Pentiment
Pentiment is a 25-year-long narrative RPG set in 16th-century Bavaria. It follows an artist trying to get to the bottom of the murder of which his best friend has been accused. Made for Windows and Xbox, Pentiment is a chance for gamers to explore an intriguing, crime-riddled medieval landscape - and our chance to foment enthusiasm for the music we love.
In talking about the historical accuracy of Pentiment, director Josh Sawyer explained, “We put a lot of effort into making this as historically accurate as we can without sacrificing the story...you might hear some familiar tunes, but all the music [Alkemie ] has created has been really really cool.”
Alkemie curated, composed, and arranged almost all of the music for the three-act adventure over the course of 3 years — the music of Hildegard, Isaac, Josquin, Machaut, and others suffuses a web of scandals and murders in the hallowed halls of Kiersau Abbey and the sleepy town of Tassing.
The album art is by Benjamin Vierling, 20 months to complete using the Renaissance-inspired egg tempera and oil, Mische Technique. Like the music, the portrait is full of myraid of correlations to the game, including a landscape showing the monastery in the bavarian Alps, and an actual pentimento of the Mithraic tauroctonym, which exists under the architectural motif showing the winged bull of St. Luke.
““Forget the blood-soaked fury of God of War: Ragnarök, or the mysterious world of Elden Ring. Pentiment is the most engrossing video game from a major studio in 2022...In terms of sound design, Pentiment also hits all the right notes. The score, created by the medieval music ensemble Alkemie, is used sparingly, but when choir music or a haunting violin piece suddenly hits during a dramatic moment, it truly elevates the experience to a height normally reserved for angels and aircrafts.” ”
Reviews for the music have been overwhelmingly positive, with the biggest complaint being that there wasn't more!