This dramatic cue from the film Home Room features strings, piano, and one of the signature solo instruments of that score, bass flute.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Breakdown

Many fantasy-themed games lovingly pilfer from Tolkien and add orcs to their indigenous species. In Hex: Shards of Fate the orcs are a comparatively benevolent race. (Think new school Klingons rather than old school.) In writing their theme I was careful to balance the sense of martial culture with a heroic undercurrent.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Advance of the Orcs

In the movie Siren, a groupie comes a little close for comfort to a married band member. I scored the abortive moment of temptation with ambient electric guitar and vocals, respectively performed by Tom Strahle and Hilary Hearty.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	With the Band

The next music cue from the Hex series, this week’s selection is both a darker and more energetic take on the traveling/map view visual. The game’s main theme has been transformed into a repeating phrase in the flutes which dances above the slower brass and string statements.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	The Journey Underway

This week’s selection is from Cryptozoic’s forthcoming game Hex: Shards of Fate. This ambient theme, partly a variation of the game’s main title music, accompanies aerial maps and other “big view of the world” occasions.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Journey to Entrath

To provide some perk to your Friday, here’s a bit of upbeat quasi-ragtime. This is the end title music for David Kiang’s dark comedy about a man afflicted with something halfway between divine inspiration and Tourette’s Syndrome. Performed by Alan Steinberger (piano) and Ludwig Girdland (violin).

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Better Off Said

This week’s music is a polished-and-remixed battle cue from the game Empire Earth 3. As the title suggests, it features mideastern instrumentation mixed with traditional symphonic sounds, all coming together in musical homage to belligerent carnage.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Clash of the Emirates