Origin Suite

Music inspired by the science fiction book series origin by auteur Nathaniel dean James

Back story

What if you were a researcher working on NASA’s Voyager II space probe program?

What if you alone made a discovery that could change the way humanity sees itselves in the galaxy?

What if you knew that publishing this information would disrupt earth’s society and make you famous at the same time? Would you trust yourself with that responsibility?

Would you trust others? Others with power? Governments? Pacts? Armies? Would war or pandemonium break out? Who knows what would happen.

What if you kept it secret and collected a group of people around you. People you vetted and trust. People to help you figure out what your discovery means? What it could mean?

This is one premise of the Origin book series by writer Nathaniel Dean James. The books follow ex CIA operative Francis Moore who gets sucked in this story years later. By breaking into a high security site and accidentally stealing a hard drive he gets involved to keep this secret hidden from governments and other organizations.

The plot evolves fast, covers about the whole world and there are a lot of characters involved.

When composer Minko Kalsbeek read the first book, he read it over the course of a weekend. Written in a fast pace it kept his mind busy for a long while after he finished it. He could not get the story and the mise en scene out of his head and these slipped into some “free work”.

After two pieces clearly influenced by what according to Kalsbeek is “my version of a score of these books” he composed four other pieces of this “SciFi music“, each with a specific scene or event in mind.

“I’ve always been fascinated with space and science fiction. I remember looking at pictures in the encyclopedia of my parents of the golden record that was on the voyager space craft. I like creating atmospheres with synthesizers and combine these with sound design and orchestral instruments.

The scraping sound in “Is he controlling that thing” for example is the mangled recording of a beater scraping on a window sill.

I also did some patch design on my Roland JD800 synthesizer which was fun since most of my work is “in the box” nowadays. Come to think of it, the thing also looks like it is from a science fiction movie.”

The album contains a selection of eight tracks in total. Six were inspired by the Origin books and composed after Kalsbeek read the Origin books.

The last two “Revolving Words” and “Solitude Rising” are older works that he wanted to include. Both have the same Sci-Fi feel.

“Revolving Words” was composed for an video art exhibition. “Solitude Rising” was originally composed as part of the soundtrack for a Sci-Fi video game demo.

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