Milan Records releases The Wheel of Time: The First Turn Soundtrack, an album of principal themes composed by Lorne Balfe for the Amazon Original Series. The release is largely a conceptual album that includes key themes written by Balfe for the characters, settings and ideas central to The Wheel of Time universe. The 14-track collection provides a foundation for the fantasy series’ rich soundscape, with much of Balfe’s final score cues developing as variations of these initial themes...

Lorne Balfe has used this "conceptual" album format previously to great effect (most notably in series 1 and 2 of The Musical Anthology of His Dark Materials). It's a great way for Balfe to release the themes and set pieces as standalone works in their own right, rather than the cut, edited and/or reworked tracks that appear in the final project. Here Balfe can showcase the themes in their entirety.

This album is being followed by three additional soundtrack albums to be released as separate volumes alongside the show’s first season,

Talking about the project, Balfe says: "The universe of The Wheel of Time is truly unique. Inspired by oral traditions in storytelling, each theme's voices tell the story of the character, place, or idea in Old Tongue, a language unique to the universe of The Wheel of Time. The score to this series is a re-imagination of fantasy music, doing away with the genre's reliance on large, traditional orchestras in favour of more modern colours while retaining the strong melodies and bold harmonies that fans can expect from such an epic."

Balfe enlisted a group of vocalists to perform on the album, including singer-songwriter and frontman of chart-topping Britpop group Go West Peter Cox, who lends his vocals to five tracks on the album including single 'Mashiara (Lost Love).' Pop/folk singer-songwriter Abby Lyons provides vocals to nine of the tracks, including album lead single 'Al’Naito (The Flame)' which she performs alongside Aisyah Zulkarnain, and 'Caisen’shar (Old Blood)' performed with folk-Americana quartet Our Native Daughters.

The album is also released in a spatial audio version, which gives listeners a completely immersive listening experience with 360-degree sound and enhanced clarity.

If you can only afford to purchase one of the four albums being released for the show's first season... make sure that it's this one. Personally I'm looking forward to hearing all four albums.

10

Darren Rea