Aquatic Ambience

"Aquatic Ambience"
Promotional art of Donkey Kong in a water level, which is where Aquatic Ambiance can usually play in Donkey Kong Country.
Instrumental by David Wise
Released	November 18, 1994 (1994-11-18)
Recorded	1993[1]
Genre	Video game music
Composer(s)	David Wise
Audio sample
A 21-second excerpt from "Aquatic Ambience". file help

"Aquatic Ambience" (also written as "Aquatic Ambiance")^[2] is a musical theme composed by David Wise for the video game Donkey Kong Country (1994). It plays in the underwater levels.^[1]

Composition

Wise initially worked as a freelancer and assumed his music would be replaced by a Japanese composer because of the importance of Donkey Kong to Nintendo. Rare asked Wise to record three jungle demo melodies, which were merged to become the "DK Island Swing", the first level's track. Wise was subsequently offered the job to produce the final score.^[3]

According to Wise, he "just [took] eight waveforms and played them in sequence and that first experiment became the baseline for 'Aquatic Ambiance'".^[1] The song took five weeks to compose and Wise used a Korg Wavestation.^[1] He said the track was his favourite and the game's biggest technical accomplishment in regards to the audio.^[4]

Rearrangements of "Aquatic Ambience" appear in Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010) and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (2014).^[5][6]

Reception and legacy

In 2016, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club described the song as "a placid piece of music that uses a sophisticated palette of synthesized instruments and futuristic sound effects to create a mood of calm that's very different from the sped-up themes usually associated with platform games", being "more nocturnal and urban than submarine". He said that the song could be better appreciated "without a controller in hand", something that he considered rare, and that Wise seemed to be the only one that "managed to get as much texture and ambiance out of Super Nintendo's S-SMP sound chip" as he did.^[7]

"Aquatic Ambience" has been particularly influential. It has been described as "the 'Eleanor Rigby' of video game music", praised by artists such as Trent Reznor and Donald Glover,^[1] and Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club wrote that it spawned a "minor cult" dedicated to remixes.^[7] Glover sampled it in his 2012 song "Eat Your Vegetables", to which Wise expressed approval.^[8] In 2016, it was remixed for a video game music award.^[9]

The track, along with the rest of the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack, was part of the launch lineup with the Nintendo Music application in October 2024.^[10]

References

1. IGN (6 August 2023). The Most Emotional Video Game Music in the Unlikeliest of Places. Archived from the original on 11 August 2023. Retrieved 12 August 2023 – via YouTube.
2. "Quick Beats: Donkey Kong Country Composer Talks Aquatic Ambiance And Get Lucky". Nintendo Life. 2021-09-05. Archived from the original on 2023-11-15. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
3. Greening, Chris (December 2010). "Interview with David Wise". Square Enix Music Online. Archived from the original on 15 January 2012.
4. Wise, David (5 July 2019). Composer David Wise Dissects Donkey Kong Country's Best Music. Game Informer (YouTube). Archived from the original on 2021-12-11. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
5. Harris, Craig (October 28, 2010). "Going Ape Over Donkey Kong Country Returns". IGN. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
6. Riendeau, Danielle (October 27, 2016). "Nobody Played 'Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze', but I Loved It Anyway". Vice. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
7. Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy (7 January 2016). "Chill out with Donkey Kong Country". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on 29 June 2022. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
8. Reseigh-Lincoln, Dom (24 May 2018). "Random: Childish Gambino sampled Donkey Kong Country and David Wise definitely approves". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on 11 June 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
9. Reynolds, Shawn (29 October 2016). "New Donkey Kong Aquatic Ambience remix composed for video game music awards". Hardcore Gamer. Archived from the original on 11 June 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
10. "Nintendo Music App: Every Game Soundtrack Included - How to Download, All Systems".