Trek To Yomi:
Discovering The Sound of the Unknowable
Composer and producer Cody Matthew Johnson chronicles the thought
processes, ambition and effort that went into the game that is more than a visual ode to the films of Akira Kurosawa
O
ur final recording session for Trek to Yomi ended with the four present members of our score production and recording team laying
on the floor inside the Studio D reverb chamber at The Village Studios in Los Angeles with the death throes of what sounded like japanese hellscapes washing over us. “This is a game about the Edo Period and feudal Japan, inspired by the cinematic style of Akira Kurosawa… how did I end up here – continuously reamping a feedback loop of abstract, distorted, and borderline demonically perverse traditional Japanese instruments.” I found myself questioning, “had I made the right decision?”, “had we strayed too far from the path of exclusively using traditional edo period japanese instruments like shakuhachi, shamisen, and taiko drums?” The short of it: no. For those unfamiliar, Trek to Yomi is a narrative hack-
and-slash game rooted in the Edo Period and feudal Japan, but treks far beyond that setting, and is deeply inspired by Japanese cinema, specifically the films of the legendary Akira Kurosawa. It was decided early on to impose clear limitations on instrumentations and musicality - the score was to be kept as rooted and honorific to the music, time, and place of the game as possible. Instead of scoring in the spirit of Fumio Hayasaka, composer of many of
32 | MCV/DEVELOP June 2022
Kurosawa-san’s films, we would only use instruments that existed during or near the Edo Period. The game kicks off with a pastoral scene of a beautifully
crafted village to show the status quo of Trek to Yomi – and the music tracks, featuring a sparse number of instruments and carefully following the musicality of traditional Japanese music. My co-composer Yoko Honda did a marvelous job on the music for this, which you can hear on the piece “Sakura Fubuki” from the Trek to Yomi (Original Soundtrack) album. As the narrative progresses, protagonist Hiroki ventures towards a turning point in the game. It is called Trek to Yomi after all, and a large portion of the game is in this mysterious place called Yomi. “Pestilence” from the soundtrack album showcases a transitional point of the game where Hiroki is in the beginnings of his journey into Yomi. Yomi is a purgatory-like afterlife place, and contains
any and all degrees of the afterlife you can imagine: from the awesome and breathtaking, to putrid and abstract hellscapes. It is a common mythology shared by a cross- section of cultures with a strong presence of Shintoism. All of this begs the question, “what does Yomi sound
like?” Because of its unknowable and abstract nature, I had free reign to creatively experiment and decide what this part of the game would sound like. In my research,
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