Ensemble G.A.P play a concert of music from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I’m sure Nintendo are gonna find some way to shut this down. But for now, we can enjoy this. So, a group of musicians who go by the name Ensemble G.A.P held a lil’ concert where they played music from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. A game which despite its critical acclaim, was very polarising for fans, given the departure from the ‘classic’ structure of a Legend of Zelda games. Although I personally felt that Breath of the Wild was still Zelda as hell and the Zeldiest of Zelda’s.

HENNYWAY.

But something about Breath of the Wild which also polarised was its soundtrack. Given the nature of the play style of Breath of the Wild compared to other entries in the Zelda series, the soundtrack was far more ambient, with there only being music which punched during cut scenes, boss battles and a village here and there. As per the game style, I personally really liked the soundtrack and felt it worked with the newer play style that Breath of the Wild introduced. Hearing the Hyrule theme CONSTANTLY as I’m trekking across the fields and scaling mountains would have gotten old REAL fast. So I welcomed the embracing of silence which is occasionally punctuated with a piano here and there.

So, for many, hearing an orchestra play music from Breath of the Wild back to back may feel like a new experience, because you never hear any of the music played continuously back to back in the game; which actually makes you able to appreciate how good the soundtrack actually is, even when its divorced from the game.

Ensemble G.A.P were so amazing and this show was so damn professional, that you’d think this was an official Zelda Symphony gig.

As much as I like the music in Breath of the Wild, it is...well...wild how little of the soundtrack I could hum to you, because of the lack of big memorable pieces of music. But I still think it’s a gorgeous soundtrack. And so much of Breath of the Wild is such a damn struggle (I have NEVER died so many times playing a Zelda game in my life), that I wasn’t even thinking about the music whilst I was playing the game. I was just trying to stay alive. Breath of the Wild was uncharacteristically treacherous for a both a Zelda and a Nintendo game. And I just bought a Nintendo Switch and a copy of the Breath of the Wild sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, to go through this shit all over again.

Chile.

Nintendo don’t give a fuck about streaming and also hate the Internet, so the Breath of the Wild soundtrack is not available to stream. So if you fancy listening to amazing live renditions of songs from it, then run this video in the background. Or if you have YouTube Music, you can stream the whole thing through that.

It’s a real shame that Nintendo doesn’t make a bigger deal of its video game soundtracks, given the amount of effort which goes into them and how amazing they are. There is so much incredible talent behind these soundtracks, but they don’t really get spotlit. And in the case of Breath of the Wild, it’s even more of a shame, because the main composer of the soundtrack is a woman, Manaka Kataoka. Women in video games is STILL seen as this anomalous thing. And for a woman to be composing for a big ass triple-A Nintendo title like The Legend of Zelda is HUGE. This being more widely known could mean so much to girls and women who want to get into composing for video games, but feel there’s no space for them and / or weren’t aware that there are women out here doing it. Yoko Shimomura cannot be the only well known woman in video game composing. This has absolutely gotta change.

Ensemble G.A.P exclusively play music from games, animation and pop (that’s what the G.A.P stands for). So if this is your thing, as it is mine, check out their stuff on YouTube and give them a follow on Twitter.

🎻 Ensemble G.A.P: 📺 YouTube | 🐦 Twitter

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