Video Game Composer Goes Singer-Songwriter | Megan McDuffee: Crimson Legacy (Independent / 11 October 2024)

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Video Game Composer Goes Singer-Songwriter
Megan McDuffee: Crimson Legacy
(Independent / 11 October 2024)

Singer-songwriter may be technically correct as far as musical terms go, but if it conjures images of track upon track of solo vocals with acoustic guitars, it's more of a misnomer. Crimson Legacy is the second album for Megan McDuffee, a long time video game and film composer, and sound engineer. 

Singer and composer Megan McDuffee

Lovely Psycho illustrates her appeal. An interesting sense of rhythm underpins the music, overlaid with moody synths and contrasted by her sweet, breathy vocals. It's danceable without resorting to anything rote, always with something unexpected up its sleeve.

Imagination in the use of various synth and electronic elements is to be expected with McDuffee's background, and it's the signature element that elevates the music above the usual edm.

In terms of mood, the tracks range from the haunting edge of Lovely Psycho and Your Demise to the more straightforward Anywhere With You, and Army of Me, with its heavier rock edge. There's even an acoustic version of Forgive Me as a stripped down track with that classic combination of simple acoustic guitar and unprocessed vocals - but it achieves the same kind of moody effect via harmony and melody alone.

McDuffee has been working in the film and gaming industries for more than 15 years, winning multiple awards for her scores, including 'River City Girls'. 

The Seattle-based artist was a member of a world-travelling choir for more than a decade, and graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Scoring and a minor in Electronic Music. With a desire to further her education, she went on to the Berklee College of Music, earning a Master's Certificate in Orchestration for Film and TV. 

Illustration of Singer and composer Megan McDuffee

She talks about the release in a statement.

"I was inspired by a wide range of artists in crafting this album such as Puscifer, Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, The Cure, IAMX, Infected Mushroom, and Zeromancer."

Genre-wise, she's about giving listeners something unexpected. 

"With 'Crimson Legacy,' I wanted to capture the surrealness and essential weirdness of the 1970s - 1990s movies I grew up with. Films like Labyrinth, Dark City, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, Legend, A Clockwork Orange, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. They all had a quintessential darkness, griminess, and strangeness to them that transported me to a realm of dreams and nightmares. That’s what I aim to do with my album - to take the listener into an edgy, disturbing-yet-alluring fever dream filled with lust, revenge and whimsy. 'Crimson Legacy' is for all my fellow weirdos, witches, warlocks, and creatures of the dark corners of the earth."

You don't have to love gaming to appreciate the cinematic and atmospheric qualities of the music. 

Personnel: Megan McDuffee/Composer, Lyrics, Vocals, Producer, Mix Engineer; RichaadEB/Guitar on track “Forgive Me”; AJ Lemos/Guitar, Bass; Jordan Fiction/Guitar, Lyrics, Vocals on track “Anywhere With You”; TELLE/Lyrics, Vocals on “Twisted”; ALEX/Additional production on “Your Demise” and “Cult Movie”; Simon Chylinski/Guitar, production on “Army Of Me”

Tracklist:

  • Lovely Psycho
  • Anywhere With You
  • Cult Movie
  • Entity
  • Army Of Me
  • Forgive Me
  • Your Demise
  • Twisted
  • Break
  • Forgive Me (Acoustic Version)

Websites: 

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