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S<\/span>cott Pilgrim, the series of pop culture-saturated graphic novels by Canadian author and comic book artist Bryan Lee O\u2019Malley, has become a timeless epic about teenage insecurity, love and redemption, and the intersection of arrogance and self-esteem \u2013 as well as a Canadian interpretation of emo, indie rock and sh\u014dnen-style comic books. It is a coming-of-age tale about an initially unlikable teenage boy growing up in the 00s, who matures through six graphic novels that deftly reference everything from Japanese manga to western superheroes, video games and Tintin. It is also, of course, a hit movie, a 2022 Netflix anime series, and a 2010 video game \u2013 the last two of which were soundtracked by New York City-based indie rock band Anamanaguchi.<\/p>\n \u2018My favourite scene in the Scott Pilgrim anime is where Knives and Kim are just jamming in a room together, and almost nothing happens,\u201d laughs Peter Berkman, one of the lead songwriters and guitarists in the band. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those slice-of-life moments where you remember why you love music in the first place. It really struck a chord with me. No pun intended.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Sex Bob-Omb in Netflix\u2019s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.<\/span> Photograph: Album\/Alamy<\/p>\n Anamanaguchi gained some notoriety for using video game hardware in their early, instrumental music, becoming one of the pioneering bands in the chiptune genre \u2013 all while they were still at college. During the band\u2019s first self-funded tour, during which Berkman slept on the couch of the band he was supporting, he got amessage out of nowhere.<\/p>\n \u201cI got an email from somebody working at Ubisoft about a video game for a universal IP tie-in, and they didn\u2019t go any further than that. \u2018Could that be the new Alien vs Predator game or something like that?\u2019, I thought. But I knew that \u2013 no matter what \u2013 when I brought that back to the band, we would say yes to whatever it was \u2026 we had all grown up loving video game and movie soundtracks.\u201d It turned out to be an invitation to compose music for the first Scott Pilgrim video game, which was released in 2010.<\/p>\n Now, Anamanaguchi is in the midst of a renaissance: in 2022, when the game was re-released as a Complete Edition, the band embarked on the Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game Soundtrack tour. Last year, the band wrote and performed music for Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a Netflix spin-off that acts as a meta commentary on Scott\u2019s life. Anamanaguchi supported Hatsune Miku in her Fortnite festival appearance this year, a perfect fit for a band whose identity has always rested at the intersection of video games and live music, and in August, they launched Anyway, their first record in six years, which trades in the band\u2019s synth-based bleeps and blorps for something decidedly more alt-rock, though the 8-bit influences of its members still remain if you listen hard enough. And they\u2019re also working on the soundtrack for a new Scott Pilgrim game, due out next year, another playful beat-\u2019em-up.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Pushing Buttons<\/span><\/p>\n Keza MacDonald’s weekly look at the world of gaming<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n <\/span>Peter Berkman of Anamanaguchi performing in 2015.<\/span> Photograph: Gary Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n As one arm of the band experiments with analogue sounds and alt-rock angst, the other is moving back to Scott Pilgrim. There is a direct link between Anamanaguchi\u2019s return to the series and the new voice they\u2019ve found on their records. \u201cDoing the soundtrack for the new game, Scott Pilgrim EX, allowed us to see what it would be like to dampen that aspect in our own record world, knowing that we were going full in, soundtrack-style, on the game,\u201d says Berkman.<\/p>\n Berkman says that in the 15 years between games, the band have matured when it comes to their approach to music. They have gained experience as producers, they have grown \u201cas listeners of music\u201d, and they have become even more excited by the range of styles that video game music represents.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to feel that connection between what you\u2019re experiencing as a player and – even in a beat-em-up! – what the story is trying to do at that moment,\u201d says Berkman. \u201cIf a situation calls for a dark, gothic industrial thing, we can make that happen \u2013 and we can make it happen in a way it never has before\u2026 [Scott PilgrimEX developer Tribute Games] has let us be a hands-on with the audio mix. and with the musical cues we want. That freedom is extremely important to us. The flow of the music, the way it makes you feel\u2026 you can really feel the authorship in video game soundtracks.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>On the beach in Scott Pilgrim EX.<\/span> Photograph: Tribute Games Inc<\/p>\n Having played a demo of Scott Pilgrim EX, it seems that Tribute Games\u2019 trust in the band has paid off. The music is playful and toys with convention, setting up prompts or expectations, only to surprise you with how sound effects or motifs become part of a level\u2019s texture. It actually reminds me of Sea Power\u2019s work on Disco Elysium, strange as that comparison may seem to anyone who knows their music. Sea Power were given lot of creative control in adapting their sound to fit the morose world of Revachol, and Tribute Games has done the same here, even if the with pixel art, neon colours, and buoyant adolescence of it all deliver a completely different tone.<\/p>\n \u201cTribute Games has given us a level of freedom that can only be matched by a company just \u2026 not knowing what you\u2019re doing,\u201d laughs Berkman. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to be a part of the development process in a way that we weren\u2019t in the last time, you know? We\u2019re getting nightly builds, and we\u2019re able to ask: \u2018Is this stagnant? Do I need to add a part here?\u2019 It really helps with the arrangement, and in understanding the feel. This is the soundtrack we\u2019ve wanted to make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scott Pilgrim, the series of pop culture-saturated graphic novels by Canadian author and comic book artist Bryan Lee O\u2019Malley, has become a timeless epic about teenage insecurity, love and redemption, and the intersection of arrogance and self-esteem \u2013 as well as a Canadian interpretation of emo, indie rock and sh\u014dnen-style comic books. It is a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[16393,861,378,529,16394,7884,16395,94],"class_list":{"0":"post-27457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-anamanaguchi","9":"tag-band","10":"tag-games","11":"tag-meet","12":"tag-pilgrim","13":"tag-scott","14":"tag-soundtrack","15":"tag-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}