♪♫♬👊linktr.ee/marcodmeatball 👊♬♫♪ - - One of my favorite tracks from the Witcher 3. Twisted, deformed, haunting. Feels like your blood goes cold. Composers: Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski - -
Pls I really want to know what do you think about Witcher 3 "Steel for Humans" OST other name of this OST is "Lazare". This is a really good piece of music. Especially if you understand the words (there are versions with English subtitles).
You can go to the villages in the far east of the map, and if you hang around for long enough, the kids start singing his theme there, and I get shivers down my spine every single time I hear them.
When I heard this track play when Geralt starts talking to them via the tapestry, I was like "These batches need to die." Exterminate. Kill on sight. 😂
In my opinion, Velen is the best portion of the Witcher 3's main story. Every detail drives the creepy, pagan atmosphere: the dark woods, monster-plagued swamps, the disturbed villagers that desperately try to please the crones through strange practices. This theme captures all of that. Listening to this makes me feel like I've stumbled into an occult ceremony in the middle of the woods.
The vocals was sang by Katarzyna Bromirska from Percival Schuttenbach and the song was originally played on byzantine lyra. They recreated a lot of slavic songs and they are great.
@@MarcoMeatball They sound very similar. Hurdy gurdy is like lyre with automatic bow. In Polish hurdy gurdy means "lira korbowa" which roughly translate to "cranked lyre".
What I love about hurdy-gurdy is that it can give so many different vibes. It can be scary like here, or sad, or epic, in a sea shanty, in a strange forest, in an old castle... The possibilites of this one instrument are numerous, and I love it!
This has honestly become THE song for me anytime I want to read or write a scene that requires an eerie or evil, magical atmosphere. There's such an insidious, malevolent quality to the sound of this song that lends itself perfectly to horror, especially the kind that you find in nightmares and wilderness and the dark. "Haunting" is a great way to describe it! That's exactly what this song aims for, I think, and what it hits exactly on the nose!
Yes! I haven't played Witcher 3, but I love listening to this track precisely for what you described. It makes me feel like I'm on the brink of transforming into a wild creature and running howling into the forest. It's perfect for enhancing "eldritch horror scratching at your mind" moods.
It's in fact not a hurdy gurdy, but a bowed lyre! I adore this soundtrack for so many reasons, and as you say this piece just encapsulates that wicked unempathetic scheming of the crones.
As a person who comes from Eastern Europe, this song resonates with me very well because the country is very swamp-like. This track is one of my favourites besides 'Ard-Skelliga' _(that's a good one. I suggest you Marco hear it out if you haven't)_ But the _Crock Bog Crones_ and the swamp give me that ancient sinister, shamanic, ritualistic vibe to it. It a meditative in a way but not meditate to go up (ascend) but to descend into the evil. Thank you for reviewing this masterpiece. Can't wait to replay it 🙏
I'm a Slav too, but I'm from South-Eastern Europe. Steel For Humans really hit with me, the lyrics really remind me of folk songs we used to learn in elementary school. Never was a fan of them, but hearing them with instrumental music actually made me enjoy it.
For me, the repeated melody, slightly discordant, in the background symbolized the Crones' attempt to bewitch you and lull you into a false sense of security. It's disturbingly hypnotic in nature due to the constantly repeated measures, much like the folktales of eld that would speak of witches beguiling children in order to stew them in a pot.
I adore this song. That opening especially, even outside of the context of the game, carries so much looming threat. You hear it and feel the urge to glance over your shoulder, just incase something really is there in the shadowly corner of the room. Something peering back at you. This song feels.... hungry
I find the arrangement on point for what it’s to symbolise. “Uneasiness” - as you said it - is a perfect description of the feeling you get while playing and start venturing into the swamp. Especially the part right after the intro gives a feeling of dissonance, like you know that something’s wrong and fishy about it, but you don’t have proof yet and have to play along in lack of alternatives.
This is so cool, I’ve seen quite a bit of videos breaking down the theory behind this music but I’ve not seen anyone trying to break down The emotions being driven through delivery, really really cool stuff!
Everything about that part of the story was pure nightmare fuel. In some aspects very openly, like in character designs. In others - very subtly. Everything just felt so tense, and unsettling, sinister. And this music fits so well.
It's my father's dream to have a Hurdy Gurdy and he's totally obsessed with it anytime it gets mentioned, so It's super interesting to watch you talk about it.
the reason this sounds so creepy to me is because the strings never take a break. The music never seems to *breathe*. It also *buzzes* like a cloud of insects in the background which just drives home how rancid and decaying the witches are.
as am eastern-european person who grew up and lives surrounded by bogs, this theme makes me remember my childhood and gathering mushrooms and the warnings of my nana. incredible stuff. also the witcher three makes an amazing job of showing what the land really looks like? like the whole of white orchard is literally my childhood village. it really looks like that and as creepy as you might imagine.
