Something Beneath, written by Douglas Holmquist and featuring a haunting vocal performance by Susanna Lundgren, is a track from Mediocre's mobile masterpiece PinOut! for iOS and Android. PinOut! puts a beautifully designed new spin on the old arcade classic pinball, turning it into a race against the clock through a seemingly infinite range of intricate and varied pinball tables. Its neon colour pallet and synthesised sound world draws inspiration from the 1980s cyber punk and retrofuturist pop aesthetics that are also on display in Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Blade Runner 2049 but its most striking aesthetic counterpart is found in the two Tron films.
The track opens on a worried sounding staccato synth arpeggio that provides both rhythmic and harmonic motion underpinned by a driving drum machine beat with a sound reminiscent of the classic Roland TR-808 . Swelling synth stings punctuate the chord changes while the delicate and reverb heavy vocal line floats over the top doubled in parts by a robotic vocoder version of itself. The piece is a perfect example of the synthwave style that came to mainstream appreciation with the Drive soundtrack. It's one of those tracks that helps elevate a game towards loftier aspirations by distilling the essence of its aesthetic down to one cohesive musical statement.
