Album Release - Skyrim: Piano Tales! Deluxe Edition & Feature

I'm very happy to both announce and release my newest solo album, "Skyrim: Piano Tales"!

Inside the link below you will find the exclusive Deluxe Edition of the album, including high quality artwork, sheet music, midi, lossless album files, and other bonus material. Not to mention that you get to hear it before anyone else, as it doesn't release before March 28th! Here I have also included a short feature about the album, I recommend reading it while or after you're listening :) If everything goes according to plan I will have another album for you guys soon as well. Enjoy!

You can DL it as part of my discography here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/massive-update-98905690

A short feature on "Skyrim: Piano Tales"

Similar to "Melodies of Berk" from 2019, this is a short and concise piano album, featuring 5 selected and iconic pieces from the source material. I wrote an in-depth production post on that album under my blog tag. I won't do the same lengthy write-up here, so if you're curious about more in-depth processes, I'd read that feature!

My thoughts on the tales

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim could be considered a landmark in gaming. And the series' soundtrack has always been perfectly suited for the games. I started covering Skyrim music back in 2016 when my YouTube channel was still young, so it was one of the first franchises I ever covered. By 2019 I had finished and shared 4 covers from the game, and they were a hit with my fans. Ever since then I have gotten requests to do more. I decided that this album would be a nice opportunity to remaster the old covers with my new knowledge and experience, and to include a brand new cover to please the older fanbase.

The album opens with "Dragonborn", which consists of "The Dragonborn Comes" bard song, and the Dragonborn theme itself. This was inspired by a video game concert I attended in Trondheim a couple of years ago, when the orchestra blew me away with a similar set up arrangement. For anyone who's experienced the game this piece was also an obvious album opener. Dragonborn is also the only new piece I created for the album, as the rest are the 4 older covers I mentioned. As a stark contrast I follow up with an atmospheric and tranquil "From Past to Present". I would consider the last bit in particular to be the most original part of the arrangement, as I shape it into sounding like a lullaby.

"Ancient Stones" was my very first Skyrim cover. It is a fluid and celtic sounding piece. This was my second official cover of it, as I redid it in 2018. It truly embodies that medieval feel, and I love it. "Secunda" is another calm and atmospheric track, and perhaps the one that's most similar to the original version from the soundtrack. The gentle and at times almost creepy arpeggios remind me of the fields and snowfallen mountains of Skyrim. I do think it is refreshing to arrangements where you don't feel the need to have massive dynamics or powerful bass notes. It sounds simply light and dreamy throughout.

"Far Horizons" was always a personal favorite of mine. I do not think that this arrangement does the orchestra version justice, perhaps it would if I had made a more comprehensive version. But it is one of my oldest pieces, and I wanted to simply present that with a new coat of paint. It is a fitting end to the album, both because the name and melody symbolizes the adventure and spirit of the game, and because I arranged the main melody (Dragonborn) into the end of it. Starting and ending the album with the main melody is appropriate, I think. And the ways they are played could not be more of a contrast, opening with the hammering and violent version in Dragonborn, and ending with the light and simple version in Far Horizons.

Production

As I mentioned I recommend reading the Melodies of Berk article to gain more insight. Similar to that album, I arranged these pieces in Musescore and recorded them with my P-115. I remastered the older pieces (and recorded the new one) with my CFX Garritan VST and applied and edited with that in Cubase 8. I mastered the album with Ozone 8.

The artwork is drawn by Phil Dragash, and is quite gorgeous if I must say so myself. I asked him to come up with a suitable, simple background and a text and logo that fit to the game. The back I created myself in Photoshop.

Final thoughts

I'm pleased with the quality of this release. For me, it is a nostalgic revisit of my old covers and the world of Skyrim, with a bombastic new opening track and beautiful artwork to front it all. Perhaps Dragonborn casts a bit too much of an expectation of action and skill into the rest of the experience, but nevertheless I am happy with the pieces themselves and the composition of the album. I will probably produce some physical copies at a later date, so you might get a chance to get a signed copy later this year. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the album!