the main menu ost, there are different alterations/variations of it in its’ tracklist, for a game like Sdorica, best line of reference I can draw is that to Ara Fell, both games about exploring a fantasy themed world, which both their menu theme instantly puts you into the mood to do so, with the slow methodical built up and climax at the very end to entice you into the game.
Chamber Chu, although he is not very active online except on Facebook (from what I can find at the very least), his music hits where it should and when it should for whatever he is composing for, be it Deemo or Sdorica, you should check out his work.