Neverhood Songs [Video Game Soundtrack]

Description

Neverhood Songs features the original 39 track award winning video game soundtrack to the claymation video game The NeverhoOd by Douglas TenNapel Creation, DreamWorks’ first PC CDRom video game, released June 4, 1996. The soundtrack was composed by Terry Scott Taylor of Daniel Amos, The Swirling Eddies and the Lost Dogs fame, and was released on DreamWorks Records ‎in 1996.

The folks at DreamWorks made a video game like no other, The Neverhood, a bizarre claymation world of strange characters and even stranger happenings. This world needed music as unique as it, and they turned to Terry Taylor. Few recognize his name, even though he has been sternum-deep in music for over twenty years. Regardless, he was up to the task and managed to create the most creative un-video game video game music ever made, so much so that it won some big award for Video Game music of the year. And now it’s available to the consumer on an affordable, convenient compact disc.

The music on this CD is impossible to categorize. Drunken blues, psychedelic Dixieland, a jazz combo on powerful hallucinogens. It all fits. Taylor combines acoustic guitar, bass and drums with saxophones, clarinets, banjos and just about any other instrument lying around the studio to create a swirling miasma of plastic sound with an Elfmanesque sense of fun. The lyrics, what little is intelligible about them, are also sung in this same malleable fashion. «Everybody Way-O» is a drunken stumbling of blues. «Homina Homina» ends with wheezy, maniacal laughter that somehow fits perfectly with the music. Most songs are either instrumentals or incorporate nonsense syllables as the main lyrical component while a few attempt such lyrics as “I put ’em in my hat / And I eat ’em just like that / I put ’em in my ears and in my shoes” from the song «Potatoes, Tomatoes, Gravy, and Peas». Everyone who has heard this CD falls in love with it. My three-year old son is completely fascinated by these strange, syncopated rantings and my wife, usually the first to call my music “weird”, has even found herself singing “Dum da dum doi doi” now and then. If for some sad reason you can’t find this CD locally, it is available on the neverhood.com web site. You will not be disappointed, but you might be confused. [Jason Hoffman, Whatzup, 1999]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/imaginarium-vol-1-songs-from-the-neverhood-original/1124465206)

CD tracklist:

01. Klaymen Shuffle – 1:45
02. Olley Oxen Free – 1:20
03. Everybody Way Oh! – 1:37
04. Rock and Roll Dixie – 1:12
05. Cough Drops – 1:45
06. Skat Radio – 2:03
07. Lowdee Huh – 1:27
08. Klaymen’s Theme – 2:42
09. Operator Plays a Little Ping Pong – 1:11
10. José Feliciano – 1:53
11. Homina Homina – 1:31
12. Potatoes, Tomatoes, Gravy, and Peas – 1:19
13. Triangle Square – 1:08
14. Dum Da Dum Doi Doi – 1:54
15. Southern Front Porch Whistler – 1:23
16. Confused and Upset – 0:57
17. The Neverhood Theme – 3:23
18. The Weasel Chase – 1:33
19. Pulling of the Pin – 2:56
20. The Battle of Robot Bil – 2:46
21. Klogg’s Castle – 2:36
22. Time to Goof Off – 2:37

Bonus “Radio” Tracks
23. Klaymen Takes the ‘A’ Train – 1:00
24. Low Down Doe – 0:50
25. Gargling Drummer – 0:38
26. Resolution #8 – 1:03
27. An Elf Sings His ABC’s – 0:28
28. Thumb Nail Sketch – 1:11
29. I’m Thirsty, I Need Wahwah – 0:44
30. Sound Effects Record #32 – 1:41
31. The Laughing, Crying, Screaming Masses – 0:55
32. Sound Effects Record #33 – 1:43
33. B3, B.C. – 0:28
34. Coffee and Other Just Desserts – 1:30
35. Spring Has Sprung – 0:57
36. Chiming In – 0:46
37. Scary Robot Man – 0:43
38. Playing Pool in Outer Space – 1:41
39. Down in the Mines – 0:27

Note: Later re-issued together with the Skullmonkeys and BoomBots soundtracks as a 2CD entitled Imaginarium, featuring the following four Neverhood bonus tracks: “Olley Oxen Free” (Early Demo) – 1:11, “Rock and Roll Dixie” (Early Demo) – 1:03, “José Feliciano” (Early Demo) – 1:30, “Klaymen’s Theme” (Early Demo) – 2:17. Available at Bandcamp: https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/neverhood-songs-deluxe

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