A good composer knows how to meet your musical expectations; a great composer knows how to subvert them.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was one of the greats. His music is known even outside the concertgoing public; there's a good chance, for instance, that you have heard his music written for the ballets The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and his 1812 Overture remains among the most popular works ever composed. My favorite Tchaikovsky work, however, is his sixth symphony, known as the Pathétique, and it was this symphony I thought of when I recently listened to Darren Korb's Transistor soundtrack.

Korb's work and Tchaikovsky's are miles apart in terms of harmonic and melodic content, but they have some commonalities that struck me, and one commonality in particular stood out: the use of 5/4 meter. Tchaikovsky's sixth uses this time signature in its second movement, which sounds like an off-kilter waltz in which the dancers keep forgetting a step. In the Transistor track called "In Circles," Korb also uses the same meter to evoke tension, albeit a different flavor of it. Both works play with your expectations. Most music we listen to is organized into twos, threes, and fours; 5/4 meter has a different kind of lilt, and can be vaguely unsettling to listen to. Korb, however, eases the tension by moving from five beats per measure to three during the track's refrain.

Regarding Transistor's vocal tracks, Korb adds, "I tried to write all of the vocal pieces from Red's point of view. Greg Kasavin, our creative director, had a massive world document with a lot of backstory for her character, and I tried to use that to guide the writing process." This kind of close partnership isn't standard in the games industry; music is often one of the last things to be added, and is often not a consideration in a game's early planning. Korb composes for Supergiant on a full-time basis, however, and is part of the process from the very beginning. "On Transistor, we spent months prototyping our various disciplines. I ended up writing six or seven pieces before I felt I had gotten the tone right. During prototyping, the team put together a 'tone piece,' which was a video that combined concept art, music, and narration, with the purpose of trying to express the feel of the game. This definitely helped us to align the art, music, and writing."

Given the artistic cohesion of Supergiant's previous game, Bastion, it's no wonder that Transistor's aesthetic is just as cohesive. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is one of the best soundtracks of 2014 thus far, and is likely to remain near the top come year's end. Red is a troubled character in a troubled world, and Darren Korb's musical contributions play a vital role in how Transistor communicates her apprehension.