Soule music

Soule music
Good news for Morrowind fans: Esteemed videogame composer Jeremy Soule has returned to deliver the score for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

For those who missed out, the Morrowind soundtrack - which came bundled with the deluxe PC version of the game - offers some of the most soothing music ever written. I've ferreted out the odd-numbered tracks and mixed them with other relaxing songs like acoustic Alice in Chains and Ben Folds' live rendition of Not the Same to make what I like to call Daddy's Blood Pressure Medicine.

In case you're wondering, the even-numbered tracks are all combat music, triggered whenever you encountered some random enemy or picked a fight or got caught trying to pickpocket some townsperson in the game. The good stuff is like NyQuil for the soul. When these particular songs come up on my iPod, I immediately feel my breathing start to ease up, the muscles in my neck and upper back unclench and years that a former boss took away quietly adding themselves back to my life.

It helps, I think, to have played the game because you'll have the added associations that come from hearing the music as you walked the game's vast countryside, the sun rising off in the distance or a picturesque shoreside shanty town appearing from the mist before your eyes.

I only hope the Xbox 360 version delivers similarly soothing experiences. And that the deluxe edition of the game includes a soundtrack album as well, so I can expand my collection of music with medicinal qualities.

-=Gamewatcher