Music Monday: Videogame Noir(e)

Earlier this month, after seven years of development, Team Bondi and Rockstar Games finally released L.A. Noire, a third-person sandbox game featuring main character Detective Cole Phelps throughout his career with the Los Angeles police department in 1947. The game has been praised for its realism in both setting and facial animation (successfully utilizing the new MotionScan technology to capture the minutiae of facial expressions), and is a heck of a lot of fun to play.

Oh, and the soundtrack is pretty awesome, too. Hence this week’s Music Monday. L.A. Noire‘s music was composed by Andrew Hale, keyboardist for the English R&B group Sade. His resulting score is strong without drawing attention away from the gameplay — perfect ambiance music.

This one’s for you, jazz fans.

“Minor 9th”

“Slow Brood”

“Temptation (part 2)”