It’s not typically {that a} band returns to soundtrack the identical recreation 9 years after its launch — then once more, most video games aren’t No Man’s Sky. As soon as demoed on The Tonight Present with Jimmy Fallon and at splashy E3 press conferences, in 2016, No Man’s Sky was heralded as gaming’s future. And it was all made attainable by the procedural technology that spawned its huge, sci-fi universe.
Almost a decade later, as post-rock band 65daysofstatic returns to re-score the ever-evolving recreation, generated content material is not the thrilling futurism it as soon as appeared. With AI slop flooding social media and AI-generated bands sneaking their means onto Spotify, the tech that when powered gaming desires is slowly turning into a dystopian nightmare.
“It’s simply capitalism, isn’t it?” says 65daysofstatic’s Paul Wolinski. “It’s ruining all the pieces. It’s all these CEOs who don’t perceive the distinction between artwork and content material.”
That’s the place Journeys, a defiantly human soundtrack that stands firmly in opposition to the rise of the music-generating machines, is available in. Working alongside Howdy Video games’ audio director, Paul Weir, Wolinski has spent the final 12 months remodeling a sequence of summary, unreleased soundscapes into full-fledged songs. As soon as meant as items to be infinitely reassembled by No Man’s Sky’s algorithm, the 2 Pauls strove to reimagine these ethereal bleeps and bloops into one thing that sounded altogether extra human. The result’s a 32-track, four-LP album that mixes 65daysofstatic’s reworked soundscapes with unique compositions from Weir.
“For this file, we had been rather more all for turning all of that infinite stuff into one thing extra intentional — one thing bespoke and artisan,” says Wolinski. The place the preliminary soundtrack Music for an Infinite Universe’s pounding drums and swelling guitars match the highs and lows of jetting off into area, Journeys is an altogether eerier creation, channeling the quiet sense of foreboding of arriving on an unknown planet, the preliminary rating’s optimism changed by a extra unknowable actuality.
“After we first began this, I assumed it will be simply remixing our previous selves,” says Wolinski, “however a lot of the soundscapes didn’t present an origin level for an precise tune in any respect… It was a lot more durable, extra mysterious.” Fortunately, 65daysofstatic had an ethereal skilled available: Weir.
“We had been rather more all for turning all of that infinite stuff into one thing extra intentional”
Whereas the band went off experimenting with procedural technology of their audio / visible reside exhibits, No Man’s Sky continued to develop and evolve, and it wanted the music to match. “I didn’t wish to sound like a pretend 65daysofstatic, ?” says Weir, as he sat at his synth, choosing up the place the band of static left off. “I’m a sound designer as a lot as a composer, and in order that’s introduced in various abstraction into some music. There’s a number of unusual noises!”
As 65daysofstatic’s prog-laden epics mix with Weir’s synth-led atmosphere, the result’s nearer to a Philip Glass rating than a noise-drenched post-rock file. It’s a marked evolution from what got here earlier than, one which matches No Man’s Sky’s journey from rocky launch into the sprawling sci-fi epic that it’s right this moment. “It’s a humorous previous relationship,” displays Weir, on engaged on the identical recreation for 14 years. ”We’re each continuously going, ‘All proper, sufficient already, time to maneuver on!’ after which concurrently delighted by its continued power and success.”
Picture: Laced Information
It’s not simply Howdy Video games who has loved the fruits of No Man’s Sky’s success. Of 65daysofstatic’s top-played songs on Spotify, 9 of them had been written for the sport. No Man’s Sky songs have change into integral elements of 65daysofstatic reside units, these compositions residing on exterior of the sport in a means soundtracks hardly ever do. “To us, it has at all times been a 65daysofstatic file as a lot because the No Man’s Sky rating,” says Wolinski. “We’ve been fortunate sufficient to be related to just a few large issues in our profession, however to be tied to one thing that has had such a large cultural influence, it’s only a pretty feeling.”
Now with Journeys out within the wild, may 65daysofstatic and Weir carry out the music reside collectively? “We wouldn’t rule out doubtlessly doing one thing on the tenth anniversary in some form or type,” teases Weir.
Very like the huge transformation No Man’s Sky has undergone since launch, the world’s relationship with know-how has utterly modified since 2016. When Wolinski first realized in regards to the potentialities of utilizing procedural technology to rearrange music, he tells me it grew to become one thing of an obsession, inspiring live-coded, improvised audio / visible excursions for the band, 2019’s algorithmic album Decomposition Concept, and even a PhD. “No Man’s Sky positively despatched us off on this different path,” smiles Wolinski. “And I’m actually pleased that it did.”
“Who cares if computer systems could make music? That’s not what music is.“
But in 2025, Wolinski believes generative tech’s identify has been sullied by prompt-based dirge. “We got here again to this challenge being very in opposition to the associations between generative techniques and AI slop,” says Wolinski. “I believe there’s an enormous distinction between that and No Man’s Sky’s generative techniques … Now it’s all about making extra content material to churn by way of, simply to maintain folks’s consideration for just a few seconds. The entire thing is depressing.”
“With No Man’s Sky, it’s all our music, all the pieces is hand made. The pc doesn’t create something — what it does do is rearrange it,” explains Weir. Regardless of the clear distinction between an algorithm piecing collectively human-made music and one merely prompting it into existence, with hardworking human artists at the moment heading off impersonation from AI impostors, the Pauls felt compelled to push again in opposition to computer-led composition.
Journeys, then, is extra than simply an album; it’s people taking a stand in opposition to the rise of the musical machines. “Who cares if computer systems could make music? That’s not what music is,” says Wolinski. “The shifting of the audio system to generate sound waves is such a tiny a part of what provides music that means. It’s all in regards to the social relations round [it], the human dialogue between one individual and one other, even when they by no means meet. That is what artwork is — and it’s why generative AI utterly misses the purpose.”
Journeys is out now on streaming platforms and vinyl.
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