Music is THE medium that makes me feel the most emotion and allowing me to express them too, watching you explain stuff about music just get me in awe every time, great job dude. BDW I had the same headphones a while ago and loved the quality but i had to send them back because they gave me horrible headaches for some reason
I know all the music from The Witcher 3 by heart, I played the game a few times, I listen to it all the freaking time for almost a year now but still - when I went to Percival's concert... I had goosebumps, I cried because of all the emotions they show when they play their music... It is absolutely incredible and I wish everyone could go to their concert - it is just completely different world!!! So happy that foreign people can appreciate what Percival is doing because they are one of a kind!
Man, I'm playing through this again right now, and just a masterful game. From the story, combat, characters, and the music. My god. So many great songs from this game. The theme that plays on the outskirts of Novigrad being one of my personal favorites. As well as hunt or be hunted of course.
I live in United States but I'm originally from Jaroslaw, Poland. There is a "Jarosław Early Music Festival" every year where you'll hear this kind of music. BTW, my father makes guitars but he got bored so now he is making a hurdy gurdy.
One time i put this as my rington and my mom heard it when somebody called me she never saw or heard about witcher and she told me pls change that tone she didnt say why 🤣
It always sends shivers down your spine. Either shivers of heavenly awe or of hellish terror. We have our own horror sound in Lithuanian folklore. Let's just say that sutartine is one hell of a song form. What's funny is that those dissonant dirges of intersecting polyphonic lines were usually meant for joyful celebrations.
Same with the Witcher on a new pc, can't wait to go through all the updated and visually amazing adventures again! Definitely will think of you when I meet the Crones.
all time classic for sure, who would've thought this same game has an entire sidequest where you retrieve an old person's frying pan in the woods or some shit and it has music like this, insane
What I enjoy the most from the music and really, the whole Crones storyline is how it really taps into European Paganism. The game really presents the crones as figures who possess magic that doesn't come from some great being or some otherworldly source but from the earth and blood and flesh and that what you're seeing is both natural and unnatural, it's interfering with something deep inside us and profaning it and you get that entire vibe as you're walking through the woods and a variation of this music starts playing. As someone who really enjoys Celtic mythology and Paganism, I dig the hell out of this.
I adore The Witcher 3 and it has a special place in my heart since it is a game from my country, Poland. I would love to see you react to another soundtrack from that game called "Silver For Monsters..." which has also parts of white singing. Awesome video!
No joke, one of my favorite instruments. There’s a music store near me that has a lot of cool instruments. Every time I go in there I’m tempted to buy a hurdy gurdy.
"That's alarming and fearful" and I'll be there dancing in the woods around the bonfire, living deliciously like Black Phillip intended :P Jokes aside, I think it's all about the intensity of it, it's so raw and feels so ALIVE in a sense. Even if it does sound scary and dark. I didnt play W3 enough to get to the witches, but in folklore I think that's pretty much what defines them anyway, the fact that they live intensely, enjoying all the "sinister, dark pleasures" of life, right? And probably SHREDDING solos on the 'gurdies, too. W3 OST is such a treasure and how it turned common, folk songs into the most epic things ever. When I found out "Steel For Humans" was a folk music sung for good luck, abundance and for blessing marriages it blew my mind. Literally turned into one of the best battle songs in videogames and I think that's so rad. I'd love to see "Bonny At Morn" around here too, its one of my faves in the soundtrack (specially the 2016 live version), and a big contrast on all the wild vocals and hurdy gurdies!
The craziest thing about The Witches of Crookback Bog is that I felt genuine fear and disgust towards them. The music alone captures their presence perfectly. These aren't the witches everyone in pop culture adores. These are the witches you were told to fear as a child in medieval days and for darn good reason.
i mean this is a piece of music that leaves the mark ( especially in a context of what is going on ). the whole mission line, music and atmosphere is one of the most sucsessefull projection of psyhology throu visual arts EVER...in my oppinion
I love your reactions to these soundtracks! Just found you V theme from Cyberpunk. Would love to know you opinion about "mystery Man" from Witcher's "Hearts of Stone" er xpansion sometime! My absolute favourite, adds another layer of exotic to an already exotic soundtrack.
Hey Marco, I love your videos and your general vibe. I was wondering if you would do some more Hollow Knight music? I would deffinently be interested in hearing your opinions on tracks like: Sealed Vessel, Radiance, The Grimm Troupe and Nightmare King. All the music in Hollow Knight is absolutely astonishing, but these tracks I've mentioned are really something special. I hope you'll consider it, otherwise just keep doing what you do!
I suggest you listen to pieces from Dead Space 2, "Lacrimosa" in particular. It very appropriately paints an impression of the game's world and lends itself well to experiencing the emotional struggle the main character goes through. Edit: "Canonical Aside" from the same game would make quite a good listen, too.
I prefer the full version of Child of The Elder Blood. Because it digs further into that discomfort with what sounds like the chattering of the crones. It gets guttural and I love that about it.
The best thing about the Ladies of the woods is that if you think about it. At its basics it's the most generic witch story you could have. But cdpr made it into something incredible
Consider chrcking out Hearts of Stone music, especially the leitmotiff that appears there - it tops the creepy vibe of the witches so much it makes the crones sound like kids in comparisson ;)
Pls I really want to know what do you think about Witcher 3 "Steel for Humans" OST other name of this OST is "Lazare". This is a really good piece of music. Especially if you understand the words (there are versions with English subtitles).
