Denver Post
Jan 23 2000
Gabrels Performs on 'Soul'
By David Thomas
By any measure, Reeves Gabrels has had an interesting musical career. For more than a decade he has collaborated with David Bowie on a half-dozen albums, produced two solo records featuring pals such as actor Gary Oldman and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, and created scores for numerous films and documentaries. Now, with the release of "Omikron: The Nomad Soul," Gabrels has teamed with Bowie to create the music for an ambitious new computer game.
"David was asked to contribute a song to the game. And he called me up and said, "Do you want to come to this meeting with these guys?' And we went to the meeting and we talked about it and we realized that we could do more than one song. Then the next time we spoke to them, I said, "Why don't we do instrumental music as well?'- " Gabrels explained from New York City, where he was finishing up his new record "Ulysses (della notte)."
A greater mystery
In the world of Omikron, players take over the life of Kay'l, a police officer in a future world. Unfortunately, Kay'l has lost his memory and must explore this 3-D virtual world to discover who he is and what happened to him, and to solve a greater mystery that reaches beyond life and death. Wandering Omikron's landscapes, players discover a place that is equal parts "Blade Runner" and "Brave New World," gritty cyberpunk streaked with sleek fascist style.
Adding to the dark and ominous atmosphere is music from Bowie and Gabrels, whose contribution grew to eight song tracks as well as several more hours of soundscapes produced by Gabrels. The music resonates with the timeless futurism of classic Bowie along with heavy doses of Gabrels' sonic invention. Vocals soar, deep tones throb and clang, odd sounds scamper in and rumble away. Songs rise like elaborate sculptures, then disappear into folds of sounds.
"It's sort of like this Joe Walsh/ Neil Young meets Curtis Mayfield, Hendrix meets Tricky and the Chemical Brothers," he said, attempting to describe the music.
Not only did the Bowie/Gabrels collaboration provide the game's sound track, it inspired several gaming innovations. Six of the eight songs in the game turned up on Bowie's latest studio album, "Hours." Inside the game's world, players can have their character purchase a virtual album of the music and return to their digital apartment to listen. Even more, Bowie pops up throughout the play as the character Boz, while Bowie, Gabrels and bassist Gail Ann Dorsey perform a virtual concert at various points in the play.
Goes beyond gimmick
The connection between Gabrels, Bowie and Omikron works beyond a simple marketing gimmick because the game and the music share an experimental attitude. Big-budget gaming titles have long drawn inspiration and sound-track sources from popular music. In Omikron, the game helped inspire the music that Bowie put on his album. Current technology has found an effective place delivering freeroaming 3-D environments to explore. Omikron works to create a world where players can do things like buy Bowie albums and take them home and listen. By providing hundreds of characters and situations, the game encourages players to experience the surroundings, not just solve puzzles.
As a result of such striving, not everything works. The plot sticks in places, the characters slide toward cliché, the story rambles a bit and sometimes the music fails to take hold of the listener. But the entire project never stops trying and pulls the player in for hours of entertainment.
With so much in the game, Gabrels admits that he won't be one of the players to finish the title.
"No. I have no time. That's one of the difficult things with the learning curve with the games. Often, if someone mentions a particular game, I get a VHS feed from their computer. If they are really good at the game, I'll sit with them and go scene-to-scene so I can hear the music that is going with the action so I know what other people are doing. Otherwise, I'd still be learning which button does what!" Gabrels' album, "Ulysses (della notte)," is available exclusively as an Internet download at www.reevesgabrels.com.