posted: 2024-08-25
Lax Lullaby Sounds Like What Depression Feels Like
Minimal spoilers for Void Stranger. Please go play it if you haven't already.
Go ahead, listen to this music. It'll contextualize everything you're about to read.
The music track “Lax Lullaby” plays in the sixth zone of Void Stranger, specifically the floors ranging from B141 to B168. On floor B143, the player encounters a giant listless head that lackadaisically longs for death. Through the following rooms, the player encounters enemies that mimic Gray’s (the player character) every step, forcing the player to technically control multiple objects at once. The entire section is mentally taxing even for an already cognitively demanding game like Void Stranger. Luckily, the experience is not totally miserable thanks to the song that plays in the background: Lax Lullaby. Lax Lullaby, composed by eebrogzi (one half of the Void Stranger dev team), is a piece of music that has stuck in my cranium ever since first hearing it. Whereas previous puzzle tracks like Void Symphony or Buzzing Boogie are energetic and brimming with energy, Lax Lullaby is quite the opposite. Lax Lullaby’s melody and instrumentation make it feel slower and more downtrodden, like the musical equivalent of depression.
I’m not a music expert by any means, but whenever I listen to Lax Lullaby, I feel like it encapsulates this lethargic feeling of ennui. The song is relatively simple, beginning in A minor, the cousin of the all-natural C-major key. When considering the even the first notes in the song, each set of notes in the first melodic phrase are all notes played on the white keys of a piano: D (low), D (high), E, G, F // D (low), D (high), E, B, A,// D (low), D (high), E, G, F, and then I think it’s D (low), D (high), E, G, G 1. The first four notes of the melody doesn’t end on the “1”, home base” and instead ends on the 6, which feels incomplete. Then while the sequence does have a momentary return to the 1, it ends instead on the 7, which is just begging to step up to the 1, but never does. It feels like it doesn’t quite stick the landing, like someone has almost messed up in playing the notes.
And if that string of notes seemed simple, the primary melody of the song is even simpler: C, B, D, C, B, A, C, B, D (grace note D) E, C, D, B, A. These sequences of notes feel very hollow and empty. It’s a melody that is easy to deduce and doesn’t require much skill to recreate. It’s almost as if the player on the piano didn’t want to think of a complicated difficult melody, like they dragged their fingers to the white keys and just rolled with the first thing that came to mind. Whether they wanted to or not, they couldn’t be bothered to try harder 2. Additionally, eebrogzi applies a bit of a distortion on the piano track to make the sound feel distorted and fuzzy. It feels plodding, repetitive and simple, and yet distant and muffled. Like how days can begin to blur together when one’s mental health is in a valley. It sure doesn’t help that once the melody is established, it is repeated the for the next minute and a half.
The piano melody carries a bulk of the piece, but it is not alone. This lyrical repetition is accented by chiptune arpeggios, often previously heard in tracks from the Commodore 64. These inclusions bring about a sense of nostalgia: while eebrogzi is fully capable of using more traditional instruments like the piano, they instead choose to flourish the track with electronic arpeggios from older video game consoles, reminding the listener of what was once an impressive sound for a video game. When combined with the lax melody, the track takes on a wistful feeling, one that makes the listener feel like they’ve forgotten something that they once took for granted. It’s also hard to miss the “Lo-Fi Hip Hop Beats to Study To” and earlier 90s-00s lower fidelity electronic beat influences heard in the song’s percussion. The emphasis of a soft, rocking kick encourages the player to hypnotically focus on the puzzles at hard, perhaps in a more calm fashion after the stressful previous floors. The player has made it well past floor B100 at this point, they’re in too deep, they’re lulled into a state of hypnotic focus. They’re going to find out what’s at the bottom of this Void.
