Travelers ~ Outer Wilds LIVE Cover

"Wow... How long has it been since I got to make music with everyone around a campfire? I’m really happy we’re all here."

Outer Wilds was a beautiful journey from start to finish, and I knew the moment the curtains closed on my experience with the game that I wanted to cover what is perhaps the game's flagship piece, Travelers. Before I say more, I want to give credit to everyone who made this video possible.

Filming/Editing: Seth Nardo
‪@SethNardoFilms‬
‪@SethOnSet‬

Banjo/Whistling: Isaac McCarthy
  / isaac.mccarthy  

Guitar/Vocals: Emmy Rae
https://www.emmyraemusic.com
‪@emmyraemusic‬ on all platforms

Cajon: Aaron Allenbaugh
  / aaron_allenbaugh  

Harmonica/Flute/Arranging: Xander Plute
https://linktr.ee/xanderplute

Original Composition: Andrew Prahlow
http://www.andrewprahlow.com

Of course, when I determined that I wanted to cover this track, my very next thought was that I had to cover it 'right', whatever that meant. In my head, ideas began to swirl. I immediately knew that I wanted to cover the piece with live instrumentation and at an actual campfire. I then messaged a friend of mine who's a very talented videographer and filmmaker, got a few other musician friends of mine on board, (not so) patiently awaited for all of our schedules to grant us a free night to drive 30 minutes out to the campsite, hoped that our instruments would stay at least somewhat in tune, and got the video filmed.

The night of the shoot was a ton of fun. I showed up early to help set everything up, and while I expected my friend to come prepared, I myself was not prepared to see three cameras and what I recall to be at least 7 different lights of varying colors operating without any access to electricity from the campgrounds. All of the batteries for the gear thankfully lasted throughout the night, and after the shoot, in typical Outer Wilds fashion, we roasted some marshmallows and called it a night.

For the arrangement itself, I wrote out the simple 8-bar loop for everyone involved and we simply went from there. I'm sure that each take we shot had a different number of loops through the melody. There wasn't much uniformity there. We just went for it. I did take some creative liberties, such as transferring Solanum and the Prisoner's parts to guitar and voice respectively, in order to keep everything acoustic. Gabbro's part was also cut, but I feel that the low frequencies of the guitar made up for it anyways. Lastly, just as all the instruments fade in at the beginning of the piece, we decided that, to the benefit of both the video and audio, we would all stop playing and leave the shot one by one as well. I thought that a singalong section would be appropriate here to really push the feel of a campfire gathering and highlight this track's simple but beautiful melody, and I love how it turned out! Oh! Also, there's a flute solo. I didn't know if it would fit or not, so we did takes both with and without solos, but I'm glad that it was included, if not for the musicality of it then for the sick shots it led to.

Please check out the work of all of the other musicians on board, and Seth's own videography work. Everyone involved is amazingly talented and I'm so grateful for all of their help in making this video possible.

And of course, thank you all for listening! We filmed this over a month ago at Chestnut Ridge Park & Campground and I've been so excited to get it out since! More collaborations are very close on the horizon!

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