The Journey soundtrack came out on Playstation Network (PSN) on the 11th of this month for $5, it’s also now available via iTunes either by individual track or getting it entirely.  The MP3 has 18 tracks, with a download size of about 112 MBs,  with nearly an hours worth of music all told.  The shortest track being a little over a minute while the longest is just over 07.

The artist, Austin Wintory, who has also worked on flOw, has saidd of the music for Journey that  he tried to remain as culturally unidentifiable as possible.  I agree on this,  I had an impossible time trying to get a frame of reference as to who this music “belongs” to.  A full interview can be found here.  Apparently even USA Today was impressed enough with either the music or Mr Wintory that they have a video of some of the highlights of the development of the music to the game.

Overall the music is quite subdued, very melodic with a calming effect.  I’m used to game music that emphasises a lot of bass & heavy beats (God of War series, the Castlevania series).  Then again the game that this music stems from doesn’t fit into most game molds (Action, RPG, etc). There are a couple of  “action” tracks, The Road of Trials and Apotheosis (tracks 10 & 13 respectively), the latter starting off slow but with a  good build up.  I did find that he tended to favor the violin, or a reasonable facsimile, a fair amount.  I counted no less then 7 that emphsized violin(s), 1 a cello, but overall light tones that won’t “bust eardrums”.

There have been complaints in regards to games,  generally in how little, if anything,  “good” comes out of them.  I would offer the music from this game as a counter-arguement on that score.