And once the song establishes that there’s no way out, eebrogzi then begins to remind the listener of the past. The song takes a turn around two minutes in and hops from the white keys to the black keys. F#, C#, F# (low), F#, C#, F# (low), moves down a whole step to E, B, E (low), then takes a chromatic descent back down E, B, G#, G, F# before getting a jazzy, improv-solo on a muffled and waveform-filtered piano. In this whole section, the peaking and distortion on all the keys is especially noticeable, with every heavy bass note sounding almost like static at times (which is especially noticeable between 2:30 and 2:45 in the left audio channel). While at this point the player is likely “locked in”, and might have trouble pulling themselves out of this strange musical landscape. The fuzziness, the improvised, yet muted jazz piano solo, and following dissonant dial-tone sounds further conjure a sense of being stuck in a past of lower audio fidelity. “Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to then? Back to a simpler time? Well maybe you can’t go back there, but you could stay here, in a space kind of like it… you could just rest here for a bit…”
But then at 4:11 the curtain lifts, the arpeggios return, and a soft familiar droning can be heard. This section, at around four minutes into the piece reminds the listener of the “Void”, the very first track at the start of the game. The droning feels like a slow deep breath, while the arpeggios involve a twinkling night sky full of stars. “It sure would be nice to look up at them again sometime”. It’s at this point that the original melody returns, though with subtle, yet powerful change. The piece changes from A-minor, to A-major. The octrave step from D (low) to D (high) E persists, but now the downsteps land on G# and F#. When these steps happen the second time, they land on the comfortable, familiar B and A, the tonic of the key. While this B and A are the same exact notes in both the first part of the track and this new section, the difference is in the notes surrounding them. By changing the rest of the notes surrounding this phrase, it’s as if a fog has listed and the music is able to take a breath of fresh air. This sequence then repeats as a soft piano sequence chimes in, one free of distortion and noise. All combined, it’s a moment of levity and clarity that player out of the moment and makes them realize how dark their world has become. How deep into the Void they’ve taken Gray, with the knowledge that they have no idea when this whole ordeal will actually end. But they can’t give up. They won’t give up.
But then the song loops. The light is extinguished, and the darkness of the void remains. The cycle of depression rears its ugly head. It’s time to return to the descent into the void.
The instrumentation and the use of simple key changes allow eebrogzi to evoke a sense of depression in Lax Lullaby. The song’s melodies are simple and uninspired, almost as if even using a second hand to play a melody is too much work. Sometimes it even sounds like the performer accidentally presses two neighboring keys simultaneously by mistake, but doesn’t care enough to correct themselves. The way the melodies trudge their way through the song while the accompanying instrumentation is distorted, lo-fi, and fuzzy, makes the listener feel like they’re wading through a mire of sound. The sounds are familiar but old and used in contexts well beyond their original purpose, which can also be said of the key changes, especially that of the jump from A-minor to A-major. But while the lo-fi beat encourages the player to focus on what’s presented to them, it is critical to remember when the player’s focus is on: going deeper into the void. Thus, the lo-fi beat reinforces a spiraling nostalgia-induced depression that is only momentarily paused by a sudden key change and moment of clarity in the instrumentation. When put together, these ideas create a textured piece of music that sounds as like a person’s longing for a simpler time before they found themselves surrounded by the darkness of their current state. It is thus fitting that this plays in the sixth section of the void as Gray goes deeper and deeper into the Void, through rooms seemingly without end. She, like the listener, how no idea what’s in store for them, but they’re stuck with only one direction: forward.
Gray wants to get Lillie back, to go back to a time before the conflict with Johan and the Void Lords, a familiar peaceful time. But she cannot. Near the end of this section of levels, Gray finds herself trapped and must talk with the body double that mirrors her every action:
“‘Seems like you figured it out. You’re stuck. There’s no way around this. This is impossible’… Is what I’d like to say. Like that would be enough to stop you. Trust me, I should know.”
“You probably prepared yourself for this already… Things won’t get any easier from here. Honestly, I can’t even tell how much you’ve got left… But you can’t give up. You won’t give up. Because someone is waiting for you. You don’t need me to tell you that. Just.. Just don’t be too hard on yourself. Even when answers escape you and you’re ready to succumb into despair… I believe in you.”
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that shortly after these motivational words from Gray’s "reflection", the player reaches the next checkpoint and the music fades away.